"You must climb 2 flights of stairs, every hour on the hour, not to mention the bell is very heavy and most importantly you have no arms to pull the rope, how can you possibly be a bell ringer" said the elder.
The man begged, please, just give me a chance, let me prove to you that I can do this job. The Elder was moved by the mans plea and told him to come back tomorrow, and he will be tested. The man happily skipped away.
The next day rolled around , the man showed up at the bell tower at the appointed time. The elder and the man climbed the steps, when they reached the top the elder told the man "Go ahead let me see if you can ring the bell" with that the man went to the farthest point of the belfry and took a running start and ran right into the bell. ""BBBOONNGG" The man turned to the elder with a huge smile on his face. The elder told him if he could keep it up he had the job. The man was as happy as a clam and thanked the elder.
Weeks went by, the man doing his job perfectly. One day the man was walking up the bell tower and he heard voices at the top. He ran the rest of the way up and surprised a bunch of kids hanging out in the bell tower, he chased them off but didn't notice the mess they left on the floor. He knew he was almost late for the bell ringing, in a hurry he backed up as far as he could go and started running towards the bell, he didn't notice the banana peel, the man slipped, fell over the edge and plummeted to his death.
As he was lying there people congregated around, one gentle soul came out of the crowd and asked who this man was. Another bystander spoke up: "I don't know his name - but his face rings a bell."
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Is it just the "lameness" of the joke or the image of a armless guy bashing his head on a giant bell repeatedly that has me laughing to the point of tears. Or maybe it's just my appalling sense of humor (or lack thereof).
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On another less tinny note (rimshot please), I was shocked and scandalized (perhaps even gobsmacked?) by two news articles, one on msnbc.com and the other in Newsweek.
The Death of Cursive?
I shudder to think of it.
These articles go on to expound on the idea that now with the advent of technology and such gifts to our society as Twitter, Facebook, and other "necessities of life", cursive has become an archaic notion of backwardness and antiquity. Who writes in cursive anymore besides the elderly? What's more, with cellphones and texting and internet, who writes at all?
Less than a hundred years ago, writing was not just a daily necessity but an art. Now we live in an age of virtual communication in which we write less and less, slowly losing our ability to write in any legible fashion (much less use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but that's another complaint that I won't make you, dear reader, go through just yet). Cursive, the authors of the articles say, wastes time and who, in these harsh economic times, can afford to spend extra minutes adding a few flourishes to their writing? We type everything we do, on our cellphones, on our laptops. No need for pen and paper anymore.
My own handwriting is admittedly terrible itself. This does not stop me however from writing all my notes in cursive and putting some effort into it. ( I need never worry about my fellow pupils cheating off of my notes; they can't even read good handwriting, much less my own). Perhaps it's because of my love for anything old (except of course, for last week's leftovers. I toss that out, thank you very much.) or maybe I'm just a sucker for tradition. I simply can't bear the thought of eradicating cursive from existence. The very idea is abhorrent to me. Get rid of yet another sense of decor for the simplicity of saving time? What then shall we get rid of next? Frills on our clothing? Paint on our walls? Vocabulary in our speech? For what other trifles will the bell toll next?
Poetry Manuscript from The Little John Collection
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