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A Lesson Learned

I was a confident person when I was young. I planned that when I grew up, I was going to be a sailor. More than just a sailor, I would be captain of a fleet of ships. That all got derailed, or in this case sunk, when I took as mentor and teacher the dreaded pirate Yellowbeard. 

He found me one day on the wharf staring out at sea, and in my usual daze, I was dreaming of great adventures as a sea captain. He must have realized right away that I was a prime candidate for his crew. I had no idea when he approached me that he was a pirate. 

He asked me if I was interested in becoming a member of his crew. I initially declined as I knew that my parents would never let me be a sailor at my age. I was only 12 years old at the time. 

His response was a bit gruff as he said, “If it’s what you dream of, then leave your parents. I’ll take good care of you. You look like a fine sea-worthy mate to have. I can show you the world, but you have to take that leap right now. It’s what I did when I was half your age.” 

Yellowbeard was very persuasive, and I took the leap. 

He took me aboard his longboat and cast off immediately where he met up with his ship, “The Jolly Dodger”.  I was then made aware of the fact that this was a pirate ship. 

It was too late to leave and change my mind. We left the safety of the cove and went out on the high seas. You need to know that I had never been out to sea on anything other than a small rowboat. 

The Jolly Dodger headed off into the wilds of the ocean. We had nothing but bad weather. I was sick most of the time. As for being a sailor, I spent most of my time swabbing the decks and cleaning up the messes I made as a result of my stomach’s reaction to the food I ate and the churning sea. As for my mentor, all he did was drink and belch out orders to everyone. 

I don’t think he was much of a sailor, and I learned very little from him in the two weeks I spent on the ship. It lasted only two weeks because our brilliant captain managed to scuttle the ship on a reef just before he was captured by the King’s navy and was able to escape back home. 

I got in a bit of trouble with my parents and was forbidden to go to the wharf again, which was fine with me, as Old Yellowbeard totally shipwrecked my confidence in myself, and I decided that I never wanted to be a sailor. I decided to be a teacher instead. I certainly learned a lot as a pirate on The Jolly Dodger about how not to teach. 

It’s All in the Name

The seat was his. It had his name on it. Therefore the seat was his. Every day, Sean went to school on the IRT subway. He got on the subway at the first stop, 242nd street. He always went to the third car from the end and sat in the first seat next to the middle door of the subway car. It was his seat. 

“I can’t believe it’s this guy again. Every day he has to come in first thing on our run and place his stinkin’ backside on me. It’s bad enough that he sits on me every day, but once, he took out a permanent marker and wrote his stupid name on me. The guy should be arrested for defaming public property.”

Of course, there were the weekends. On those days, Sean did not have to go to school. It should have been a respite from the burden of being a reserved seat. However, Sean always managed to have a reason for going to the city every day. So he made it a point to be there each day. And through some mystical luck of the train scheduling system, it was always the same train that Sean got on. 

“There’s no break for me. That idiot passenger always manages to find me. What is it that he knows that I don’t?”

It turns out that Sean’s father was a master scheduler for the NYC Subway system. The train depot, which was right off of the 242nd street station, was where he worked. He knew exactly what trains would be where, and when they would be there. He loved telling his son every night when Sean’s train was going to be in the station next. 

That all came to a halt the day that Sean’s father retired and the subways needed an upgrade. The subway that Sean always used was retired and replaced with a newly designed car. It had air conditioning and seats that were more durable. In fact, the car that Sean always went into had a conductor stationed inside the car. He was there to make sure no one damaged or graffitied any of the seats or walls. 

Sean was devastated. He refused to ride the subway ever again. 

The subway car with Sean’s name on it was left to be repurposed. It was to be used as a period piece in a park as a rest station for weary park goers and when the weather got bad. 

That would be the end of the Sean story. That is unless you happen to be taking the Number 20 bus number 81022  from 238th street, into upper Manhattan, at a certain time. When you get there, get on to it, and if your name is Sean, there is a seat with your name written in permanent marker on the right side of the bus, opposite the exit door towards the back of the bus. It’s all yours. 

The story prompt for this piece was “And They Lived…”

The Answer Is…

Once upon a time, there was a very old man. He was known as the ‘Man of a thousand answers.’ The reason being that no matter what question you asked him, he had an answer for you. And he loved answering questions. 

Now people of the village relied on him, for his answers to their questions were always proved to be true. 

“How do I cure my wife’s illness?”

“What can I do to stop my child from crying so much?”

“What is the secret to happiness?’

“When will I find true love?”

“Where did I leave the keys to my house?”

And he knew the answer. 

There came a time when, old as he was, he found the true love of his life. She was as old as he was. She became known as the ‘Woman of a thousand questions’, which seemed appropriate since she married the old man. 

She was never satisfied with the status quo. If a decision was made in the village, she had a question that would make the village put more thought into their resolve. 

When someone came to her with a question, she would respond with a question that would guide that person to understand themselves better. 

When asked, “How do I get my employer to value my achievements? Her response was, “What do you value in your achievements, and why is your employer’s opinion vital to you?  

