The Truth About Ancient Athens And Mustang

Recently, in a discussion group I belong to my good Friend Always on Watch asked a question:

Hey, Mustang. Didn't you post a story at your blog about you and GM. Perhaps during the Age of Dinosaurs? I was looking for that story."

Now, for those of you not in the know, Mustang (who blogs at Social Sense which despite its author is a really good blog - but I digress), a really dear old friend of mine and I have had a number of exchanges regarding the activities of one another. You can read some of them here and here. At any rate, Mustang replied with a huge canard, specifically he said this:

No, that was GM who did that . . . during one of his episodes on mind expanding drugs, which is a perk of being in the mental health racket."

So, once again my friend Mustang has thrown down the gauntlet. So, as much as it truly pains me to tell this story, in the interest of setting truth down I must.

Many of you do not know how old Mustang really is. Well, I won't say he is old, but he helped God decide where to put all the plants in the Garden of Eden and supervised the raising of the pyramids.

At any rate, one of his many jobs in the past (distant past I might add - but that would be overkill) was as a teacher in Ancient Athens. In fact, though the history books have not given him credit for one of the really great instructional methods, I'm here to set the record straight.

You see, Mustang would gather his students around and the topic of the day would be discussed by the master himself asking questions forcing all students to really think critically. This is of course a long lost skill in today's centers of higher education. Mustang typically sat on a bench, on steps or at the base of the Parthenon (when it was a brand new building no less.) His students included many of the finest minds of the realm and Mustang was acknowledged the absolute master at developing young minds. Here is a drawing to illustrate my point... the old fart fellow on the bench to the right is Master Teacher Mustang!

As you can plainly see, his methods left nothing to be desired and wealthy families from far and near (and even from Poughkeepsie) sent their best and brightest.

But, I digress. Mustang held forth on many a sunshiny day, and not a few rainy ones as well. This continued for several decades until his slave died and he had no one to do his laundry. Too, he became somewhat senile and forgot to bathe on a regular basis. One day, while engaging his students (I was one, and that if nothing else proves I was far younger than Mustang) there was a terrific odeur if you will (I used the French because that way if Mustang reads this, he won't be offended). One of his students (moi as it were) remarked on the stench and Mustang, using his still impressive talent said "And what do you think may be the cause young Georgios Matthaios (the origin of the name GM)?"

"Master," I replied, "I can think of several possibilities. First, it is possible that I have a brain tumor which is causing olfactory hallucinations. However, since others also can smell the stench, I think we can safely rule that cause out."

"Secondly," I continued, "it is possible that the sewer in this neighborhood has not been cleaned for a while, but since it is behind we students and the wind is blowing from your direction, I think we can safely rule that out as well."

"Good young Georgios Matthaios," said Mustang, "please continue."

"Another alternative," said I, "is the slight possibility that we are being invaded by a bunch of smelly hippies, but since hippies won't be around for another 2,300 years or so we can also say farewell to that hypothesis."

"Lastly," dear Master, "there is the increasing liklihood that once again you are in need of a bath and having your clothes washed."

"Hissss, hisss, boooo, boooo." Said my fellow students.

"Not at all," said Mustang, "in fact, I can prove him wrong right now. For example, my socks are clean." And Mustang reached down to remove his socks, waved them in the air and the stench arising from them was so powerfull that half of the patrons of the Acropolis and all of us students fainted from the exposure. Mustang had actually put that pair of socks on many months before and boy were they ripe. This incident became so very famous, that Mustang's teaching methods were named for the incident.

You guessed it: The "Sock-ratic Method"

Posted by GM Roper at January 20, 2007 03:39 PM | TrackBack