Old Betsy
By ice rivers
- 386 reads
Let's get back to the present for a moment.
I went down cellar and grabbed our family heirloom, an ancient rifle called Ol Betsy. Supposedly Ol Betsy belonged to my Uncle Phil before he joined up with Custer on his way to being pin cushioned, slaughtered, scalped and castrated at Little Big Horn where his arrow laden body fell near the boots of Custer himself probably looking at Custer and yelling WTF.
Phil left Ol Betsy with his brother Daniel. Phil wouldn't need Betsy because Custer was offering Phil a new pair of boots, a sword, a uniform. some booze and a brand new rifle if he re-upped. Phil had come to America right smack dab in the middle of the Civil War. He didn't much care what side he fought for as long as he could get new boots and booze so he "fought" very reluctantly for both sides until the war ended. Before long he found himself with bad boots, no booze and a shot at further reluctant agression in the name of Manifest Destiny.
Phil headed West.
Betsy stayed East.
Over the next 150 years Betsy got a lot of use but she kept breaking down. Every breakdown required a fix. As I look at Old Betsy today, every single part of Betsy has been replaced, refined, combined and upgraded. Nothing remained of Old Betsy that wasn't newer than the old gal herself.
Here's the question. Is Old Betsy still Old Betsy? If not, at what point did Betsy stop being Old Betsy? Was it when 51% of Betsy had been replaced or was it when 100% of Old Betsy had been replaced. Maybe it was at 1% or 33%. Who knows? Whaddya think. There are no wrong answers.
The same thing is true with Progress, When did The Hobb, the Dobb, the Cobb, the Mobb the Jobb the Bobb the Hubb the Gubb the Sob et al stop being monkeys and began being primates? Was it with voluntary piloerection, agression, fire, cooking or somewhere else along the line?
- Log in to post comments