From the Archives - Thanksgiving Tales

Introduction

I’m having a bunch of relatives here for Thanksgiving: my brother Bryan and his family, and my mom. Some years we get all four brothers together, which is obviously the best-case scenario for this holiday, but the planets didn’t line up this year. Still, it’s going to be a blast. For one thing, our kids haven’t yet heard all the Albert stories, so we have ample excuse to trot out our old standbys. I enjoy watching the storyteller wring fresh life out these tales, and I like to try to track the embellishments.

One story in particular—the Baskin Robbins Simulated Vehicular Manslaughter Incident—has been told with great relish by both Geoff and Bryan, despite the fact that neither of them actually saw it, much less participated. They insist that they were there—“I remember it like it was yesterday!”—but Max and I are certain they were not. By the way, here’s a photo of the four of us, from December 1985, which we sent around as a Christmas card:

From left to right, that's me, Max, Geoff, and Bryan. But I digress. You won’t get the Baskin Robbins Simulated Vehicular Manslaughter tale in this post, because this is actually a From The Archives deal (I don’t have time for too much writing today, my relatives being on their way here as I assemble this). I have three stories to share. Two of them are good background for anybody trying to understand half of the comments that come out of our mouths every Thanksgiving. Following those is the tale of my most memorable Thanksgiving bike ride to date.

Thanksgiving Archives Tale #1 – The Gravy Incident

[This excerpt is from an e-mail I wrote to a cousin, who had asked for some background on all the gravy-related captions in a Thanksgiving photo album I’d sent around.]

The gravy-related captions relate to a Thanksgiving dinner back in the early nineties at our then-stepmother’s house. All the brothers were there. Once my plate was full I started looking around for the gravy. It can take awhile for the gravy to make its way around the table, and I try to be patient, but of course you can’t even begin eating until you’ve properly lubricated your food. I finally realized the gravy simply wasn’t on the table, so I headed into the kitchen. “I’ll get the gravy,” I said. I looked all around in the kitchen and still couldn’t find it. It was weird. Finally I asked my stepmother, “What does the gravy vessel look like?”

She just sat there at the table, silent, looking awkward. Finally my dad cleared his throat and said, grimly, “There isn’t any gravy.” There was a long silence. You could have heard a cat’s whisker twitch. “Wow, that’s funny,” I said. “For a second there I thought you said there wasn’t any gravy!” Actually, I only thought that. (This is the kind of embellishment I might allow in an oral retelling of the story, as an acknowledged fictional touch that enhances the dramatic effect.) In fact I was literally struck dumb. My brothers and I waited silently for a long while, to give Dad the opportunity to say, “Just kidding!” and burst out laughing, but he didn’t, so finally, without a word, we all filed silently out of the room, out the front door, and far away from that terrible place.

Actually, we didn’t. Of course we wanted to, but we couldn’t. We soldiered bravely on, trying to eat a turkey dinner with no gravy, but the meal was a very dour affair after that. I mean, how could they? What were they thinking? I can’t blame my dad, as (especially back in those days) he was a creature of appetites and would happily have eaten gravy by the quart like a normal person. I guess his wife had decided gravy is bad for you. Man, what a blow. She might has well have started off the meal by telling us a close friend or relative had just been killed in a gruesome accident and right after dinner we had to go try to ID the body.

Ever since that day, it’s become a family tradition, as Thanksgiving plans are made, to try to convincingly announce that for one reason or another you’re not serving gravy this year. Of course nobody has fooled anybody else for a second, no matter how perfect the poker-face and deadpan style.

