Lion King and the Giant Elephant

I have been wanting to get a picture of myself with Jumbo. For those who do not know who Jumbo is he is an African elephant who was owned by PT Barnum and was marketed as the biggest elephant in the world. He's the reason why big things are named Jumbo, like fries and hotdogs. On September 15th 1885 poor old Jumbo met his maker after a train clobbered him making the town I live in the town that killed Jumbo.

A hundred years later the town erected a huge life size statue of Jumbo, with his butt facing those entering the city, so that all visitors to the great city of St Thomas, Ontario are greeted with the sight of the worlds largest elephant butt. I have been told many times that the placement of the elephant was long fought over and that the decision to place him facing east was for good luck. I say that anyone who has been stuck behind an elephant surely wouldn't consider the backside the lucky side.

During the fall last year Jumbo started to look tired so they wrapped him up in fancy tarps and in the spring started to work on fixing up his majestic hide. Every week, dressed up in my various characters, I have walked down to Jumbo to check on him and I must say he actually looks better than he did the first time around. I had been trying to make arrangements to go and get my picture taken nice and tight to his face but scheduling always seemed to be a problem.

This week I had little time to pick up my costume in time to do pictures at 10:30 so Sunday night I stitched together a pair of ears and a tail so I could get a picture with Jumbo. Fast forward to this morning I got up and put my ears on teased my hair like back in the 80's to give me a lovely mane when someone banged on the door.

I opened up the door to see the mail carrier with her head down sorting through the mail. I let out a little giggle and waited for her to look up. 'Now how do I explain this.' I think to myself. She looks up and lets out a little chuckle. “Oh, I think I have seen you around town.” she says. There we have it, folks,proof that mail carriers see it all.