Folded Thought of the Day:

------------------------

I was flipping through the recently released collection 
of lesser-known children's stories titled "Fairy Tales 
Your Parents Never Read to You" and it sure brought me 
back.  Cause I remember many evenings of my youth 
being tucked in and carried off to strange lands, 
meeting odd characters and hearing the delirious yarns 
captured in this great collection.  

I'm not sure where my parents heard these stories but 
they weren't afraid to share them with me.  Yeah, it's 
no accident I write the way I do.  

I remember tales such as "The Sailor and the Washboard," 
"The Frog and the Frenchman," and "Misty Loses Her Way 
in the Forest."  I recall stories of mice holding meetings 
in the basements of city halls and the houses of powerful 
men... of towns where everybody was named after their 
mother's favorite color... of societies of intelligent 
molemen who lived beneath the north pole.  

But my favorite story was about a boy who was born with 
a golden screw where his belly button should be.  
The boy was naturally taunted by classmates and spent 
his youth sheltered by his parents.  

Doctors from all over the countryside were summoned 
but none of them could decide on a course of action.  
Then one day the boy, now well into his teens, was 
brought to a mystic healer from the eastern lands.  
The healer gave the boy a potion to drink.

That night, the boy dreamed of walking along a golden 
street lighted by lamps with glowing balloons instead 
of light bulbs.  At the end of the street the boy comes 
upon a shining tree.  He climbs to the top of the tree 
and there he finds a screwdriver with a handle made of 
diamonds.  

Just then the boy wakes up and looks down at his abdomen.  
The golden screw is gone.  Overjoyed, the boy leaps out bed.  
And his butt falls off.

I always thought the moral of this story had something to do 
with being proud of who you and to enjoy those things about 
yourself that make you different.  And this is a good moral.  
But, given how we've managed to act so irresponsibly toward 
our planet and how we seem to value looking a certain way 
and doing damage to ourselves to conform, I believe a more 
appropriate moral would be not screw around with nature.  

Of course, I'm open to other interpretations.  What do you 
think?


------------------------