Thanksgiving Archives Tale #2 – The Near-Buffet Incident

[Whenever I host the Thanksgiving meal, my mom struggles with the question of who should carve the turkey. On the one hand, it’s my house, but on the other hand, Bryan is the firstborn son. I’m happy to let him do it, because a) he has more kids, b) he’s bigger and stronger, and c) I’m not very good at poultry carving anyway. But one thing that is never questioned is that the bird gets carved at the table. The following was an explanation to my cousin of the photo caption, “Bryan, elder statesman of our generation, did the carving. AT THE TABLE, as a man should!” Note in the photo below the glowing eyes of our banished cat, visible through the kitchen-nook window in the background. Also note that in the following tale, “the Landlo’” refers to my mom’s second husband, who had previously been her landlord, and which name stuck. Note, finally, that this photo has nothing to do with the story that follows it.]

That caption about carving the turkey at the table goes back to our first Thanksgiving dinner at the Landlo’s house, around a decade ago. We’d never met the Landlo’s kids before. They were a bit on the shy side, and I felt kind of bad for them, thrust into the din of five loud Alberts talking over each other with great relish. It was an oddly early Thanksgiving meal; the Landlo’ had wanted to have the meal at some insanely early hour, like 1 or 2, whereas our family tradition was to have it around the normal dinnertime. Our mom conceded that point (which we boys were all happy to do, because we probably had to dual-dinner that night, having accepted dueling invitations in order to prevent a battle royale between our parents over who got the kids on Thanksgiving. In fact, it’s possible that this particular meal took place on the very same day as the no-gravy travesty recounted above).

Mom was less inclined to give in on the Landlo’s other tradition, which was to carve the turkey in the kitchen long before the meal and have people parade through buffet-style like we were at a Sizzler or something. Our family had always carved the turkey at the table, but the Landlo’ wasn’t having any of it. As the Landlo’s kids and my brothers and I waited nervously around the dining room table, the argument in the kitchen became more and more heated until pretty soon Mom and the Landlo’ were yelling good and loud at each other. Finally, the Landlo’ gave in and grabbed the turkey out of the oven to bring it to the table. There was no obvious place to set it down—he was acting very impulsively—but that didn't end up being a problem because the turkey never even made it to the table. He dropped it! Right on the floor of the kitchen!

Now, Mark Twain might have done a nice job with some really artistic swearing at that point. I’d have liked to hear that. I’d like to think in the same situation I might have offered up a splendid mosaic of creative profanities. (Geoff and I fancy ourselves innovators of the form, and when we land on a particularly satisfying profane phrase we’ll even share it, like people trade recipes.) But the Landlo’s cussing fit had nothing to offer but volume and bile. It certainly could have drowned out just about anything, a jackhammer even, but actually everybody else was completely silent. The tension at the dinner table was complete. All of this seemed to last a long while, but in fact it was probably only a second or two before Stepbrother #1 leapt to his feet and yelled, “DAD!” as though his father were in great danger, like he was being dragged away by a bear or something.

As Stepbrother#1 raced into the kitchen, leaving Stepbrother #2 behind, my brothers and I completely lost it, becoming nearly hysterical with laughter. The harder we laughed, the harder we laughed. Geoff has this vein in his forehead that comes out at such times—we call it the pleasure vein—and I thought it might actually burst. The more we laughed, the more awkward it became for the stepbrothers. Poor Stepbrother #2: he was alone with us at the table had nowhere to go. His sister-in-law was there, but couldn’t support him as they themselves had only just met. We rocked in our chairs, just spazzing out with laughter.

I can’t remember anything more after that. Surely the turkey was resurrected, served, and eaten, but I have no memory of it. In the years that remained of that marriage, it was a long while before we invited back to the Landlo’s house, and never again with his kids, which was a huge relief for everybody I’m sure. Now, Mom makes a point before every Thanksgiving dinner to say, as nonchalantly as possible, “Hey, what do you think about just carving the bird beforehand, and people can help themselves?” Naturally, her chances of getting anybody to take her seriously for even a nanosecond are exactly zero.

Thanksgiving Archives Tale #3 – The Pre-Feast Bike Ride

[When my family gets together for Thanksgiving, we usually try to do a big ride on the big day, to work up a proper appetite. Here’s a photo of my brothers and me, along with Bryan’s daughter Rachel, before the ride up Dead Indian Memorial Road in Oregon that we did on Thanksgiving Day 2008. This photo has nothing to do with the story that follows it, for which I have no photos.]

