Read Online Too Good to Be True: The Colossal Book of Urban Legends by Jan Harold Harold Brunvand - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jan Harold Harold Brunvand
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covered. He had yet to make the first of those $400+ a month payments.
This story was rampant on the Internet in nearly identical texts during late winter and spring 1997, when it was forwarded to me by several Internet friends. My title is borrowed from the classic version by Australian author Henry Lawson, written about 1899. Jack London penned his own treatment, “Moon-Face,” in 1902, but the basic plot, involving an animal set afire, occurs in the Bible (Judges 15:4–5). Appropriately enough, there’s a similar Aesopian fable called “The Burner Burnt.” Another retold version is in New Zealander Barry Crump’s hilarious 1960 book A Good Keen Man. The animal in the story may be a rat, rabbit, raccoon, possum, hawk, coyote, or the like, and there is even a shark version. Underscoring the “Just Deserts” theme is the moral stated in a version published in a book titled America’s Dumbest Criminals (1995): “that little coyote, although doomed, had at least managed to give them a small taste of what they deserved.” Less preachy, and much funnier, is a version written in 1990 for the Lewisburg (Tennessee) Tribune by columnist Joe Murrey, who claimed that the hunters’ dog was named Napoleon. Murrey’s punch line, from the dog’s tombstone, was “Napoleon Blown-apart.”
“The Plant’s Revenge”
T here was no way roommates David Grundman and James Joseph Suchochi could have known, on that winter morning in 1982, that their desert cactus-plugging expedition would one day be turned into an anthem by an Austin, Texas, rock band called the Lounge Lizards.
They also could not have known that their outing would eventually be documented for the world by urban-legend sleuth Jan Harold Brunvand.
And they certainly had no way of foretelling that Grundman would meet his ignominious end that day, literally at the hands of a giant saguaro.
Had they known all that, they might have gone, anyway. Such is the world view of cactus-pluggers—dumb shits who make sport out of blasting desert plants with firearms.
The facts of the case, according to Brunvand (who copped an account for his book Curses! Broiled Again! The Hottest Urban Legends Going from stories in the Phoenix newspapers), are simple: Grundman shoots saguaro limb. Saguaro limb falls and hits Grundman. Grundman dies. The cactus was approximately 25 feet tall, and likely well over 100 years old. Grundman—in his mid-20s at the time—was described by the Lounge Lizards in their song “Saguaro” as a “noxious little twerp.”
An added wrinkle in this tale was some early confusion over Grundman’s last words. The first news reports of the happy accident claimed that Grundman was yelling “Tim-ber!” at the time of impact, and had actually only managed to spout the first syllable, “Tim…,” when the fatal blow came. Follow-up stories in the papers later speculated that the deceased more likely used his last breath to call out to his roommate, Jim.
From Dave Walker’s article “When Cactus and Civilization Collide: Trifling with saguaros can be hazardous to one’s health,” in the Phoenix (Arizona) New Times, March 3–9, 1993, p. 36. OK, I admit that my book Curses! Broiled Again! created a legend out of inconsistent news reports and a rock song, but there’s also the parallel theme to the preceding story to consider: both stories illustrate how just deserts may be served up in the natural world. Plus there’s a curious parallel story from Vermont in which a hunter shoots at a porcupine in a tree and the animal falls on him, puncturing him fatally with its quills. As with other people who have learned the story one way or another, I’ve become very fond of the account of Grundman’s demise. Walker’s lively summary appeals to me, too. The article was promoted on the cover of the New Times with this wonderful line: “Cactus Courageous: A pointed look at the saguaro, Arizona’s signature succulent.”
“The Dead Cat
This story was rampant on the Internet in nearly identical texts during late winter and spring 1997, when it was forwarded to me by several Internet friends. My title is borrowed from the classic version by Australian author Henry Lawson, written about 1899. Jack London penned his own treatment, “Moon-Face,” in 1902, but the basic plot, involving an animal set afire, occurs in the Bible (Judges 15:4–5). Appropriately enough, there’s a similar Aesopian fable called “The Burner Burnt.” Another retold version is in New Zealander Barry Crump’s hilarious 1960 book A Good Keen Man. The animal in the story may be a rat, rabbit, raccoon, possum, hawk, coyote, or the like, and there is even a shark version. Underscoring the “Just Deserts” theme is the moral stated in a version published in a book titled America’s Dumbest Criminals (1995): “that little coyote, although doomed, had at least managed to give them a small taste of what they deserved.” Less preachy, and much funnier, is a version written in 1990 for the Lewisburg (Tennessee) Tribune by columnist Joe Murrey, who claimed that the hunters’ dog was named Napoleon. Murrey’s punch line, from the dog’s tombstone, was “Napoleon Blown-apart.”
“The Plant’s Revenge”
T here was no way roommates David Grundman and James Joseph Suchochi could have known, on that winter morning in 1982, that their desert cactus-plugging expedition would one day be turned into an anthem by an Austin, Texas, rock band called the Lounge Lizards.
They also could not have known that their outing would eventually be documented for the world by urban-legend sleuth Jan Harold Brunvand.
And they certainly had no way of foretelling that Grundman would meet his ignominious end that day, literally at the hands of a giant saguaro.
Had they known all that, they might have gone, anyway. Such is the world view of cactus-pluggers—dumb shits who make sport out of blasting desert plants with firearms.
The facts of the case, according to Brunvand (who copped an account for his book Curses! Broiled Again! The Hottest Urban Legends Going from stories in the Phoenix newspapers), are simple: Grundman shoots saguaro limb. Saguaro limb falls and hits Grundman. Grundman dies. The cactus was approximately 25 feet tall, and likely well over 100 years old. Grundman—in his mid-20s at the time—was described by the Lounge Lizards in their song “Saguaro” as a “noxious little twerp.”
An added wrinkle in this tale was some early confusion over Grundman’s last words. The first news reports of the happy accident claimed that Grundman was yelling “Tim-ber!” at the time of impact, and had actually only managed to spout the first syllable, “Tim…,” when the fatal blow came. Follow-up stories in the papers later speculated that the deceased more likely used his last breath to call out to his roommate, Jim.
From Dave Walker’s article “When Cactus and Civilization Collide: Trifling with saguaros can be hazardous to one’s health,” in the Phoenix (Arizona) New Times, March 3–9, 1993, p. 36. OK, I admit that my book Curses! Broiled Again! created a legend out of inconsistent news reports and a rock song, but there’s also the parallel theme to the preceding story to consider: both stories illustrate how just deserts may be served up in the natural world. Plus there’s a curious parallel story from Vermont in which a hunter shoots at a porcupine in a tree and the animal falls on him, puncturing him fatally with its quills. As with other people who have learned the story one way or another, I’ve become very fond of the account of Grundman’s demise. Walker’s lively summary appeals to me, too. The article was promoted on the cover of the New Times with this wonderful line: “Cactus Courageous: A pointed look at the saguaro, Arizona’s signature succulent.”
“The Dead Cat
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