By Homer Hirt
Regular readers of the Jackson County Times will have no problem understanding why I am writing about elephants and their feelings. To catch others up on the plot, I recently acquired a “life size” baby elephant statue, standing four feet high and extending from butt to tip of trunk a length of six feet. I had a reason behind this purchase, and I can assure you that it is a good one.
My action was not impulsive. I admit that I had harbored some resentment against the stylized “aardvark” symbol foisted off on us by our Party. I seethed inwardly for a time, and then began telling my fellow Republicans that we deserved something better.
I researched the matter.
The elephant as the Republican symbol was created by Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist that drew for Harper’s Weekly in the 1800s. He wished to differentiate between the two major parties and settled on the pachyderm for us and the donkey for the Democrats. In my favorite cartoon he depicts the elephant, wild eyed and furious, mashing Tammany Hall and breaking political planks labeled “Reform”, “Inflation” and “Repudiation”, while the donkey, clad in a lion’s skin and labeled “Caesarism” flees in panic. So there is no historical reason for the Republican Party to retain the aardvark as its emblem.
Here is another reason for us GOP folks to return to the real elephant as our symbol.
Elephants are very intelligent. They have the largest brain of any land animal. It is said that they never forget, something like the way that your wife never forgets. A month after Theresa and I were married, a shipmate came by and spent a couple of days with us. He and I sat with a bottle between us and spoke of days gone by, storms weathered, submarines chased, seaports visited and, eventually, girl friends. For days after his departure Theresa would get a strange look in her eyes and ask: “And just who was this___________?” Most of the time I would not recall, and I was smart enough not to tell her even if I did. I understand elephants never forgetting, but I have never figured out how a woman can have a memory like this. It is both retrospective and uncanny.
Elephants have a deep political significance, more than the bull moose, which was that “Republican’s Republican” Teddy Roosevelt’s animal of choice when he ran for office on a third party ticket and lost.
Once a very wise man said that getting something through Congress is like elephants making love: it is accomplished with a great deal of noise, anything nearby is in danger of being trampled, and it takes almost two years to see results. Unfortunately, some presidents have the ability to push harder for the results, but the first two similarities still hold true. And elephants have not changed, just Congress.
Elephants were the original proponents of “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” Here’s proof.
Male elephants, no matter how hard working and patient, eventually go through a time known as “musth”. When the moon is just right and the stars align, and the food is just so-so, a strange fluid begins to run out of a gland under each eye. This is when he gets moody and breaks his chains and steps on friends and enemies alike. If I were going to compare this to humans, I would paint this picture: Billy Bob comes home a couple of hours late, just as he has done for most of his married life with Sue Nell. Only this time he drives up in the yard of their double wide and stomps up to the door. His key doesn’t work. He looks around and his clothes, fishing tackle and shotguns are out in the yard. Sue Nell has had enough.
Billy Bob goes to the local jook, where the sawdust on the floor is what is left of the furniture from the night before. He begins drinking and trying to reason out what has happened. He gets past the reasoning and feels that it is time to strike. He orders a “long neck” beer, not because the beer is better than what he has been sucking down, but because a “long neck” makes a better weapon. He looks around the dim, dark saloon and picks out the nearest man and lets go with the bottle. After a long and satisfying fight, he ends up in jail, and the next day he sobers up and does not understand what has happened. He has been in “musth”, just like a bull elephant. And, just like the elephant, he goes back to work, and eventually his wife takes him back, and he is all right until the moon and the stars and the beer align once again.
So what do we call my elephant? I have decided on “Ron”, for Ronald Wilson Reagan. That is not his name, it is just what we will call him. My friend Boudreaux from Cut Off, Louisiana had a ratty looking dog. “What’s yo’ dog’s name?” asked Arseneaux. Boudreaux replied: “I don’ know his name, but I calls him Fideaux”. So I call mine “Ron” until I find out his name.
Every day we in the “Grand Old Party” hear about how we have become disorganized and lost our bearings. These problems may be traced to a seemingly innocuous logo. But here in Jackson County we are on the cutting edge of change. Ron the Elephant is leading the way. Just save us all from that dreaded time called the “musth”.
And from Sue Nell.