[On years that my family doesn’t get together for Thanksgiving, I try to find a group ride to join. These rides are often impromptu and aren’t always easy to discover. Such was the case in 2005 when I went out with a group of local riders. This story is taken from an e-mail I sent my brothers right after it happened. I’ve edited it a bit to remove references that you wouldn’t get.]

My goal for this ride was simple: simply survive, riding with the boys, after the previous day’s grueling effort [a four-hour ride with 7,500 feet of climbing]. To my surprise, I didn’t feel completely awful as I hammered (late, as usual) to the impromptu bagel shop rendezvous. It’s a good thing my legs weren’t terrible, because of all the various Thanksgiving Day group rides, it seemed I’d stumbled on a pretty elite one. Several of them were guys I raced with at Cal in ’91, a couple of whom had later gone pro. There were a few other guys I didn’t know, but they looked plenty fit. I’d say the group totaled between fifteen and twenty guys.

It was a pretty mellow pace, until we reached the bumpy, winding downhill leading to the long, flat, straight stretch with the pedestrian crossing sign at its far end: site of the famous “Walking Man” sprint, which is always hotly contested, any day of the year, practically any time you have more than two guys in a group. When I ride this stretch of road by myself, I’m tempted to sprint anyway, just to see if I can still kick my own ass. (As sprints go, Walking Man actually suits my slow-twitch abilities pretty well, because it’s so long. My poor jump isn’t that big a problem on such a long sprint, and there’s plenty of time to get my 53x12 turning well and try to make the right tactical moves.)

At the top of the winding downhill toward the sprint, a guy on my bike club, Mike Ceely, said something about a lead-out and went to the front. I jumped on his wheel. Somebody said, “Is Freddie on?” which is kind of like saying, to a motorist who has just whizzed by you, “Easy there, Mario.” As you may have guessed, “Freddie” in this Mario context refers to Fred Rodriguez, the US Pro champion, kind of the Mario Andretti of American pro cycling. So now I was worried that somebody might expect some rider among us to be like Freddie in this sprint. Of course I couldn’t be up for a really fast sprint, given how hard I’d ridden the previous two days and my iffy sprinting skillz anyway. But Mike seemed to want to lead me out, so I let him. I (facetiously) gave him instructions to drop me off fifty meters from the line.

Ceely did a fine job for a long time, hammering away and keeping the speed well over 30 mph on the pancake-flat road. But he’d taken it up from really far out, and I knew he’d falter well before the line. He was really suffering, practically lying on the top tube to be more aero. I knew he wanted me to come by so he could finally sit up, but I was way too far from the finish to bring ‘er in, probably 350-400 meters out. So I stayed on, waiting for somebody to come up the side. Finally Ceely actually waved me past, and I knew he was blown. So I took off as fast as I could, keeping my speed as high as possible and hoping that whoever came by me jumped hard enough that he he’d open a gap behind him, so that maybe I could slip in and catch his wheel. (Of course, if the guy jumped too hard, I wouldn't be able to latch on.) I reckoned that maybe—just maybe—I could grab the guy’s wheel, whoever he was, sit on it for just long enough to recover a bit, and then try to come back around him. It’s worked before and, my back to the wall, I was just crazy enough to try it.

Well, sure enough, some guy came by, and his wheel was open, but he was absolutely flying. Getting that wheel would be about like a hitchhiker trying to climb into a car that was still traveling at highway speed. I gave it my all, but the guy was just gone. I did manage to hold on to second, at least six or eight bike lengths out of first but pretty far ahead of third. I rode up to the guy—nobody I knew—and said, “Nicely done!” He looked up and I realized, to my astonishment, that it was none other than Freddie Rodriguez! I couldn’t believe it! Suddenly, second place didn't look so bad. I’d only just lost to the fastest sprinter in America!

