Image Credit: Kara van Malssen / CC
by Thomas Ankow [Special to The Tennessee Conservative] –
As a small boy I loved tall tales and adventure stories. Fables intrigued me. From Aesop to Twain and everything in between I could surround myself in fantasy and adventure. Not for today’s children.
Today, everything has become a reality series. Social media offers constant visual overload. Picture and story books. Dinosaurs really. Replaced by TikTok and Snapchat. Imaginative and entertaining Saturday morning cartoons are long gone. Video games and VR are the intellectual means of the day.
Most face-to-face interaction has been exchanged for Zoom and text messages. I hate them both. Imagination? Constant sublimated propaganda.
Apathy has been translated into acceptable denial and inaction. We are constantly being encouraged not to believe our “lying eyes”!
WAKE UP AMERICA! The dike is leaking and very few are lifting a finger to plug the holes. What comes to mind is this story. Part “One” of my trilogy. “The little Dutch Boy”.
Here is a refresher. In 1865 an American author named Mary Maples Dodge penned a tale titled Hans Brinker. Included is a story about a little Dutch boy. NOTE: (the Netherlands, due to its low elevation utilizes dikes to hold back potential flooding from surrounding rivers and the sea). Like the city of New Orleans on steroids. That little Dutch boy served as a metaphor for his Country. Through his ingenuity he saved all residents by plugging a hole in the dike with his finger.
The message was to illustrate how his effort symbolized the attempts against the “continuous fight and victory over the unyielding sea”. This piece of my trilogy illustrates an example of what is and has been happening at our own “dikes”. A tale about America. Our Southern and Northern borders, and along our coastlines. Invasive flooding inundating our land. It involves people and drugs not water. The question here is whose finger(s) can successfully plug our holes?
Enter “the little orange boy”. Could it be when a “little orange boy” became a man he found ways to save us all? Imagine this. As he grew and gained great experience and wisdom “the little orange boy” became very powerful, visible and influential. He became a great leader. When he recognized that there weren’t enough fingers or hands willing to participate, he hatched a plan. Offering clear concise solutions for plugging the holes.
First. Reach out to his people.
Second. Contact the surrounding Kingdoms and enlist cooperation.
Finally. Build a “Great Wall” that others around the world, including his enemies have utilized to protect their own countries for ions. Will “the orange “Man’s” fellow countrymen now be able to live in peace? That story conclusion has yet to be reached.
My second book relates to the modern-day version of the tale of “Chicken Little”. Henny Penny in the English version. The originals were followed by a Disney flick in 2005 with an all-star cast. With the ominous warning: The end is near.
Once upon a time a chicken was sitting under a tree. A squirrel accidentally drops an acorn on the chicken’s head. The chicken believes that the “sky is falling” hurries and gathers up his friends and recruits them all to warn the population with a goal to bring the warning to the King.
No one really believes the chicken but out of loyalty, some follow him. Unfortunately (according to Co-Pilot) “the chicken and his friends “Henny Penny, Turkey Lurkey and others in the most familiar version, encounter a cunning fox who invites them to its lair and then devours them all”. “The tale serves as a cautionary lesson about paranoia and mass hysteria”. But the tale doesn’t end there.
Enter the “little orange boy”, son of the King. The boy grows up to be a very successful man. Re-building the Kingdom and constructing Hugh towers, mansions and grassy courses for play. This man accumulates great riches. He becomes a target to his enemies. However, learning from the lessons of the chicken, weathers the storms of paranoia and mass hysteria with calm, patience, and deliberate actions.
The final story involves “the Boy who cried wolf”. With a twist. Penned originally as one of Aesop’s Fables. The classic story involves a “boy” shepherd tending to his flock of sheep in a small mountain town. Bored, he decided to play a trick on the local townsfolk and shout “WOLF”, WOLF”! Help they are eating my sheep! The startled and terrified people from town grabbed whatever they could to fend off the attack and rushed to the scene only to find the little boy laughing hysterically from their reaction to his mischievous lie.
Several days later the boy attempted the same trick again. Again, he received the same action from the town. They hurried to his rescue. With his laughter again as the result. He tried the deception one final time. This time the wolf was real, and the boy was devoured. When the townspeople heard of his demise, they were quite sad. However, the lesson illustrated was all the fault of the boy. Continual lying has consequences.
Final question. In this day and age of political lies and misrepresentations it is your decision who are the wolves. The liars. The “little orange boy”. Or his enemies.
THOMAS ANTKOW is currently a freelance writer and produced and hosted his own daily radio show on KCSF AM 1300 and co-hosted talk shows for KVOR AM 740 for Cumulus Broadcasting in Colorado Springs. He can be reached at taradio863@gmail.com. You can subscribe to Tom’s FREE newsletter at: Antkow.substack.com