Magic leaf cajoles old dog into new tricks
BURTON W. COLE, Editor
By Burton W. Cole
“No, no, no!” My tormentor, er, teacher seemed a tad irritated. “It’s hold down the command and shift keys together, then, without letting go of them, you press that key, THEN, this key. After that is when you hit the ampersand. It’s so simple.”
I felt sorry for the kid. He was trying. I was trying, too — his patience, mostly. “Old dogs and new tricks, you know.”
“Dude, I could teach my old hound dog faster than you are catching on.” The kid sighed. “How can I get you to understand?”
“Have you got a magic leaf?”
“Say what?”
“A magic leaf. You can learn how to do anything if your jaw’s clamped on a magic leaf.”
Back when I turned 6, my birthday came with a shiny, red bicycle. I wheeled it out the door, hopped aboard — and pedaled furiously all the way to the ground, where I landed with a thud, the birthday bicycle on top of me.
My cousin Ollie, who by some misfortune had been invited to my birthday party, fell over too, only he was laughing.
“That was great,” he gasped. “Do it again.”
“Shut up.” I pelted with the pebbles that I dug out of my arm.
“You want me to teach you?”
Ollie claimed that he’d been riding a two-wheeler since he was three days old. He would have done it sooner, he said, but his folks walked him over to his grandparents’ house when he was two days old and he couldn’t get away until the next day.
“What you need is a magic leaf. That’s how I got so good.” He sorted through a pile of leaves with the toe of his sneaker. “There’s one.” Ollie snatched a red maple leaf out of the rotting pile.
“It doesn’t look magic to me.”
“Of course it is. What you do is clamp it between your teeth. That’s how I learned to ride.”
“Can you flick the slug off it first?”
The slimy bug gone, I bit down on the red leaf, scooted onto the bike, closed my eyes and pedaled.
Two seconds later, back on the ground, I spat out what was left of the Magic Leaf, along with some driveway gravel.
Ten minutes later, when he mostly finished laughing, Ollie said, “I shoulda remembered, for doofuses, it takes magic twigs.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You’re making that up.”
“Would I kid you?”
“Yes.”
“Mmmph.”
But I wanted to learn to ride. I think I swallowed half of the magic twig when I hit the driveway four seconds later.
“See, it’s working,” Ollie said. We just need to find the right magic thing for you.
Over the next 20 minutes, I wiped out while biting down on a magic candy wrapper, a magic rubber ball, a magic cap gun roll, a magic rock and a magic sock straight off of Ollie’s foot. I hit the dirt every time.
What I needed was a magic box of Band-Aids. And a magic bottle of Listerine.
“You wobbled almost 20 feet before falling that time,” Ollie snickered. “Maybe a magic banana peel? As clumsy as you are, Burtie, you’d stay upright instead of slipping like you’re supposed to do.”
“Har-de-har-har. I think you’re just trying to see what junk you can make me swallow.”
“Oh! There we go!” Ollie scooped up something stringy from Mom’s flower patch.
“Magic clothesline?” I asked.
“Magic garter snake.” He thrust the wriggling thing at my face.
I let out a whoop, hopped on my bike and pedaled away from Cousin Ollie and his garter snake as fast as I could.
“It worked,” Ollie hollered. “I shoulda remembered it takes magic garter snakes for doofuses. I’m a genius.”
And that, I told the kid trying to teach me the new computer program, is how you get someone to learn.
“You want to chew on a snake?”
“No. I need a magic leaf. Knowing what comes next if I don’t catch on is the best incentive to learning something new. Unless you have a recipe for roast snake. Or barbecue socks.”
Teach our old dog new tricks at news@falmouthoutlook.com.