The tale of the country camel

By Staff
Leada DeVaney, Hartselle Enquirer
"I was driving down this road one time and I saw an elephant standing in a field. There was a camel, too."
I turned my head and looked at Greg in disbelief and then I just started laughing.
"You saw an elephant? And a camel? Standing in a field in the middle of East Nowhere, Mississippi? I think you probably were seeing pink elephants that day," I replied.
Greg and I were in the middle of East Nowhere, Miss. headed to his mother's annual Eastern Star picnic.
She was providing the dessert and had to be there early. Greg had assured her he knew how to get to the picnic's location.
What he told his mother and what turned out to be the case were two different things.
It was during the search for the picnic that the story of the camel emerged.
"I swear to you I was driving down this road and I looked over to the side and there was an elephant. And then when I looked again, there was a camel standing in the middle of the field. Don't ask me why – I'm just telling you what I saw," he said.
As he was telling me this, he turned around and headed in the other direction.
We kept driving. And talking.
"Greg, there is no way someone would keep a camel, much less an elephant, out here. Are you sure it wasn't a horse or a mis-shapen llama?" I asked as I laughed even harder. "Are you now telling me a story about a poor, malformed horse that all his life has been teased because he looks like a camel?"
Greg pulled the car over to the side of the road and then turned around.
"I know that place is around here somewhere," he mumbled. "It wasn't too far from where that camel was."
I laughed even harder.
"Oh, look!," I said. "There's a dinosaur over in that field and there's a unicorn standing next to him."
By now, I was crying because I was laughing so hard.
Greg pulled the car over into a gas station. He was laughing, too, as he walked in the station and asked for directions.
Through my tears and laughter, I was stunned.
He got back in the car and nodded when I asked if he knew where he was going.
He turned the car around and headed in what we now knew to be the right direction.
We drove for about a mile when, off in a field, I noticed a large creature standing in a field.
It was a camel. There was no elephant, but there was most definitely a camel – no misshappen horse or homely llama.
I have now seen it all. Greg stopped to ask for directions and there was a camel in a field in East Nowhere, Miss.
The world is indeed full of wonders.