A BOG BLOG

LITTLE THINGS THAT ANNOY ME #57:  Did you ever get one of those silly stories emailed to you that’s supposed to have some kind of point so you read it and all it does is piss you off cause it was so silly and at the end the original emailer for some reason wants you to forward the silly story to all of your silly friends and if you do Bill Gates from Microsoft will send you a check for $10,000?  This is one of them…

 

His name was Fleming, and he was a poor Irish farmer. One day, while trying to make a living for his family, he heard a cry for help coming from a nearby bog. He dropped his tools and ran to the bog.

 

There, mired to his waist in black muck, was a terrified boy, screaming and struggling to free himself.  “This bog has bogged down this boy,” Farmer Fleming thought brilliantly.  He saved the lad from what could have been a slow and terrifying death.

 

The next day, a fancy carriage pulled up to the Irishman’s sparse surroundings.  An elegantly dressed nobleman stepped out and introduced himself as the father of the boy Farmer Fleming had saved.

“I am the bog boy’s father,” said the nobleman.  “Apparently, he was swamped.  I am here today because I want to repay you for saving my son’s life.  ”

“No, I can’t accept payment for what I did,” the Irish farmer replied, waving off the offer.  “It was my pleasure to save your boy in the bog.”  At that moment, the farmer’s own son came to the door of the family hovel.

 

“Is that your son?” the nobleman asked.

“Yes,” the farmer replied proudly.  “I call him……………..Son.”

“I’ll make you a deal. Let me provide him with the level of education my own son will enjoy. If the lad is anything like his father, he’ll no doubt grow to be a man we both will be proud of.  And then, one day, our story will be shared over the internet as inspiration to all.”

 

“Maybe someone will blog about the bog,” Farmer Fleming said to the bog boy’s father.  “It boggles the mind.”

 

Farmer Fleming’s son attended the very best schools and in time, graduated from St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, and went on to become known throughout the world as the noted Sir Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of Penicillin.

 

Years afterward, the same nobleman’s son who was saved from the bog was stricken with pneumonia.  What saved his life this time?  Penicillin.

 

The name of the nobleman?  Lord Randolph Churchill.  His son’s name?  Sir Winston Churchill.

 

Farmer Fleming’s real name?  George Washington Carver, the American scientist, botanist, educator and inventor.  The woman who lived in the house next to the bog where he saved Churchill’s life?  That was Susan B. Anthony, who went on to become a prominent Civil Rights leader in America!  Her neighbor next door?  The one and only Richard Jordan Gatling who patented the first modern machine gun!  The guy who sold the carriage to Lord Randolph Churchill?  That was Samuel Clemens, otherwise known as…you guessed it…Mark Twain!  And the gentleman who drove the carriage that day to Farmer Fleming’s?  Yep, that was Flash Gordon, the hero of the science fiction comic strip of the 1930s!  And who was Flash Gordon’s girlfriend at the time?  Dorothy Hamill, the famed ice skater who would win gold medal in the 1976 Winter Olympics!

 

Please email this uplifting story to 36 of your friends in the next five minutes because it’s so important to me that complete strangers read this!  If you do, you will receive a check for $10,000 from Bill Gates of Microsoft!  If you do not, you and everyone you know and love will die a horrific death…from the hands of Bill Gates himself.  Don’t piss him off.