FROM THE OTHER JEFF

Jeff Sherwood is the brother I never had (or killed in the womb before birth). Anyway, he sends me all sorts of anecdotes, links and Internet oddities. This was the latest:

I usually don't send out these kinds of stories but this modern-day Aesop's Fable is particularly poignant:

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 outwith his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down itsfoot.

The elephant turned to face the man and with a rather stern look onits 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 or the events of that day. Twentyyears later he was walking through a zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turnedand walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe and lifted its front foot offthe ground, 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 slamming him repeatedly against the railing, then tossing his lifeless body to the ground.

Probably wasn't the same elephant....