“OK children, it quiet time… get your resting mats and put them on the floor. Make sure that your mat touches no one else’s mat. Sydney Kaufman, I want you over here. Jason you’re over there and no, Marcus can’t be next to you.”
“Settled are we? Good. Today children, the story will be about Harvey, the Tyrannosaurus Rex and his friend Little, the Struthiomimus. They were friends. This was an unusual and special friendship because Harvey was a meat eater, and Little ate vegetables. Now this was long ago, and there were no Stop & Shops or Fleischner Meat Markets on Legion Avenue. Meat eaters ate other dinosaurs.”
“When Harvey was a young dinosaur, just about your age, his mother killed Little’s mother. Harvey’s mother didn’t have an issue with Little’s mother… she was trying to get food for her family.”
“But there was Little… about the same age as Harvey who was now an orphan. Little was so small that he wouldn’t have been a light snack for a Tyrannosaur, so Harvey’s mother didn’t have the heart to eat him.”
“Little looked so sad. So she decided to bring him back to their nest and raise him with Harvey. He was so small, she said, ‘I’m going to call you Little .’ And that was how Little got his name.”
“Little and Harvey got along well from the very beginning. Little showed Harvey that there were other things to eat besides smelly old dinosaurs. And pretty soon Harvey began enjoying lunches of fan palm, sassafras leaves and magnolias (in season).”
“Harvey’s Mother wasn’t pleased with this change in diet. He was sneaking away from the nest to eat leaves and he wasn’t finishing his chicken soup on Friday nights. So she did what any mother would have done, she sent Harvey and Little away to boarding school at Philips Andover Academy.”
“Now Harvey was big and looked tough and he had all those sharp teeth and those nasty looking clawed feet that scared all the other dinosaurs to pieces. But he wasn’t too smart and he was having a lot of trouble with his studies. He was good in sports, though.”
“Little on the other hand was very smart; but clumsy in sports. So the two friends promised to help each other out. Little helped Harvey in math and science. And if any dinosaur tried to take the ball away from Little, Harvey would eat the dinosaur. And that took care of that.”
“When it was time to go to College, off the two friends went to Yale. Again Little came to Harvey’s aid, getting him thru Macro-Economics and other tough subjects. Harvey did his part getting Little into Skull & Bones which was a club just for meat eaters.”
“Life was good in the Cretaceous Period. But dark days were ahead. A comet the size of Detroit hit the earth and threw up a huge cloud of debris that covered the sky blocking out the sun. It wasn’t long before the cloud spread all over the place. Even in New Haven. Plants died, even the new angiosperms. Soon dinosaurs were dropping like flies, dying of hunger because they had no food to eat.”
“Then on a very sad day, the two friends walked all the way from Chapel St. to Tumblebrook Rd looking for food; but they could find none. Harvey overcome and crazed with hunger did the only thing he knew best… he ate Little!”
“And that is why children, we don’t trust Presidents named George.”
“But Mrs. Frieda, the Tyrannosaurus was named Harvey!”
“Oh… well Sydney, that was just what his mother called him. His real name was George.”
“But Mrs. Frieda, wasn’t George Washington a good President?”
“My oh my Sydney, aren’t we the smart girl? I meant to say it’s Presidents named George who went to Yale that we have to worry about. And Sydney, it’s your turn to clean the bathroom sinks this week.”
{A note from the author. To pre-empt a few questions. The inspiration for this story came from Sandy. She came up with a working title of “Harvey the Dinosaur and Little”, and she suggested some dialogue that sounded like a Jurassic version of Selma Mazur on Kings Highway, Brooklyn. It was my decision to transform the story into a darker fable. I have traced this unfortunate view to Miss Mylons on Central Avenue where I matriculated in Nursery School. I was forced against my will to nap on a towel. And more telling, I had to play the part in the school play of a deer who was accidentally shot by a hunter who was trying to protect his family from a mountain lion. This should explain, to some, the fragile nature of my emotional make-up.}