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Dalton
Roberts |
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January
18, 2002 It
had to happen. In this age of unbridled violence with nuclear bombs
pointing toward every place on the planet where two or more are gathered
together, someone just had to come up with the perfect way to end human
killing and bring peace to humankind. I just never thought it would be
me. So
many great men and women have tried – some whose shadows I would be
ashamed to stand in. Gandhi, Bunche, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa,
the Dalai Lama, St. Juicy, Grandfather Fluke -- too many to list. Yet,
the I
am humble as hell about it and take no credit. It was given to me -- a
"eureka" that came one day as I contemplated the hidden beauty
of the under-appreciated possum. The
plan is not complicated. It requires only two commitments from world
leaders. It will not only stop wars and homicides in a short while, it
will stimulate the planetary economy, improve muscle tone among the
people and speed up weight loss. Who
would have thought the lowly possum, one of the oldest and least
esteemed life forms on Earth, would end up saving us from a horrible
end? Anthropologists
say the possum was one of the few animals to survive the awful
catastrophe that destroyed all the dinosaurs except Strom Thurmond. Best
they can figure it, a huge terrestrial body collided with Earth, making
a cloud of dust that closed off the sun for weeks, sloshed the oceans
over the land and wiped out all the green stuff. In
case you question the scientists or just can't picture this happening,
imagine an ant sitting on a tennis ball traveling 570,000 miles an hour
crashing into a basketball going even faster. The dinosaur's who weren't
slammed to death against trees and rocks died of starvation or were
hurled out beyond Earth's gravitational field and are still zooming
through space mumbling, "Somebody put something in my drink!" Think
about it: the possum survived that mind-boggling event! He just kept
turning over garbage cans, eating coffee grounds and potato peels, and
stayed fat during and after the worst cataclysm this Turkey Farm has
ever experienced. As
a small lad roaming primitive downtown Watering Trough with other
juvenile delinquents like Bowser Belvin, Goose and Little Britches
Adams, Clem Sliger, and Zeke Porter, we often carried a case
of Oertel's 92 Beer (the only kind we could afford) down to Sterchi's
pasture, iced it down, and listened to the dogs chase possums. Once they
had one treed, we'd go try to shake it out. No way. Someone would
finally have to climb the tree and twist him loose. Nothing matches the
possum's tenacity. Most
of this has little to do with the Inter-planetary Possum Peace Plan.
It's just an effort to instill in you a little more respect for this
primaeval creature that has stood up to everything the Universe can
throw at a species. It's been here millions of years more than homo
sapiens erectus will ever see. Point
one of the Possum Peace Plan is to get a UN commitment that every nation
lay down arms of all kinds and use nothing but wet possums to attack
other persons or nations or to defend themselves or their territories.
The NRA will become the NPA, lobbying all over the world for people's
right to carry as many possums as they can feed. Possum breeders will
come up with longer snouts and more teeth -- higher caliber assault
possums. Pick-up trucks will no longer have gun racks. Possum cages will
be standard equipment. Let's
face it friends. It's much too easy to shoot someone or drop a missile
down their chimney with a computer. People are inherently lazy.
They are killing each other off simply because it is so easy. Force them
to go get a possum and dip it in a tank of water before they beat
someone to death and the prospects for peace brighten dramatically.
We're looking at a new planetary paradigm. Yes,
there will still be some killings. Even a few wars. The Middle East will
be a major possum market for a while. Sitting here thinking back over my
troubled life, I can think of a few people I might possum to death. But
I know how severely lazy I am and how much I hate strenuous physical
activity. By the time I uncaged a possum, avoided his efforts to
curl around my arm and sink his little razor-sharp teeth into my tender
flesh, the hate would dissipate. Even the Serbs, Albanians, Hutus and
Tutsis will get sick of it. Point
two is that every person who whacks a wet possum to death in battle or
any homicide, has to cook and eat it. If you've ever eaten one,
you know it will not take long for this policy to eliminate violence. When
I was a lad, I was visiting the home of a neighborhood widower whose two
sons were Oertel-sucking buddies. Entering the domicile, my nares
revolted on an aroma I had never come across. A possum was cooking on
the kitchen woodstove and there was at least a solid inch of grease
gurgling atop the possum and sweet potatoes. As
lack of luck would have it, it was one of the few times he ever invited
me to join them for dinner. I mixed large globs of sweet potatoes with
tiny pieces of possum meat in an effort to get through this earthly
trial. It went fairly well until the sweet potatoes petered out. A
few years ago I underwent a year of psychiatric counseling over being
whacked in the heart with a wet possum, romantically and
financially speaking. Toward the end of it I asked the kind doctor
if he could do anything to help me get over the memory of eating that
possum in my tender teens and he said, "Freud postulated that the
memory of the taste of possum was more intractable than being
thrice-dipped in a boiling cauldron of used motor oil." I got over
the woman but the possum is still hanging on the nipple of my brain
stem. Let's
look at the promised economic benefits. Possum farming will be the
hottest ticket around. Just to handle all the people on Death Row will
keep 'em humming. Possum farms will become mega-conglomerate
international Think
of the number of water-boys it will require to service the front lines
in a full-scale war. . Unemployment will be unknown for even the least
skilled can dip a possum (if they are quick). Behind the lines, chefs
will be cooking the possums who have given their all for their country.
The demand for huge military mess hall cooking pots will keep Wearever
on three shifts a day. Pepto Bismol will be sold in five gallon cans.
Get you some stock now. "But
what about the suffering of the poor possums?" you may be thinking.
Hopefully, we can agree it is better they suffer than the crown jewel of
creation, this advanced being and cute little thing said to be
"just a little lower than the angels" (now doesn't that make
you worry about angels?). Yes,
friends, I care about possums but the Possum Peace Plan is predicated on
the conviction that possum suffering will not last long. The perfection
of the plan is the way it will sicken everyone with violence. Guns and
bombs are cold and impersonal killing tools but a wet possum in your
hand, smashing repeatedly into an enemy, cannot be depersonalized. If
this plan does nothing else, it will cause people to care about the
feelings of possums for the first time in human history. The Human
Society has never, ever raised hell over anything anyone has ever done
to a possum. As our roadways show, no one brakes for a possum. No
organization turns backflips over men, women and children being
slaughtered by guns and bombs. Wars are kept surgically clean in news
accounts, much like a TV commentator would describe a gall bladder
operation. But when people see hundreds of thousands of dead possums
stacked up waiting to be thrown in boiling pots half full of sweet
potatoes, the Humane Society will shift into overdrive. Little sterling
silver possums will show up on lapels and dangling from ribbons wrapped
around trees. Billboards will scream, "STOP THE KILLING NOW!" Violence
will become too much hard work, too much trouble, too hard on the
palate, too time-consuming. In a word, too much hassle. In
case I am under-estimating the inherent violence of the human animal,
you can still bet your "save the whale" pins on the animal
rights groups. Have no doubt, they'll stop the possum killing. The
animal kingdom status that's When
all the peace treaties are signed, for the first time since Earth came
spinning out of the Big Bang, it will be pretty nice to be a possum. |