Hooray!

Dear Boo and Bubble,

Well, here it is December 31 again with another year gone by so quickly that it seems just yesterday we were starting it. It's been a pretty significant year for the two of you what with Boo breaking the tooth fairy bank by losing seven teeth and Bubble starting pre-school already. It's hard to believe the changes that can occur in a 12-month span of time and I find that this particular day - New Year's Eve - always begs for recollection. For me, that means returning to the deepest, warmest, most comforting recesses of my memory to a time when I was your age and all of my closest friends convened at 3 Lakecrest for a celebratory evening that included a traditional rip-roaring battle of Up Jinks between the girls and boys, then the annual race around the house with sparklers at midnight followed by a bowl of Mamaw Mary's famous chili before heading to bed.

No New Year's Eve could ever be complete, however, without Granddaddy Schaefer's telling of a One-legged Dragon tale. Every year, as soon as Up Jinks was over and right before the countdown began to midnight, Granddaddy would take a napkin and wrap it like a diaper around the index finger of his right hand. Then, he'd fold his thumb and other fingers back into a fist, leaving only the covered digit pointing outward.

"All right, children," he always began. "I want to tell you a story about the One-Legged Dragon." And he'd move his finger across the table.......poor dragon......limping along with only one leg......and the story would begin. I've written to you about this before (See Sunday, December 30, 2012 - "The One-Legged Dragon."), but the other day, I ran across some information in one of Granddaddy's editorials that was news to me. It shed some light on the history of the dragon and I wanted to make sure you knew.

Enthusiasm Encountered In Its Pristine Form

(Sunday, March 6, 1994 - The Greenville News)

I love enthusiasm. In fact, if I can find an enthusiastic mortician I'm going to ask him to bury me, but on condition he won't get carried away by his enthusiasm and take me before I'm scheduled to go.

I hate sourpusses, the ones always rummaging around hunting something unpleasant and doomed shaped for a topic of conversation, who see no beauty in a magnificent red sunrise, but want to talk about the unwanted rain it portends, one who shuns laughter as though it is the mother of plagues.

The other morning, I saw enthusiasm in its pristine, crystal pure form. It bathed me with the soap of joy and injected high octane into my outlook.

This epiphany, of a sort, occurred at Blythe Elementary School. I was asked to read my story of the "One-Legged Dragon" to my granddaughter Chelsea's class. Through a misunderstanding, instead of a small classroom of 20 third graders, I found myself on the stage of the lunch room before 150 first, second and third graders sitting on the floor with their teachers. I nearly panicked. But then I realized that, after all, I am a grandfather and these were simply Chelsea and Natalie multiplied by 75. The thought calmed my fears.

As I looked down on their bright and expectant little faces I became inwardly pensive. Here I was an emerging octogenarian looking tomorrow squarely in the eye; the past, of which I am so fond, suddenly lost its relevance.

Here was enormous potential embarking on a voyage over the vast sea of knowledge. Before my very eyes were the future scientists, doctors, philosophers, theologians, lawyers, architects, builders and statesmen.

My optimism denied the presence of a single future criminal or failure sitting on that floor waiting to hear about the one-legged dragon.

The thrust of the story is that everybody is different and it is these differences that define who we are. Hooray was the dragon's name. He had one leg and 99 stubs where legs used to be. Every morning, Mrs. Dragon would help him put his 99 crutches in place and he would take his morning walk. Everybody would laugh and make fun of Hooray with all the crutches and just one good leg.

One day, the people learned how Hooray lost his 99 legs. He was crossing a vast ocean on his way to seek his fortune when he ran across a shipwreck with 99 children aboard. They were sure to drown. Hooray turned his back, told the children to grab a leg and he swam them to safety. But the children has held onto his legs so tightly he lost them for lack of circulation.

When the people heard this they cheered Hooray, for he was a hero.

Because it was Hooray's 675th birthday, we all sang Happy Birthday to him with such enthusiasm and gusto it caught the attention of Old St. Peter, even as he was checking credentials and consigning eternal fate to the multitude who had just been processed by the world's morticians.

What and experience!!