Regular readers of the Jackson County Times will have no problem understanding why I am writing about elephants and their feelings. To catch others up on the plot, I recently acquired a “life size” baby elephant statue, standing four feet high and extending from butt to tip of trunk a length of six feet. I had a reason behind this purchase, and I can assure you that it is a good one.
My action was not impulsive. I admit that I had harbored some resentment against the stylized “aardvark” symbol foisted off on us by our Party. I seethed inwardly for a time, and then began telling my fellow Republicans that we deserved something better.
I researched the matter.
The elephant as the Republican symbol was created by Thomas Nast, a political cartoonist that drew for Harper’s Weekly in the 1800s. He wished to differentiate between the two major parties and settled on the pachyderm for us and the donkey for the Democrats. In my favorite cartoon he depicts the elephant, wild eyed and furious, mashing Tammany Hall and breaking political planks labeled “Reform”, “Inflation” and “Repudiation”, while the donkey, clad in a lion’s skin and labeled “Caesarism” flees in panic. So there is no historical reason for the Republican Party to retain the aardvark as its emblem.
Here is another reason for us GOP folks to return to the real elephant as our symbol.
Elephants are very intelligent. They have the largest brain of any land animal. It is said that they never forget, something like the way that your wife never forgets. A month after Theresa and I were married, a shipmate came by and spent a couple of days with us. He and I sat with a bottle between us and spoke of days gone by, storms weathered, submarines chased, seaports visited and, eventually, girl friends. For days after his departure Theresa would get a strange look in her eyes and ask: “And just who was this___________?” Most of the time I would not recall, and I was smart enough not to tell her even if I did. I understand elephants never forgetting, but I have never figured out how a woman can have a memory like this. It is both retrospective and uncanny.
Elephants have a deep political significance, more than the bull moose, which was that “Republican’s Republican” Teddy Roosevelt’s animal of choice when he ran for office on a third party ticket and lost.
Once a very wise man said that getting something through Congress is like elephants making love: it is accomplished with a great deal of noise, anything nearby is in danger of being trampled, and it takes almost two years to see results. Unfortunately, some presidents have the ability to push harder for the results, but the first two similarities still hold true. And elephants have not changed, just Congress.
Elephants were the original proponents of “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” Here’s proof.
Male elephants, no matter how hard working and patient, eventually go through a time known as “musth”. When the moon is just right and the stars align, and the food is just so-so, a strange fluid begins to run out of a gland under each eye. This is when he gets moody and breaks his chains and steps on friends and enemies alike. If I were going to compare this to humans, I would paint this picture: Billy Bob comes home a couple of hours late, just as he has done for most of his married life with Sue Nell. Only this time he drives up in the yard of their double wide and stomps up to the door. His key doesn’t work. He looks around and his clothes, fishing tackle and shotguns are out in the yard. Sue Nell has had enough.
Billy Bob goes to the local jook, where the sawdust on the floor is what is left of the furniture from the night before. He begins drinking and trying to reason out what has happened. He gets past the reasoning and feels that it is time to strike. He orders a “long neck” beer, not because the beer is better than what he has been sucking down, but because a “long neck” makes a better weapon. He looks around the dim, dark saloon and picks out the nearest man and lets go with the bottle. After a long and satisfying fight, he ends up in jail, and the next day he sobers up and does not understand what has happened. He has been in “musth”, just like a bull elephant. And, just like the elephant, he goes back to work, and eventually his wife takes him back, and he is all right until the moon and the stars and the beer align once again.
So what do we call my elephant? I have decided on “Ron”, for Ronald Wilson Reagan. That is not his name, it is just what we will call him. My friend Boudreaux from Cut Off, Louisiana had a ratty looking dog. “What’s yo’ dog’s name?” asked Arseneaux. Boudreaux replied: “I don’ know his name, but I calls him Fideaux”. So I call mine “Ron” until I find out his name.
Every day we in the “Grand Old Party” hear about how we have become disorganized and lost our bearings. These problems may be traced to a seemingly innocuous logo. But here in Jackson County we are on the cutting edge of change. Ron the Elephant is leading the way. Just save us all from that dreaded time called the “musth”.
And from Sue Nell.
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