I’d had no idea he was in the group. I’d seen him, but he was just some guy in a Lotto jersey. When you see an American in a Lotto jersey you just assume he bought it from Trashbar or something, and it’s usually the sign of just another moneyed novice. Now it all made sense. The question “Is Freddie on?” was asked by somebody who wanted to make darn sure that Fast Freddie was in position for a sprint, because the guys wanted a show!

Man, what a cool sport. What other sport gives a guy like me the opportunity to go head-to-head with the best in the business? The last time I’d seen Freddie was at a bike race, and I asked for his autograph. Needless to say this was much, much cooler. I could be both an adoring fan (because he was Freddie and I was just Dana) but also something not totally unlike a peer, since we were on the same ride and had just contested a sprint in which, for lack of anybody better, I was the guy to beat. “Man, your teammate led out a little early,” Freddie observed. “Kind of hung you out to dry.”

Later I learned that another of my teammates, Eric Zaltas, had been on my wheel and was just about to come around me when he saw Freddie blow past at such a speed that, his hopes shattered, he just sat up. If he hadn’t, I’m sure he’d have beaten me. It’s a good thing he didn’t, because of course being beaten in a sprint by Fast Freddie is an honor that has given me a proud memory. Glorious.

Epilogue to Tale #3

This last story is one of those ones that isn’t any good unless it’s true. A fictional account of a nobody being beaten in a sprint by a star would be pretty lame, I think. Thus, I made every effort to tell it is accurately as possible in the e-mail to my brothers. If honesty wasn’t a goal, I might have suggested that I was part of two-stage lead-out that didn’t quite work out. In fact it probably was supposed to be a two-stage lead-out, with me going earlier and swinging off for Eric to come by, but if so I was ignorant of this, blindly pursuing my own ambition. In that context, the truth of the story is actually kind of embarrassing.

So imagine my shock when I was recounting this tale to another teammate a week or so after the fact and another guy, who had been there, denied not just some detail of my tale, but the very fact of the sprint itself! He said to me, incredulously, “Dude, we didn’t sprint!” I didn’t know what to say. The guy was so firm in his conviction, I started to doubt myself: could I have been completely deluded about what went down?

In fact, no. I had uploaded the ride data from that ride to my PC, and still have it. Along that stretch of road, my top speed was 37 mph, with my max heart rate at 165. (My bike computer takes data samples every 20 seconds, so in a sprint scenario chances are it won’t catch the highest speed, nor the highest heart rate, for that interval.) So, how would this ride-denier explain a speed of somewhere near 40 on a flat road? Did we have some kickass tailwind? And my heart rate: was I just really excited about the tailwind, or was I on drugs? And I distinctly remember that Freddie was out of the saddle when he came by. What, was he just stretching out his back? At 40? I’ll have to send this post to Ceely and Eric and ask if they remember the sprint. If I hear something back, perhaps I’ll attach it here, in the Comments section below.

Gratitude

I hope your own Thanksgiving plans are grand, whoever you are. Be thankful for your gravy, unless there isn’t any, in which case I suppose you can feel thankful that you’re not clogging up your arteries. If your turkey is carved at the table, be thankful for the observance of that fine tradition; if it’s cut up in the kitchen and served buffet-style, be thankful that you’re laid-back and reasonable enough to enjoy that, and don’t have to share the meal with a fascist like me.

And if you don’t have big plans at all, be thankful that you’re not participating in a bizarre celebration of ersatz gratitude for a people who, after they saved our ancestors’ lives, were driven onto reservations and subsequently turned into scavengers of human misery via casinos. And if you don’t have big plans but wish you did, keep your chin up, as other years are sure to be better. I’ve had Thanksgiving at Sizzler before; another time I made a mini-feast at my tiny apartment (chicken legs, canned cranberry sauce, powdered mashed potatoes, Stove-Top™ stuffing, gravy from a mix); and my brother once had to go by himself to McDonald’s, only to find it closed. But that’s another story.

