Elephant's Memory

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from college.

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing

with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed so Mbembe

approached it very carefully. He got down on one knee and inspected the

elephant's foot, and found a large thorn deeply embedded in it. As carefully

and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the thorn out with his hunting knife,

after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to

face the man and with a rather stern look on its face, stared at him. For

several tense moments Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being

trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned and walked away.

Mbembe never forgot that elephant nor the events of that day.

 

Twenty years later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son. As

they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and

walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large

bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot off the ground, then

put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all

the while staring at the man. Remembering the encounter in 1986, Mbembe

couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Mbembe summoned up his

courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He

walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. Suddenly the

elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of the man's legs and

swung him wildly back and forth along the railing, killing him.

 

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

[antonio carroccio]

Jim, stay out of alcohol!!!

[callison]

Tommy Smothers told this one on the Smothers Brothers Hour back in the late sixties. The principal changes were it was a hunter and after removing the thorn, he captured the elephant and sold it to a circus. Many years later, he went to a circus and the elephant recognized him, reached out with it's trunk and gently lifting the many out from his seat, proceeded to squish him to death with his trunk.

 

Elephant jokes were very popular at the time as well.

 

Why did the elephant lie in the road? To trip the ants.

 

Why do elephants were yellow sneakers instead of white ones? They don't, it's just that occasionally they forget to lift their leg.

 

Why do some elephants have red sneakers? Slow natives...

[Skeeve]

Nice touch, using the name of the supposed Congo dinosaur ["M'okole M'bebe"] as the victim's name. Since lots of people would have a feeling of vague familiarity of the name from when the whole legend-chaser news hit the fan about it back in the early 90s, it lends a type of verisimilitude to the whole joke.

 

Still, the one about the 5 blind men & the elephant is better...

[helicopterjim R.I.P.]

Nice touch, using the name of the supposed Congo dinosaur ["M'okole M'bebe"] as the victim's name.

 

Mokèlé-mbèmbé

[mike wilson]

Why do elephants were yellow sneakers instead of white ones? They don't, it's just that occasionally they forget to lift their leg.

 

I thought it was to hide, upside down, in your bowl of custard. It's the only chance they have of a suprise attack.

[belfastguzzi]

Okay, perhaps not the finest psychodelic, rock & roll band in the world, but still, it brings back warm memories of the early seventies when they backed John Lennon. Ho hum.