Date: Mon, 04 Oct 2004 23:35:10 -0500
From: "david j. brown" <nonidesign@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] A harmonica saved my life= true story:) CONTEST
I am reminded of one incident which occurred durng my travels in
Africa.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Or the day before yesterday.
Or maybe last week or a few months or so. I'm sure it wasn't Wednesday
as
Wednesdays are for tea and cricket.
Anyway.... there I was, alone, facing down an entire Zulu warrior
contingent
on an open plain with nothing but my tattered regiment uniform and a
Special
20 ( in "D" with a rotten 4 hole draw reed...blast!). As they let out
their
shrieking war cry, and came storming down the ridge, my blood turned
to ice.
The vision of thousands of the enraged warriors will never leave my
memory.
In a flash of terror-inspired brilliance I removed the covers from the
harp
and sharpened their edges on a small stone at my feet (it looked a lot
like
a stone I once saw removed from the possession of a young boy by
airport
security while I was on holiday in the colonies). I then summoned all
the
courage I could muster and, using the knife edged covers tore through
the
bloody savages like a tornado using all the martial arts skills I had
learned while studying in the temples of China!
But I digress.
It was madness I tell you, simply madness! I was like a demon
possessed as I
ripped through their ranks faster than Harp-L responses to emails
criticizing Little Walter. I fought like a madman, all the while
filled with
desperate concern over whether or not the covers would ever be airtight
again. Needless to say, I prevailed.
Later, as the sun set on the edge of the battlefield, I was sitting
atop a
pile of corpses, playing "Taps" in honor of my fallen adversaries
using my
reassembled harp (I repaired the damaged reed using a tiger fang
plucked
from a necklace previously owned by one of the blighters and sealed
the harp
using fragments from a leather loincloth).
The attack was the single most terrifying experience of my
life....except,
of course, for the time I was forced to climb Mount Everest with
nothing
other than a Super 64 with a broken spring.
But that, as they say, is another story old boy, eh wot?
Cheers,
Col. Wendell "Pip" Thorndike.