A Man, a Boy and a Donkey.

                                                     November 8th 2010

    I had a friend send me the following a few weeks ago. As you know, it's an old Aesop's fable and you may have seen this or other versions of it before. But what you don't know is an episode from my past that I've written about which you'll find at the bottom...

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An old man, a boy & a donkey were going to town. The boy rode on the donkey & the old man walked. As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking & the boy was riding
The man & boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed positions.
Later, they passed some people that remarked, "What a shame, he makes that little boy walk."
They then decided they both would walk! Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So, they both rode the donkey.
Now they passed some people that shamed them by saying how awful to put such a load on a poor donkey.
The boy & man said they were probably right, so they decide to carry the donkey.  As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal & he fell into the river and drowned.

The moral of the story?

    This, you’ll agree, is a rather asinine one: 

If you try to please everyone, you might as well...
Kiss your ass good-bye

    The proper one should read:

You may fool some of the people for some of the time; all of the people for some of the time but never all of the people all of the time!

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 Back when I was in kindergarten, I remember having to take part in a play which was a Sinhalese version of this story. Yes, you guessed it!! I was the donkey; chosen, for, among other damned good reasons, because I was the tallest in the class and therefore my shorter classmates could ride me with their legs off the ground! I had to wear a  papier mache donkey's head and grey blanket. As the story unfolded, I had to walk back and forth across the stage on my hands and knees. I knew my parents were in the audience and to catch a glimpse of them I had to swing my head from side to side in order to be able to see through the two little holes in the mask.

When I got home my father commented on this: “You were the perfect donkey!” he said, “You were even tossing your head to and fro to shake off the flies!" I thought that was a great compliment (donkey that I was!) and so did not explain the real reason for those jerky movements of the head!

That was my one and only Thespian assignment. I must admit, though, to having acted the ass many times as an adult. However – thank God - I believe I haven’t made many enemies and so haven’t had to watch my ass!