“OK children, it quiet time… get your resting mats and put them on the floor.\u00a0 Make sure that your mat touches no one else’s mat.\u00a0\u00a0Sydney Kaufman, I want you over here.\u00a0 Jason you’re over there and no, Marcus can’t be next to you.” <\/p>\n
“Settled are we?\u00a0 Good.\u00a0 Today children, the story will be about Harvey, the Tyrannosaurus Rex and his friend Little, the Struthiomimus.\u00a0 They were friends.\u00a0 This was an unusual and special friendship because Harvey was a meat eater, and Little ate vegetables.\u00a0 Now this was long ago, and there were no Stop & Shops or Fleischner Meat Markets on Legion Avenue.\u00a0 Meat eaters ate other dinosaurs.”<\/p>\n
“When Harvey was a young dinosaur, just about your age, his mother killed Little’s mother.\u00a0 Harvey’s mother didn’t have an issue with Little’s mother… she was trying to get food for her family.”<\/p>\n
“But there was Little… about the same age as Harvey who was now an orphan.\u00a0 Little was so small that he wouldn’t\u00a0have been\u00a0a light snack for a Tyrannosaur, so Harvey’s mother didn’t have the heart to eat him.”<\/p>\n
“Little looked so sad.\u00a0 So she decided to bring him back to their nest and raise him with Harvey.\u00a0 He was so small, she said, ‘I’m going to call you Little<\/em> .’\u00a0 And that was how Little got his name.”<\/p>\n “Little and Harvey got along well\u00a0from the very beginning.\u00a0 Little showed Harvey that there were other things to eat besides smelly old dinosaurs.\u00a0 And pretty soon Harvey began enjoying lunches of fan palm, sassafras leaves and magnolias (in season).”<\/p>\n “Harvey’s Mother wasn’t pleased with this change in diet.\u00a0 He was sneaking away from the nest to eat leaves and he wasn’t finishing his chicken soup on Friday nights.\u00a0\u00a0So she did what any mother would have done, she sent Harvey and Little away to\u00a0boarding school at Philips Andover\u00a0Academy.”<\/p>\n “Now Harvey was big and looked tough and he had all those sharp teeth and those nasty looking clawed feet\u00a0that scared all the other dinosaurs to pieces.\u00a0 But he wasn’t too smart and he was having a lot of trouble with his studies.\u00a0 He was good in sports, though.”<\/p>\n “Little on the other hand was very smart; but clumsy in sports.\u00a0 So the two friends promised to help each other out.\u00a0 Little helped Harvey in math and science. And if any dinosaur tried to take the ball away from Little, Harvey would eat the dinosaur.\u00a0 And that took care of that.”<\/p>\n “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.\u00a0 Harvey did his part getting Little into Skull & Bones which was a club just\u00a0for meat eaters.”<\/p>\n “Life was good in the Cretaceous Period.\u00a0 But dark days were ahead.\u00a0A comet\u00a0the size of Detroit hit the earth and threw up\u00a0a huge cloud of debris that\u00a0covered the sky blocking out the sun.\u00a0 It wasn’t long before the cloud\u00a0spread all over the place.\u00a0 Even in New Haven.\u00a0 Plants died, even the new angiosperms.\u00a0 Soon dinosaurs were dropping like flies, dying of hunger because they had no food to eat.”<\/p>\n “Then on a very sad day,\u00a0the two friends walked all the way from Chapel St. to Tumblebrook Rd looking for food; but they could find none.\u00a0\u00a0Harvey overcome and crazed with hunger did the only thing he knew best… he ate Little!”<\/p>\n “And that is why children, we don’t trust Presidents named George.”<\/p>\n “But Mrs. Frieda, the Tyrannosaurus was named Harvey!”<\/p>\n “Oh… well\u00a0Sydney, that was just what his mother called him.\u00a0 His real name was George.”<\/p>\n “But Mrs. Frieda, wasn’t George Washington a good President?”<\/p>\n “My oh my\u00a0Sydney, aren’t we the smart girl?\u00a0 I meant to say it’s Presidents named George who went to<\/em> Yale <\/em>that we have to worry about.\u00a0 And Sydney,\u00a0it’s your turn to clean the bathroom sinks this week.”<\/p>\n {A note from the author.\u00a0 To pre-empt a few questions. The inspiration for this story came from <\/em>Sandy<\/em>.\u00a0 She came up with a working title of “<\/em>Harvey<\/em> the Dinosaur and Little”, and she suggested some dialogue that sounded like a Jurassic version of\u00a0<\/em>Selma<\/em> Mazur\u00a0on <\/em>Kings Highway<\/em>, <\/em>Brooklyn<\/em>.\u00a0 It was my decision to transform the story into a darker fable.\u00a0 I have traced this unfortunate\u00a0view to Miss Mylons on <\/em>Central Avenue<\/em> where I matriculated in Nursery School. \u00a0I was forced against my will to nap on a towel.\u00a0 And more telling, I had to play the part in the school play\u00a0of a deer who was accidentally shot by a hunter who was\u00a0trying to protect his family from a mountain lion.\u00a0 This should explain, to some, the fragile nature of my emotional make-up.}<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “OK children, it quiet time… get your resting mats and put them on the floor.\u00a0 Make sure that your mat touches no one else’s mat.\u00a0\u00a0Sydney Kaufman, I want you over here.\u00a0 Jason you’re over there and no, Marcus can’t be … Continue reading