When someone claims something that doesn't pass the tests of logic, reason and experience, I say "Show me" before I believe it.
So, for the third time: How about those links?
Oblio13, well I have no life I guess
I don't believe this tall tale either, but I took 40 minutes over the weekend to google it.
There are some links out there, but they're all of the "I heard this..." "I read this somewhere..." "I had a friend who said he was told..."
And each time the story changes slightly -- so without confirmed sources and WITH changed stories, it has all the attributes of urban legend.
Here's one link from thehighroad.org
http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-171387.html
There are others out there, all with almost the same floating facts, vaguely remembered sources, etc. In other words, unbelievable.
Also, some of the logic presented is goofy -- in one they talk about shooting the elephant where its "skin is worn thin" from body friction. Sounds good at first, except that skin thickens with friction (called callouses...)
In other words, the evidence presented makes it look more like an internet myth than a fact. But what I find charming about it that it this internet myth is spiked with an old Darkest Africa myth; tall tales told to sell books in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Just as I don't believe the dime novels about the Wild West that were popular here -- they always were fabrications -- I don't believe this one.
Yet I love the idea that these canards live on and, indeed, take on fresh life in the internet age. They've thrilled generations of kids hanging out in tree houses and BSing about what they could bring down with their .22s and now they have a fresh life!
And, hey, tall tales are fun to tell! But, in the end, a tall tale is just that. The total outrageousness of a tall tale is part of its charm; they only get dreary when we start digging in and insisting they're true...
Did I tell you the one where I accidentally killed a grey whale by flicking a toothpick through its eye socket.....