July 24, 2021

The Calf Path

(Sam Walter Foss)

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Much admired Principal Gary Kipp, who served at Mark Morris High School, paralleling the time I worked there, beginning in 1981, presented this little story to his staff once upon a time.

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One day through the primeval wood
A calf walked home as good calves should;

But made a trail all bent askew

A crooked path as all calves do...

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The trail was taken up next day

By a lone dog that passed that way;

And then a wise bellwether sheep

Pursued the trail o'er vale and steep.

And drew the flock behind him, too.

As good bellwethers always do,

And from that day, o'er hill and glade,

Through those old woods a path was made.

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And many folks wound in and out,
And dodged and turned and bent about,

And uttered words of righteous wrath
Because 'twas such a crooked path;...

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The forest path became a lane
That bent and turned and turned again;

This crooked lane became a road,

Where many a poor horse with his load

Toiled on beneath the burning sun,

And traveled some three miles in one...

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The years passed on in swiftness fleet,

The road became a village street;

And this, before folks were aware,

A City's crowded thoroughfare...

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Each day a hundred thousand route

Followed this zigzag calf about
And o'er his crooked journey went

The traffic of a continent,

A hundred thousand were led

By one calf near three centuries dead.

They followed still his crooked way,

And lost one hundred years a day,

For thus such reverence it lent

To well-established precedent.

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...For folks are prone to go it blind

Along the calf-path of the mind,

And work away from sun to sun

To do what others have done.

They follow in the beaten track,

And out and in, and forth and back

And still their devious course pursue,

To keep the path a sacred groove,

Along which all their lives they move;

But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,

Who saw the first primeval calf.

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                                                Since it's my blog, I add the following: 

                                                No one stopped to ask why the road meandered. That’s just the way it was.

 

                                                Well, no one asked  until a little girl said, “why does this road have so many curves?”

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