DARKNESS WITHIN
I find it is easy to start an argument anywhere at almost anytime simply by asking: ”
What color is the inside of a watermelon before it is cut?”
Most people, confronted with that question, want to answer “Red, of course!!” but
many tend to move back from me a bit, wondering what kind of nut is running loose and
conversing with, and they usually let someone else blurt out the very words words they were
going to say.
“Red, of course!”
Others echo with the same reply and more than one of them is thinking about my
sanity and obvious lack of basic knowledge about such things as common as watermelons.
They decide that, although my elevator may be running , it simply does not go to the
top floor. And, I let them stew in those juices until the moment arrives when I explain calmly
and deliberately that color does not become what it is until it is in the presence of light.
“That’s right!,” someone pipes up in a sudden show of support for our side. “A
watermelon’s insides, before it was sliced are without sunlight, therefore they would appear,
if you could see them, as being black, maybe grey or colorless.”
It can become a vegetarian’s stampede as other vegetable after another is
mentioned ... beets, carrots, peas, squash.... avocados, cabbage, rutabagas, okra,
cantaloupe relations, and creshaws and zucinnae in addition. It’s endless as are the colors
and tints of the rainbow.
A few are not convinced at all. But they will worry about it later on and, eventually
they will come around - with reservtions and exceptions duly noted.
Or, if that doesn’t click this one next time: “Deer grow new antlers every year, and drop
them in the forest after mating season. They get new ones in the spring.”
I find a few hunters who can’t go along with that statement who ask: ”How come, if
what you say is true, that deer shed their antlers every year, then how come it is I don’t go
walk-in’ ‘round knee-deep in old deer anthers?”
Yet another argument starter question is: “How high is up?”
As my mother used to say: “A-dell”..she always abbreviated me when she was a bit
irked with my conduct. When I would talk like I’ve been for the past page or so, she would
look at me intently and say quietly: “A-dell, don’t be so silly!”
A.L.M. July 9, 2002 [c415wds]
