The Road to Snozzcumber

Have you ever found yourself doing things the hard way just to see how you would stand up to the challenge? People do it right? Like the people who sled solo across Antarctica, or the nuts who climb Everest from the north face rather than the oh-so-simple southern approach.  We watch dramatic TV shows where the hero, imaginary or real, rises to the occasion with fortitude and pluck.  We all would like to think we have the nerve to be the hero, to do the outstanding in a time of crisis.  I think this is good, after all its “human beans” ability to put others needs ahead of their own that make us stand out among primates.  But does it count if you put yourself in the situation?  Is the guy who rows across the Atlantic as much of a hero as the guy who rescues a comrade on the battlefield?  I don’t know, and I’m not here to judge others. (don’t worry it’s a temporary condition)

Back to doing things the hard way:  So as a kid I would try and get across the creek by jumping from one stone to the next.  Becoming easy so the game changed to jumping across and not using certain stones,  eventually this became easy, so to add fear into the equation (the stream was super shallow) you had to jump across the stream, while skipping certain stones, in your Sunday Church clothes….Fear of mom’s wrath.

Or perhaps, more timely: Black Friday Shopping.  You know the stores will be packed, you know it will be frustrating. Seizing the challenge you plunge headlong into the parking lot of the KOP mall, grab a Starbucks and shop, contending with the masses along the way. The whole time thinking, “Ha I laugh in your general direction, pig noses.” Ok well maybe not, but you get my point.

In College I took American Lit 1.  The Prof was a rotund egomaniac who liked to quote Melville.  In fact he challenged us to try and write a sentence in Melville’s style better than he could…yeah that’s fair, PhD in American Lit vs. hung over freshman checking out the girl in the front row. For some reason this stuck with me, and erupted into action the last time I was book shopping. Rather than pick up the 200 page “Moby Dick” edition for 7 bucks, I got the Herman Melville anthology, 5 novels and 1800 pages of tiny font for the bargain of $8.50.  My plan was to heroically read the novels in order, culminating in the crown jewel “Moby Dick” and somehow distil a fine appreciation of Melville narration by watching it refine itself through the novels.

Last night I finished the last novel prior to “Moby Dick” I can at least now see the finish line. Already I can say that this accomplishment ranks exactly as the 1256^th best thing I have ever done, (1255th is tying the maraschino cherry stem into a knot with my tongue and 1257^th is learning how to reload a mechanical pencil without taking off the eraser.) So you can see how transcendental the experience has been thus far.  The potential for reward here is low and I know it.

Maybe “Moby Dick” holds the key, like the golem held the ring….maybe the gates of wisdom will open “Call me Ishmael.” !Wham! A bolt hits me and the previous 1486 pages will be worth it. I will be able to call up the professor and speak in rambling overly didactic sentences, riffing between sailing phrases and expositions on the mundane yet relevant lives of sailors. Brilliantly I will enter into ruminating conversation questioning the moral code of 1850’s Americana by juxtaposing it to the tranquil bliss of primal South Pacific islands.

Yeah I doubt it too…looks like Snozzcumbers and Frobscottle’s for me.