Octopus

After making a move, I've found it's a lot of fun to discover new things about the new place.  Part of the fun is you never know when you'll find a new gem, and you can't tell before hand where you're gonna find it.  Our household took a TV timeout this weekend which meant I had time to read the newspaper. 

Our local rag is the Redmond Statesman and it's always good for the soul.  Every now and again I get a chuckle after reading some item such as the one involving a "young female loitering outside the 7-11" late at night.  Turns out it was much worse than the prostitution that would automatically be suspected in such an instance.  She was waiting for midnight, when she would turn eighteen, so she could buy some cigarettes.  Another youngster corrupted by slick advertising.

The Bend Bulletin, published in our much larger neighboring town twenty miles to the south,  was the source of my new found knowledge this week end.  There's a column entitled "Yesterday" in that paper that tells of what occurred on today's date in the past.  I'm sure  there's one in your local rag, and if there isn't, there should be.  It's a fun read in a way-too-serious world.  Seventy-five years ago last Sunday, there was an event in my new hometown of Redmond, that was told over the "press wires" all across this great land of ours. 

One Mr. Jack McDaniels found an octopus in a mountain spring, some 300 miles from the Pacific Ocean, just outside of town.   There was much consternation amongst the learned men of the time.  Was this a new species of freshwater octopus that had never before been cataloged?  Had the creature crawled over 300 miles of river and stream beds, somehow learning to live in freshwater after leaving the Pacific, only to be captured and killed at the hand of our hero, Jack?  Inquiring minds were puzzled. 

Several days later the puzzle was solved.  A friend of Jack's, who remained nameless, had captured the creature in the ocean off the coast of California, packed it in brine, and transported it by automobile to the Central Oregon spring.  It was left there to be discovered by an innocent Jack.  The nationwide commotion  it's discovery caused was thoroughly unanticipated and the guilty party was hiding in complete embarrassment.  This has to be one of the all time best examples of an out of hand practical joke I have ever heard.  I'm still laughing about it as I write this!  

There is a subtle lesson in the tale, one that becomes apparent only if a person has enough time away from more pressing frightful matters at hand, to be discovered.  Tiny things are often missed because of the nonstop daily bombardment we must withstand.  The lesson? 

This event occurred in March, 1936.  Americans were still suffering the effects of the Great Depression.  The mighty Babe Ruth had gone hitless in his final game the year before.  Hitler and Germany were on a worrying rise to power. 

Even though Americans had suffered terribly hard times and were facing many worries, we could still find time to play a joke.