Ungawa!

Out walking my dogs one day, I was wrestling as usual to keep control. Cosmo and Lucy were pulling hard toward an alluring smell off to the west, while Stella was dragging me north to Canada. I suddenly had a flash of the old Tarzan movies from the 1930's and 1940's. There was always a scene of an unfortunate native, usually some poor safari luggage carrier, being tortured. The particular technique my dogs reminded me of was where two extremely tall trees were bent down to the ground. The guy's arms were tied to the trees, and the ropes were cut, presumably tearing him in half. It was horrific, and I used to worry about something similar happening to me. Not too many crazed jungle natives roamed the suburbs of Salt Lake City, but you never know. I definitely crossed the African jungle off any future travel itinerary. These old Tarzan movies often played on Saturday afternoon TV. Tarzan, Jane, and Boy swinging through the trees on vines fascinated me. How cool was that? If I could do that, I would never walk on the ground. How did the whole vine system work? I used to watch to see if Tarzan hooked the vines when he landed where he wanted. He did not. Perhaps vine wrangling was part of chimpanzee Cheetah's job description. So, am I the only one who wonders why American actors in the 1930's had faux British accents? When Jane said "Tarzan", it came out "Tahzin". She said "dahling" a lot, too. Tarzan, on the other hand, was a dude raised by apes. He basically had one word, "Ungawa", which meant everything from "Yo, elephant, come here and give me a ride" to "OMG, that really hurt! Look what I stepped on!" At least he didn't pronounce it "Ungahwa, dahling". Since "Ungawa" worked so well on elephants, maybe I should try it out on my dogs. I doubt they speak Tahzin, but it's worth a try. "Ungawa, to the coffee shop!"