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Bedtime Stories

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Introduction

Somehow I’ve set the expectation with my kids that they get an original bedtime story every night. This is no easy matter—they can be a pretty tough audience, and have the power to refuse to sleep if the story doesn’t satisfy. So every night, after the pajamas are on and teeth brushed, I crawl into the lower bunk with Lindsay and try to think something up.

I suppose a stronger parent might simply refuse to tell these stories, but in this matter I’m inclined to indulge my daughters. After all, the story tradition cuts both ways: not only do they get entertained, but I have a rapt audience whose beliefs, values, and worldview are still highly malleable. One of my greatest joys as a parent is the opportunity to inculcate young minds literally from birth with the stamp of my own predilections.

I mentioned these bedtime stories to a few friends at a cocktail party, and they suggested I set up a bedtime story blog, selling stories to other parents. But before I get all entrepreneurial, I need to deeply ponder the question of whether these friends were being sarcastic. (From time to time, since childhood, I’ve suspected my “friends” are mocking me, and not infrequently I’ve been right.) In any event, I think the topic deserves at least a post. What follows is a brief how-to of bedtime stories, an examination of my story-rotation system, and a sampling of recent tales that were well received.

The making of … bedtime stories

I’ve taken some creative writing classes in my lifetime, and the most prescriptive of them made much of the classic “arc of the story”: exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. When I first encountered this concept, I was skeptical; however, looking at how my bedtime stories have evolved, I realize they fit this model pretty well. In fact, if I don’t apply this dramatic structure, I get complaints: “It doesn’t seem like it’s over,” “Nothing happened,” or “That was boring.” To satisfy Alexa, I have to build in just enough conflict and excitement that Lindsay clutches my arm and says, “I’m scared!” but not so much that Lindsay starts to cry. The balancing act is not easy.

This doesn’t mean I strive to create lasting, high-quality tales. By bedtime, I’m almost desperate to get the kids down and salvage what’s left of my grown-up time before exhaustion claims me. My holy grail is a story that is extremely short but still satisfies the kids. I dare not start a story without having the plot worked out in my head; making it up as you go can lead to a rambling mess that lasts half an hour or more. The idea of a rote, formulaic story actually holds great appeal for me, and in the early days I managed to float a lot of cheap retreads before I started getting complaints. Still, kids do like structure, so while I’ve gotten away from totally modular stories, we’ve settled into a rotation of characters and plot elements.

The story rotation

For some reason, probably related to how fried my brain is in the evening, I haven’t managed to memorize our story rotation. Only Alexa knows the exact schedule, and often has to tell me which kind of story I’m to do. (She has to whisper it in my ear because Lindsay insists on its being a surprise.) As luck would have it, as I was here typing Alexa wandered by and I asked her, at long last, for the official story schedule.

Monday – Princess Dariella, without Astavus Gadolphus
Tuesday – Choice Night
Wednesday - Princess Dariella, with Astavus Gadolphus
Thursday – Jimella/Carmella/Len
Friday – Flujee
Saturday – Jimella/Carmella, no Len
Sunday – Peter & Edwin (with Ken every other Sunday)

Dariella is the princess of Monaco. (I actually know very little about Monaco, but fortunately my kids know even less.) Astavus Gadolphus is Dariella’s nemesis, a former suitor who is always trying to ruin her plans. Jimella, Carmella, Peter, and Edwin are all mountain lions who live in Tilden Park. (I wish I’d never introduced them, because they mostly run together in my mind, except for Carmella, who was raised by Wildcare.) Len is a mountain lion cub who can’t wait to grow up. Ken is a bobcat with a Napoleon complex. Flujee is a non-extinct backwards-flying dodo bird (a character thought up decades ago by a babysitter who delighted my brothers and me with a long series of Flujee stories). There have been other stock stories that I’ve discontinued, and Choice Night (anything you want) has begun to feature Alexa and Lindsay as special guest storytellers.

