In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Louisiana State University.
On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with his left leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed extremely distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee, inspected the elephant’s left foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.
The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense moments. Peter stood frozen, full of fear, thinking of nothing else but being trampled to death. Eventually the elephant carefully patted him with his trunk and then trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away. Peter never ever forgot that elephant or the events of that day.
Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenage son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Daniel were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter and lifted its front left foot off the ground and then put it back down. The elephant repeated this several times and then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at Peter.
Remembering that amazing encounter back in 1986, Peter could not help wondering if this really was the same elephant.
Peter summoned up all of his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back at him in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing with all of his might… killing Peter instantly.
…It probably wasn’t the same elephant!
A couple were dressed to go out for the evening, for dinner and the theatre. They turned on a 'night light', turned the answering machine on, covered their pet budgie and put the cat in the garden.
They phoned the local Taxi company and requested a taxi. The taxi arrived and they opened the front door to leave the house.
As they walked out the door, the cat that they had put out in the garden scooted back into the house. They didn’t want the cat shut in the house, because she always tried to get at the budgie.
The wife walked out to the taxi, while the man went back inside to get the cat. The cat ran upstairs, with the husband in hot pursuit.
Waiting in the cab, the wife didn’t want the driver to know that the house would be empty for the night, so she explained to the taxi driver that her husband would be out soon. “He's just going upstairs to say goodbye to my mother”, she told the driver.
A few minutes later, the husband returned to the cab. “Sorry I took so long”, he said, as they drove away. “That stupid bitch was hiding under the bed. I had to poke her arse with a coat hanger to get her to come out! She tried to take off, so I grabbed her by the neck. Then, I had to wrap her in a blanket to keep her from scratching me. But it worked! Anyway, I hauled her fat arse downstairs and threw her out into the back garden! She’d better not shit in the vegetable garden again!”
The silence in the Taxi was deafening.
There was a bagpiper, who had played many gigs. Recently he was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. The man had no family or friends, so the service was to be at a pauper’s cemetery in the countryside near Inverness.
As the piper was not familiar with this area, he got lost and being a typical man, didn’t stop to ask for directions. He finally arrived an hour late and saw the undertaker had evidently gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers and crew left and they were eating lunch.
He felt badly and apologised to the men for being late. He went to the side of the grave and looked down and the vault lid was already in place. The piper didn’t know what else to do, so he started to play.
The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. He played out his heart and soul for this man who had no family or friends. The bagpiper played like he had never played before for this homeless man.
And as the piper played ‘Amazing Grace’, the workers began to weep. They wept, the piper wept… they all wept together.
When he finished, he packed up his bagpipes and headed back towards his car. Though with his head hung low, his heart was full.
As the piper opened the door to his car, he heard one of the workers say, “I’ve never seen nothing like that before and I’ve been installing septic tanks for twenty years.”
