The Time of Our Lives

The elephant came to town a long time ago. Barring some Vulcan memory wipe or creeping dementia, it was a time I’ll never forget - a simpler time, a time of innocence, a time if and when an elephant might happen to come to town, easy-going parents would give their kids permission to climb on its back without worrying too much because: “Hey, this is the 50’s! The world is perfect, the skies are blue, jobs are plentiful, and opportunities abound!” 

That aside, parents also wouldn’t worry too much because the elephant in question was a baby. A baby elephant is still capable of tossing off and stomping an obnoxious, gum-snapping kid, but this particular baby elephant had resignation in its eyes, perhaps from having given too many kids too many rides too many times over its young life. 

The elephant came to town in 1952. We didn’t own a TV, so it probably never occurred to my father that this particular elephant could bust its chains, kill a few kids, truncate the adults, and generally make a nuisance of itself. 

When the time came, my father shouted: “It’s time to see the elephant!” Things were more relaxed in the 50’s, that time I jumped on the elephant’s back and my father smoked his pipe and talked about fishing with the sweaty, pimply-faced kid in charge of the elephant. 

That time I rode the elephant, no one worried too much because (as I’ve just said) there wasn’t too much to worry about, this not being a rogue elephant with fire in its eyes. A rogue elephant would have risen up and trampled its obnoxious, whip-snapping owner, as rogue elephants usually did in 1950’s movies set in India. 

Those movie elephants gave the impression of giving as good as they got, but over time, they probably had resignation in their eyes, too.

From time to time, the pimply-faced kid in charge of the elephant turned to the kids and yelled: “Stand back, kids! Stand back!” to show how Responsible and Careful he was, and then he’d turn back to hear my father talk about the time he snagged two rainbow trout on a single hook ... “I had quite a time bringin’ ’em in,” he said. 

Meanwhile, the gazillion kids trying to scrabble aboard the elephant knew time was a’wastin’, so they scrabbled even harder.

We kids had the time of our lives, even if the elephant didn’t. As Charles Dickens wrote in A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...”

It was a three minute-walk from our house to the Home Oil gas station. On this day - the grand opening of that very same Home Oil gas station, the day before cars queued up to gas up - on this day the elephant went ’round and ’round the pumps as ever-more kids clamored for a ride. 

Whether that sad-eyed, gas-sniffing elephant is still alive, I don’t know. They say an elephant never forgets, and if this particular elephant survived those ignorant times, it may be wishing for the mercy of a Vulcan memory wipe, about now.

Although we lived just around the corner from the Home Oil gas station, my father never once filled the car there. My father was a pragmatist, and Bill (the Chevron attendant with whom I was secretly, passionately in love) always washed the windshield of my father’s car.  

“What’s Home Oil going to do? Have an elephant squirt the windshield with water? Have an elephant fill the car with gas?” Those were logical questions. So much for that marketing promotion.

A few days ago, I returned to the place and the moment in time when I and a gazillion other screaming kids rode the elephant. The gas station is long gone, of course, as is the succession of structures and shops that over time took its place. 

And what, pray tell, sits on that spot today? A child riding a fish. My father would have liked that. What goes around, comes around, time after time.

© Nicole Parton, 2019