And now, here are a few tales, which are as faithful to the originals as my memory permits. I’ve included some commentary as well.

Princess Dariella and the African Safari

My first sample story is a Princess Dariella. On the night I told it, just before the kids’ bedtime, I was reading a brilliant short story in the “New Yorker,” and I stole from it not only my plot but several important particulars. (I don’t often steal ideas this blatantly, but, like a decorator crab, I’ll tend to use whatever I come across.) In this story I also included a special guest character, Kim, whom I appropriated from Rudyard Kipling’s novel. Kim shows up in a number of my stories, though in my stories he lives not in India but at the San Francisco zoo. (Now, in case you think it’s wrong for me to borrow characters and plots like this, I’ll remind you that Shakespeare stole the plot of “Romeo and Juliet” from the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses.”)

____“Alexa and Lindsay were playing Sorry in the living room when the phone rang. The ring tone was ‘Madame Butterfly.’”
____[Alexa breaks in, “I know who that is!”]
____“Sure enough, it was Princess Dariella, inviting Alexa and Lindsay to go on an African safari with her. Since the Princess was a family friend, their parents let them go with her. So, less than two weeks later, Alexa and Lindsay found themselves in Africa, sitting next to Princess Dariella in the back seat of a Land Rover. There were a couple of tourists in the middle seat whom they didn’t know, a hired driver up front, and in the seat next to him a slender fellow who seemed vaguely familiar to Alexa and Lindsay. They couldn’t see up there well enough to figure out who it was, though.”
____[“Not Astavus Gadolphus!” says Lindsay, sounding concerned.]
____[“No, because it’s not his night,” Alexa says.]
____“Girls, please be quiet and let me tell the story. Now, the girls were enjoying the sights when suddenly the driver stopped and shut off the engine. Amazingly, there were three lions only about twenty feet from the Rover. Alexa and Lindsay were so interested in the lions they didn’t even notice that one of the tourists had gotten out of the Rover and gotten closer to the lion to take a picture.
____“Now, that was a really dumb thing to do, because one of the lions was provoked to attack the tourist. And what happened next was truly amazing. Several things happened almost at once, within a split second, but during the crisis time seemed to slow down and Alexa and Lindsay could watch everything unfold, like in slow motion. Just as one of the lions prepared to leap at the tourist—”
____[“I’m scared!” cries Lindsay, clutching my arm. Alexa, rapt, shushes her, but Lindsay is on the verge of crying. “Is he going to be okay?” she whimpers. This frequently happens: she needs to be assured that things will come out well, but Alexa doesn’t want the surprise spoiled, so she (Alexa) plugs her ears and sings an impromptu barebones la-la-la song in her upper bunk while I whisper assurances in Lindsay’s ear. Either my kids have failed to observe that things always come out okay in my stories, or they assume past performance does not guarantee future results.]
____“So just as the lion was preparing to leap, Alexa and Lindsay cried out. This caught the attention of the person in the front seat next to the driver—the one who had looked familiar to Alexa and Lindsay—who had been looking elsewhere. Once he saw what was going on, he did something remarkable. He leapt straight up out of his seat, and straight through the open sun roof of the rover. Then he did a somersault down the windshield, and sprang again straight up in the air, extending his arms and legs as far as possible, to make himself as large as he could, while sounding a very loud cry. The girls suddenly recognized him: this was their good friend Kim!
____“Kim’s leap distracted the lion for just an instant—long enough for the driver to pull out a gun and fire it, straight up in the air. The tourist scrambled out of the way, and though the lion did leap, that moment of distraction caused him to narrowly miss his prey. And because of the gunshot, all three lions then ran away as fast as they could.”
____[“All this within a split second,” Lindsay says in wonderment.]
____“The tourist with the camera was so scared he wet his pants.” [I don’t often include potty talk in my stories, but occasionally I indulge the immature tastes of my daughters. Sure enough, they laugh uproariously, right on cue.] “Kim got back in the rover and was congratulated for his quick thinking and his acrobatic feat. The driver, totally disgusted at the tourist, began to drive away, leaving the tourist standing there. ‘I’m not driving anybody around who has soiled his pants,’ he muttered.” [More tittering from the girls.] “But once the rover was about fifty feet away, the driver sighed, shook his head, and drove pack to pick up the tourist. ‘The fool wouldn’t last half an hour out here by himself,’ he growled.”
____[Lindsay knows the story is over and comes in for her goodnight hug and kiss, and I can hear Alexa swing down to the bunk bed ladder to receive hers.]

