Page 201 - 1985

i t ’s an old parable told
many years ago. Five Ralston students
were blindfolded and asked to identify
the object in front of them. The first
student touched something warm and
soft. “These are mittens,” the first
exclaimed. The second blindfolded
student touched something hard and
smooth. It was pointed at the end like
a sewing needle. “This is a very large
pencil. It’s like the one I used to have
in kindergarten,” the second student
recalled. The third student touched
something furry.“This is a bear!” the
third exclaimed frightfully. The fourth
student was asked to identify the object
by its sound. It was an odd cry. “This
is a car horn,” the fourth proclaimed.
The last and wisest students was given
no clues at all. He sat in a room and
was asked to remember. As he thought,
his memory of people’s faces popped
into his mind. He felt the presence of
their warm smiles, and the cries of their
laughter. He saw himself at a football
game cheering his team onto victory. He
saw the Ram mascot jump into the air
when a touchdown was made. He
remembered how the mascot's horns
were smooth and pointy like the big
pencil he had used in kindergarten. He
recalled how the Ram’s soft fur seemed
to be like that of a bear, and recalled,
when brushing up against it, how he
was reminded of warm mittens. Travel­
ing through the musty attic of his mind,
he remembered the creme and yellow
walls encasing all these memories. He
heard the silence of the library, which
was many times disrupted by the
“buzz” of another freshman caught
hustling out books.
This student saw through the
blindfold. He relied only on memory.
He needed no other aid to help him
define the object. He had defined the
year by reminiscing in the attic of his
mind. He knew what a true Ram was.
He had gone RAM DEFINING!