OT Re: [NPInfo] "Heartwarming" - the wages of kindness

[Calif NP]

In a message dated 9/1/2007 2:01:23 PM Pacific Daylight Time, MMITROSKYJ
writes:





  Sometimes I like these heartwarming stories, but this one is incredible.

  In 1986, Mkele Mbembe was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from
Northwestern University.  On a hike through the bush, he came across a young
bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed
distressed, so Mbembe approached it very car efully. H e got down on one
knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood
deeply embedded in it.



  As carefully and as gently as he could, Mbembe worked the wood out with
his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot.  The
elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face,
stared at him for several tense moments.  Mbembe stood frozen, thinking of
nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly,
turned, and walked away.  Mbembe never forgot that elephant or the events of
that day.

  Twenty years later, Mbembe was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his
teenaged son.  As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the
creatures turned and walked over to near where Mbembe and his son Tapu were
standing.  The large bull elephant stared at Mbembe, lifted its front foot
off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then
trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man. Remembering the
encounter in 1986, Mbembe couldn't help wondering if this was the same
elephant.

  Mbembe summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way
into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in
wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of
Mbembe's legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly .


  Probably wasn't the same elephant.