Flujee and the Peacocks

It’s hard to know where the ideas from my stories come from, as hastily contrived as they are. I often consider the idea of working on a story idea in advance, but it never happens; I don’t have room to think until I’m lying in the bunk, in the dark, and have managed to shush my children. It’s actually kind of fun to reflect on a story after the fact. It can be a glimpse into my subconscious, I suppose. In the following story, the key environmental factor I lifted from the memory of my pre-dawn bike ride that day.

____“Alexa and Lindsay were having a picnic in Tilden Park with their good friend Flujee. They had some good food, flew a Frisbee around, and rested awhile, and then Flujee had to go. She thanked them for the picnic and flew off, backwards of course. Shortly after she left two beautiful peacocks walked out and said hello to Alexa and Lindsay. Their tails were all fanned out and were brilliantly colored.
____“‘You can talk!’ Alexa and Lindsay said, amazed. ‘Yes, of course we can talk,’ said one of the peacocks. ‘That’s amazing!’ Alexa and Lindsay said.” [As characters, Alexa and Lindsay aren’t well developed in my stories. I frequently have them sharing an action or a bit of dialog. This is to keep them from getting jealous, fearing that the other has a better part in the story. They may outgrow this—or not. I’ve read that William Shatner’s “Star Trek” contract guaranteed him more lines of dialog, in every episode, than Leonard Nimoy was given.]
____“‘Why is that amazing? Your friend could talk,’ one peacock said. ‘Yeah, but she’s a non-extinct, backward-flying dodo bird,’ Alexa and Lindsay explained. ‘I noticed that—her flying was very impressive,’ the other peacock replied. ‘In fact, the reason we came to talk to you is that we were intrigued by your friend, and wanted to see if we could hang out with her sometime.’ Alexa and Lindsay replied, ‘Why didn’t you just come out and strike up a conversation then?’ The peacocks looked at each other, then back at the girls. ‘We’re shy,’ one of them said.
____“So Lindsay and Alexa promised to talk to Flujee about the peacocks, and arranged to meet the peacocks at the same picnic area the next afternoon, bringing Flujee with them. They found Flujee at Terrace Park and mentioned the birds’ desire to meet her. To their surprise, Flujee wasn’t interested. ‘I don’t really like peacocks,’ she explained. ‘They’re so flamboyant, so proud, always wanting to be the center of attention.’ Alexa and Lindsay explained that no, these peacocks were actually kind of shy, and seemed really friendly. But Flujee was having none of it, and changed the subject.
____“This was a real shame, of course, because as Lindsay and Alexa well knew, Flujee was a very lonely bird. Her entire species had gone extinct three hundred years ago, and other birds either teased her, like the pigeons did, or intimidated her, like the hawks did. The girls felt sure that Flujee would hit it off with the peacocks and be glad to have met them.”
____[“Hit it off?” Lindsay asks. “It’s a figure of speech,” I explain. “It means to get along well.”]
____“So after talking it over for some time, the girls devised a plan. They invited Flujee to join them the following morning in Tilden Park, way up on the ridge at the top of South Park road, to watch the sun rise. Then they found the peacocks, and invited them as well. On the appointed morning, Alexa and Lindsay met up with Flujee at 5:30 a.m.
____“Why so early? Well, it was important to be up on the ridge before civil twilight, so that their eyes would be adjusted to the dark and they’d get the full effect of the sunrise, from its faint beginning glow to the first thin rind of sun popping up over the horizon. When the girls and Flujee arrived, the peacocks were already waiting there. Alexa and Lindsay were nervous about Flujee’s reaction to the peacocks, but their scheme worked perfectly: because there was so little light, nobody could see the brilliant colors of the peacocks’ feathers. All the colors were so muted and dull, Flujee couldn’t even tell what kind of birds they were.
____“As they waited for the sunrise, every chatted and got along really well. But Alexa and Lindsay were still nervous about what would happen as it got lighter and lighter and the peacocks’ colors became visible. Would Flujee turn on the peacocks? And would she be upset with Alexa and Lindsay?” [Lindsay starts to worry aloud here, and as Alexa plugs her ears and la-la-la’s, I assure Lindsay that everything will work out.]
____“It gradually got lighter and lighter, but as the horizon began to glow orange, the birds were so transfixed they didn’t take their eyes off it—so they were no longer looking at each other, though they continued to chat. It was a wonderfully clear morning and everyone enjoyed an exquisite sunrise, and by the time Flujee realized she’d been hanging out with a couple of peacocks, it was too late—they were all already friends.
____“Eventually both the peacocks and Flujee figured out that Alexa and Lindsay had set up the whole thing, but how could they be angry? Thanks to the creative arrangement the girls had made, all three birds had a new friend. And Alexa and Lindsay had two!”