When asked, “Is there a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?” Her response was, “Is there joy in finding out or only in the reward?”

People had so many things to ask and never knew which one to ask their questions to. Both provided solutions to problems.

Of course, there came a time when the old man had a question that he needed to ask. He asked his wife, “Are you happy?” 

Her response was, “Are you happy?”

His answer was, “Of course.”

Her response was, “Did you need to ask?”

Despite the obvious answer, he chose not to answer for the first time. He just gazed deeply into her eyes and smiled. 

And they lived…well, you know how it goes. 

Think Before You Act

Arthur loved learning new things, whether it was something brand new that no one had ever thought to do or something that everybody but him knew about, and he finally discovered it. That was Arthur.

He was the nicest and friendliest person you could know. Honest, to a fault, self-disciplined, self-reliant, and a great listener. He had his opinions but was open-minded. He was helpful and generous, and everyone trusted him. 

If he had one problem, it was his curiosity. Though it brought him lots of knowledge and new adventures. It also brought him several mishaps. This was one of those days. 

Arthur went to his job at the university, where he worked in the library department. One of his responsibilities was to research sources for materials that the library had acquired. On this day, there was an ancient book of local history, dating back over 300 years, sitting on his desk. The book certainly looked old. Its tattered cover held loosely in place, with weathered pages and handwritten notes adorning the margins of each chapter, stood out as Arthur picked it up to examine it.  A few phone calls would have verified if this was an authentic book or not. It might even have identified who had left it on his desk. 

Instead, when he opened the book and looked briefly at the contents, his eyes focused on a chapter heading that said, “The Lost Treasure of Lord Warren.” The chapter heading was marked with a star. Arthur’s curiosity got the best of him. Reading the chapter, he found it included a map illustrating exactly where this supposed treasure was buried. It failed to mention what exactly the treasure was. Arthur, being a good problem solver, chose to let his curiosity out-vote logical thinking and ran out to find the treasure.

Anyone else would have questioned where the book came from. They might also question the language used in the text. Some of those words did not exist 300 years ago. They might have researched who Lord Warren was, in which case they would have discovered it was a fictional name. But Arthur did none of these, he was too curious. 

Having made a copy of the map, Arthur quickly deduced that the location of the treasure was located somewhere within the confines of the city zoo. Being an animal lover, he had been to the zoo many times and convinced himself of where the exact location would have been 300 years ago. In actuality, it was a lucky guess. He went directly to the walk-through aviary. 

He was able to sneak a fold-up shovel into the zoo in his backpack. The security guards recognized him from the library and hadn’t bothered to check his pack. Beautiful pictures of the different types of birds in nature that had been sketched by the local Birdwatcher’s society hung outside of the Aviary. An avid art lover, Arthur stopped to admire them. 

Arthur entered slowly into the enclosure, and when he got to the point where he thought the spot was, and no one was looking, he ducked behind the nearest tree. 

He looked carefully at the ground and started to dig into the earth. He tried to make sure he was being quiet so as not to be observed. It never dawned upon him that something that was buried 300 years ago would not be close to the surface of the ground. He was patient and persistent and kept digging. He was about a foot and a half down when he hit something solid. Carefully he dug a little deeper and discovered a rather large bone. 

“What the….,” he called out. 

That was a big mistake, for he certainly was heard. 

Security guards came rushing and found him standing next to a hole in the ground, with a shovel in one hand and a large bone (that was certainly not from a bird) in the other hand. 

Security held him in custody until the police came to take him away. He was taken to jail; the charge was trespassing and destruction of public property. As he was being charged and processed, the police forensic unit analyzed the bone he had uncovered. 

Arthur thought he would be released soon, as both charges were misdemeanors. That was until it was discovered that the bone that he uncovered was, in fact, a human bone. 

Further digging at the zoo and DNA evidence matched the bones to a missing person report. Since it was unclear whether Arthur was digging up or burying evidence, an added charge of abetting a murder was added to his supposed crimes. He was in big trouble. 

Three things happened that saved the day. 1) Forensic evidence was found linking one of the zoo’s security guards to the murder. 2) A disgruntled co-worker of Arthur’s, who wanted to get back at Arthur for telling his boss about a misdeed the co-worker had done (remember I said he was honest to a fault) came forward with the fake book that started Arthur on this journey and claimed responsibility for creating the book and putting it on Arthur’s desk. He just wanted Arthur to go on a wild goose chase and get in trouble for not verifying a source.  It was pure coincidence that the map pointed to a spot where the murderer had buried his victim. 3) The security guard in question, when confronted by detectives, confessed to the crime.

The final result was that Arthur was fined for trespassing and destruction of public property. He did get reassigned to a different part of the library. The co-worker was fined for abetting a crime and subsequently fired by the university for giving the university a bad reputation. And the security guard was arrested and convicted of multiple counts of murder and obstruction of justice. He is still awaiting sentencing. 

Arthur continues to be curious and learns new things, one of which is being honest to a fault is not always the best policy to follow.