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Date: Sat, 26 Oct 1996 14:07:23 EDTFrom: "Marvin E. Kiel" <[email protected]>Subject: Surprise Endings
Something that will add variety to good campfires are stories. Of course, allstories should have a purpose, be clean, and not put down any person or ethnicgroup. The purpose can be to entertain but it's nice if it makes a moral
point.
Some of the stories that I've enjoyed telling at campfires have surpriseendings. I am compiling a group of surprise ending stories and would likecontributions from SCOUTS-L. Please send me your best story (ASCII text format)and if you're interested in the final compilation, let me know.Address: [email protected]. I will acknowledge all contributions butreserve the right to reject or edit. (:-)
Here are a couple of stories to illustrate my point:
Story #1:
I believe this story was told by Garrison Keillor on National Public Radio.It's about two baby boys who were identical twins. Unfortunately, their mothercould not keep them and had to give them up for adoption. Also, unfortunately,they could not be kept together and were adopted by different families. One boywas adopted by a Spanish family and they named him Juan. The other boy wasadopted by an Arab family and they named him Amahl.
So Juan and Amahl, identical twins, grew up in separate families and each had ahappy childhood and teenage years. When they were in their early twenties, eachbecame curious about their background and started asking questions. And throughan agency they each discovered that they had an identical twin brother andeventually they made contact. They were thrilled at this discovery and startedmaking plans for a meeting. Their families also became involved and decided to
make it a big family reunion which would be held at a large airport in Spain.
On the day of the big event, Juan and his family made the short flight fromanother city in Spain to the airport and proceeded to a special meeting roomwhere the reunion was to take place. However, Amahl and his family did not makeit. They missed their plane connections!
Well, Juan's family was quite disappointed but they took everything quite well.Their logic was something like this: "If you've seen Juan, you've seen Amahl!"
Story #2
This story is about three Cajun fisherman in Southern Louisiana originally toldby humorist Justin Wilson. Cajuns came to Louisiana from Nova Scotia in the1750's. Many of them speak a colorful language of English and a dialect ofFrench. We had the privilege of living in New Orleans for 16 years and learnedhow to spell and pronounce many of their names.
This story is about Boudreaux, Benoit (pronounced ben-wah), and Dugat(pronounced doo-gah), three shrimp fisherman. On one morning as CaptainBoudreaux headed his boat towards the Gulf of Mexico, Benoit and Dugat werebusily reeling out the nets. Dugat was careless and stood with one foot insidea coil of rope. As the nets went overboard the coil of rope snared Dugat,pulling him overboard. Boudreaux and Benoit were busy with other duties and did
not miss Benoit for almost 20 minutes. When they realized the tragedy, theyreeled in the nets and hauled Dugat aboard the boat but it was too late. Dugathad drowned.
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As they returned to shore the shock of the tragedy set in and Captain Boudreauxinformed Benoit that it would be his duty to tell the news to widow Dugat.Benoit panicked because he had a stuttering problem. "Please, no, Cap'n. Ic-c-can't do th-th-that. When I g-g-get excited, I s-s-s-stutter!" ButBoudreaux was unsympathetic. "Look," he said, "why don't you do like MelTillis and just sing it!" (Readers should know that Mel Tillis is a popular
Country Western singer who stutters when he talks, but sings flawlessly.)
Benoit worried all the way to shore about how he would tell this tragic news tothe widow Dugat. When he reached her house, he knocked on the door and when sheopened the door, Benoit announced in his best singing voice: (Tune: CamptownRaces) "Guess who drowned in the bayou today, Dugat! Dugat!"
YISMarvin KielSam Houston Area CouncilHouston, [email protected]
