Continued from last week...When we last heard from our friends, Bright Dwight and Silly Willy, Willy had given up on ever swimming across the river and making it to the market to sell his heavy load of apples. He sat upon the bank, despondent, wondering what could be done to solve this river problem. His brother, Dwight, on the other hand, had devoted his thought, time, energy and resources to building a boat. His boat was strong and swift, and he glided across the river to the market with his load of apples and returned with a tidy profit.
Silly Willy knew that the river had been a threat in previous years. He had heard tell of the swift and rapid stream (SARS) a few years earlier. And only the previous year, waterfowl had been seen swimming in the river, giving rise to great fears of bird flow. And this very year, wild boars had been seen frolicking upon the banks of the river upstream of the village. “Certainly, with hogs in the river,” Willy thought aloud, “we must protect ourselves against swine flow.” Silly Willy thought and thought, and soon formulated a brilliant plan. “This river is a menace to all our land,” thought Willy. We must prevent this dangerous and life-threatening flow.”
Willy rose early the next morning and swam across the river to meet with the Village Executive Council. He swam with fear gripping his heart for he knew that the river threatened his very existence.
“First there was SARS, then Bird Flow, and now Swine Flow,” admonished Silly Willy to the council. “This river is a grave threat to the people of our fine village. Something must be done!”
“Yes, but what?” Asked the Chief of the Executive Council.
“We must stop the flow before it can reach us,” answered Silly Willy. “We need only build a dam, far upstream, and that will prevent the water from ever reaching us.”
“Brilliant!” exhorted the Chief Executive.
“Yes, brilliant indeed!” echoed the council.
“From now on, you will be known as Wise Willy,” proclaimed the Chief Executive.
“Wise Willy…Wise Willy…Wise Willy!” chanted the council with great adulation.
Soon after, the wisest of the land’s Magnificent Dambuilders (MD’s) teamed up with the Committees for Drainage and Canals (CDC) and before you could say, “belly flop,” they had a plan approved by the Fence and Dam Authority (FDA).
The people of the land rejoiced at the wisdom of the plan, knowing that their lives would be safer and more pleasant as soon as they were dammed.
Most people rejoiced, but not all…
Some warned that damming the river was dangerous, and a dam would never work anyway. Among these voices of reason was Bright Dwight. “We need the river,” he said. “If the river stops flowing, everybody’s well will go dry. Dry wells are a much greater threat to our health than a flowing river. We must preserve our wells. Well-ness is far better for us than trying to prevent the flow.”
“Preposterous!” replied the MD’s and the CDC in unison. “Don’t you know that 36,000 people die each year from the flow?”
“Um…who?” asked Dwight.
“Well…(ahem)…uh…we don’t know exactly who. Everybody just knows that 36,000 people die from the flow every year. This is an incontrovertible truth because we say it every year.”
One villager chuckled to a friend, “These ‘well-ness’ people are strange ones, to be sure.”
“Strange indeed,” agreed the friend. “And this Dwight fellow is the strangest among them. Too bad he isn’t brilliant like his brother, Wise Willy. Obviously one brother got most of the brains in the family.”
With that, this story—from a time long ago and a land far away—comes to a close. I don’t need to tell you the outcome. It’s easy to figure out…
Author’s note: Please forgive the unsophisticated humor in this tale. You may even consider it pun-demic! (Oh, that one even makes me groan!)
Until next time,
Dr. Mark William Cochran
Chiropractor, Energy Healer, Lightworker
Sandpoint and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
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