| 3.
Natchez
Trace, Southern Entrance, Mississippi.
Such futility,
this temporary taming of patches of wilderness that we call civilization. The earth wants
its wilderness back, and she will get it, one way or the other.
William Empson deduced that Milton wrote "Paradise
Lost" not as a warning not to eat that apple but as a warning not to worship that
god.
Overheard at a Rest Area on I-59 near Tuscaloosa, Alabama:
An English couple have a child. After the birth, medical tests reveal that the child is
normal, apart from the fact that it is German. This, however, should not be a problem.
There is nothing to worry about. As the child grows older, it dresses in lederhosen and
has a pudding bowl haircut, but all its basic functions develop normally. It can walk,
eat, sleep, read and so on, but for some reason the German child never speaks. The
concerned parents take it to the doctor, who reassures them that as the German child is
perfectly developed in all other areas, there is nothing to worry about and that he is
sure the speech faculty will eventually blossom. Years pass. The German child enters its
teens, and still it is not speaking, though in all other respects it is fully functional.
The German child's mother is especially distressed by this, but attempts to conceal her
sadness. One day she makes the German child, who is now 17 years old and still silent, a
bowl of tomato soup, and takes it through to him in the parlor where he is listening to a
wind-up record player. Soon, the German child appears in the kitchen and suddenly
declares, "Mother. This soup is a little tepid." The German child's mother is
astonished. "All these years," she exclaims, "we assumed you could not
speak. And yet all along it appears you could. Why? Why did you never say anything
before?" "Because, mother," answers the German child, "up until now,
everything has been satisfactory."
The Peaks of Otter continues >>
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