Things I think up while mowing the lawn

It's not well known, but at one time in our history, the English language had no letter "E". Of course, that made it the Nglish languag, didn't it? One day, a lexicologist (I'm sorry, "lxicologist") of some repute at the local University had the brilliant idea of adding the letter "e" to the language. As he pointed out, the way things stood when one read about "Lak Ri", one could never be sure if one were reading about a rather spooky pond, or that big body of water near Clvland. It was all just too confusing without a letter "e" for clarity's sake.

Of course, many progressive thinkers jumped on the bandwagon, and the letter began popping up with considerable frequency. The local prists didn't care for this change in the way things had always been. They enlisted the help of the local Constabl, and the lxicologist was promptly arrested and jailed.

Their punishments meted out to the man were not quite as cruel as we might imagine, this having taken place in that period of time between the dark ages and the not-quite-light-yet ages. While it is true that he was incarcerated, they did give him plenty of paper and some pencils for doodling, and they put him up for the night in a room with a nice bed. They also fed him a wonderful meal. As you can tell, he was subjected to drawing and quartering. When he touched his meat at suppertime, it was so hot that it caused him pain, so you could say he was also burned at the steak.

But perhaps the worst punishment suffered by the man was that during the night, at random times and quite frequently, the jailer (ummm... jailr) would tap on a metal pipe three times rapidly, then pause, then three more times, ad nauseum. Of course, as any boy who was in Mr. Cross' PE class in 7th grade knows, this is Morse code for the letter "S".

(Precisely why Mr. Cross thought it advisable to teach us Morse code in 7th grade gym escapes me. Perhaps he thought we were all destined to live our lives in solitary confinement in some prison, and felt that he was teaching us a survival skill. If so, I thank him for his attempt, if not for his assessment of me and my classmates.)

Anyway, as you can tell, the lxicologist was thoroughly and mercilessly "S"-communicated.

Now at the same time, certain bands of other Anti-E activists were roaming about the area, painting out any "E" that they found on any sign. One man in particular (a Mr. d la Cruz) was a rabid defacer of any sign brandishing the letter, and he had actually been so successful that it was quite unusual to see an "E" anywhere in the area where he operated. This is, of course, the opposite of today, when it is the most common letter in the language. Mr. d la Cruz and his assistants (the "Cruz-aidrs") roamed far and wide taking care of the offending letter wherever it was.

In time they heard of a merchant, that era's equivalent of Sam Walton, who had posted an enormous sign on a hillside. Think about the "HOLLYWOOD" sign in California, and you'll get an idea of the size of this thing. I assume the sign spelled out the name of the store, but that bit of information has been lost to history. There was, however, one huge letter "E" in the sign. This would never do. But painting over it was out of the question, so they knew they would have to actually tear the sign down, or at very least knock it over.

It was a long journey to the sign, so as they walked along they began to sing marching songs. And this is the one part of the whole ugly scene that has remained alive to this day. For the song they sang, as they trod off on their mission was, "It's a long way to tip a rare E."

And now you know.