Farm Story

A year or so ago, I hit on a plug-n-play story idea that gave me some really easy breaks in the rotation. One rote plotline concerned Francis, a hen, and another was about Marilyn, a cow. Depending on the bedtime stories these animals were told, they’d have crazy dreams that would affect what food they produced. The hen’s eggs would have something besides a white and a yolk in them, and the cow would give something other than milk. The dreams that caused these oddities wouldn’t be revealed until the end, so there was a slight element of mystery in the stories, but really they were largely unimaginative and utterly simple to contrive. The kids eventually protested, and we retired the series. But on Choice Night recently, I made a fairly successful play at injecting new life into the tired old genre.

____“A farmer was being audited by a government inspector.” [Some tedious explanation of the USDA is omitted here.] “The inspector took a tour of the farm, starting with the barn. He watched as the farmer milked his cow, Marilyn. The farmer did this the old-fashioned way, with a pail and a stool. But what came out of Marilyn’s udders wasn’t white—it was yellow! The inspector raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. The farmer shook his head, then moved on to his next chore. He collected several eggs from Francis, and brought them into the kitchen, the inspector tagging along. The farmer looked carefully at the viscous yellow liquid in the pail, sniffed it, thought a moment, and then melted some butter in a pan. When the pan was good and hot he poured in the yellow liquid, which sizzled and began to set up. ‘Aha—I guessed right,’ he said. ‘Scrambled eggs.’
____“The farmer cracked one of Francis’s eggs into a bowl. What came out wasn’t a white and a yolk. Instead, out fell a couple of strips of raw bacon, folded up like an accordion. The farmer shrugged, pushed the eggs to the side of the pan, and threw the bacon in. Then he cracked open the rest of the eggshells, which also contained folded bacon. The inspector was incredulous. ‘We have some strange animals,’ the farmer explained. ‘It’s because my farmhands tell such outlandish bedtime stories.’
____“At that very moment Alexa and Lindsay came through the kitchen. ‘Hang on, I want to talk to you,’ the farmer said. ‘By any chance did you tell my livestock some strange stories last night?’ The girls explained that they’d simply described, to each animal, what life was like for the other animals, so all the animals could better relate to one another. The farmer showed them what Marilyn had produced instead of milk, and what came out of Francis’s eggshells. The girls giggled. The inspector, savoring the delicious smells, no longer seemed upset by anything. ‘Would you girls like to stay for breakfast?’ the farmer asked.
____“‘That sounds lovely, but we’ll have to pass,’ the girls replied. ‘We have to go milk the pig.’”