BEACH TALE: SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS--THE FABRIC OF MY CHILDHOOD

Way back when I was a young girl, my parent’s would park us in front of the TV on Saturday morning and toss us a box of Cap’n Crunch or Fruit Loops cereal (both great for leaving a “trail of crumbs” a lá Hansel and Gretel.)  Mom and Dad would then slink off to the kitchen where they could enjoy a morning of peace and quite with their coffee and paper.  I know your first thought is quite possibly, “Why didn’t anyone call Child Protective Services?” But let me explain that 1) the cereal was fortified with 14 vitamins and minerals (I think) and 2) there were some teaching moments on Saturday Morning TV back in the day.  Like Aesop’s Fables.  I can almost hear the music now as a cartoon fairy flies onto the screen and opens a voluminous book of Fables, and I would watch with rapt attention as I learned my moral lesson.  You might remember the classics such as “The Tortoise and the Hare” or “The Ant and the Grasshopper” or “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” or “The Fox and the Grapes” (from whence we get the phrase “Sour Grapes.)  Classics, all. 

      By now you’re probably wondering how this all ties into the Beach Tale for this fine March Monday Morning.  Well, I’ve been busy of late, and thought I would save precious time by posting a Beach Tale that somebody else had written. It turns out I’ve spend more time surfing the Internet looking for a story than if I had just put fingers to keyboard and typed one myself. (I imagine there is a “moral lesson” in that in and of itself, but I digress.) 

     After an exhaustive search (and more than a few wanderings off topic), I surfed upon a beach-themed fable by Aesop himself.  And since he wrote them between 620 and 580 AD, the copyright has long since expired and I can post the entire thing without worrying about a lawsuit.    

     So without further ado, I give you a Beach Tale for today: 

 

THE YOUNG CRAB AND HIS MOTHER

"Why in the world do you walk sideways like that?" said a Mother Crab to her son. "You should always walk straight forward with your toes turned out."

"Show me how to walk, mother dear," answered the little Crab obediently, "I want to learn."

So the old Crab tried and tried to walk straight forward. But she could walk sideways only, like her son. And when she wanted to turn her toes out she tripped and fell on her nose.

Moral of the story:

Do not tell others how to act unless you can set a good example.

     To make this post worthy, I'll offer a bit of trivia. Aesop was a slave with the story-telling gene who lived in ancient Greece (5^th century BCE).  His “contemporary” was an Indian Buddhist named Jataka.  Both are credited with telling tales teaching moral values, with many fable-motif crossovers.  So it is unclear of Aesop influenced Jataka or vice versa, but that’s a topic much too deep for this Beach Blog.  We’ll leave the “big thinking” to historians and philosophers.       

     No, for us, the only question to ponder today is “What was your favorite Saturday Morning cartoon?”  For me, in addition to Aesop’s Fables, I also enjoyed H.R. Pufnstuf.  (For those of you who watched it, good luck getting THAT theme song out of your head today!)