Volume 2–3.pdf

14
Adam & Eve
The first ampersand in human relations.
Here's what would appear to
be the best of all possible worlds—
and what happens? Two divinely created
people, well, one is in debt to
the other for a rib, have a great
garden, plenty of space, clean air,
natural foods and a direct line to
the Empyrean art director, and
along comes a serpent and a
quick-talking one at that.
This reptilian salesman,
really the devil who'd do
most anything to get even,
puts on a prize-winning
commercial for these
nice but gullible kids,
Adam & Eve. After all,
they are natural food
nuts and easy marks
for any smooth presentation
for a new product.
Needless to say,
the kids who have
been equipped
with great
bodies but
little brains
had been
advised
by
their
father (no mother) to keep away
from certain fruit. At this point there
is some question about which fruit
was meant. The apple seems to have
won the consensus, but unless we're
way off, the Middle East is no big
apple in the world of pomology. It
turns out, however, kids in the beginning
weren't much different than
they are now. Despite the old man's
advice, Adam & Eve would rather
follow the serpentine swami. So off
they go, chomping into the forbidden
fruit. A juvenile misstep doesn't
seem to have been so bad and one
would have thought that the old man
might have been a little more forgiving.
Obviously or at least then, you
didn't go around disobeying Father
Nature. Because two topless healthy
kids with a penchant for natural
foods did what comes naturally, we
are now carrying around the endless
burden of sin (Sin Tax?), even if we
were not the responsible parties in
the first place. The moral we sup-
pose is: keep away from the other
guy's apple trees.
THIS ARTICLE WAS SET IN KORINNA
Stanley & Livingstone
Only English cool would have a chap
say after a near-year long trek
through the swamp and marshes of
interior Africa, "Mr. Livingstone, I
presume!' But then, Edward George
Geoffrey Smith Stanley, whose real
name was John Rowlands was no
ordinary bloke. In his sixty-three
years he packed in enough wars, explorations,
politics and knighthood
to satisfy a legion of men. Englishborn
and in 1859 at the a e of 18
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working in New Orleans, a smart lad
he took on the name of his boss,
Stanley. Tack on the Civil War in
which he was captured fighting with
the Confederate Army at Shiloh.
There are several other military expeditions
but the reason for the big
African connection came some
years later when Stanley, as a correspondent
for the New York Herald
Tribune,was sent off to find the other
end of the ampersand, David Livingstone,
a peripatetic missionary/
explorer. Africa was the Livingstone
bailiwick and most of his peregrinations
were detailed in his books,
"Missionary Travels in South Africa"
and another 1865 winner "The Zambezi
and Its Tributaries:' By the time
Stanley got to Livingstone's mission
at Ujiji it was in November in 1871 and
the venerable missionary was pretty
sick. He wasn't sick enough to prevent
Stanley from uttering the most
magnificent presumption of all time.
Incidentally, Stanley presumed right,
and the two liked each other enough
to set off together on an exploration
to the north end of Lake Tanganyika,
which is no Lake Hopatcong. When
Livingstone expired in 1873 in Chitambo,his
native followers preserved
his body, carried it off to the coast
and had it shipped off to England.
Mind you,this was all before Ban-
Roll-On. The good doctor was buried
in Westminster Abbey which, if you
must go, is a good place to go to.
Stanley went back to the good old
U.S.A. Before long he was back in
Africa completing the doctor's explorations
and carrying out some of
his own,including a derring-do journey
down the Congo and leading an
expedition to free an embattled
Pasha. There was another return to
the United States but the restless
fellow who had been a citizen since
1865 went back to his native land.
There he entered Parliament and got
himself knighted (1899). He died
about five years later. Not a bad
life's work, but no Westminster
Abbey for him—I presume.