The most learned Professor of Mythological Uncertainty, Dr. Christopher de’Grosse was large. He wasn’t fat by any means. He was simply Greco-Roman wrestling big. Other distinguishing features were his eyes. One was emerald green and the other deep aquamarine blue eye. His thick long white hair was pulled back in a pony-tail. His beard was full and well trimmed, framing his large round face. When he smiled it was infectious and the students in the lecture hall all relaxed and waited for his erudition to spill forth.
Dr. de’Grosse scanned the room. He smiled his signature smile and laughed. His voice, a deep baritone, was also the back beat of the college barber shop quartet, The Incomprehensibles. It rumbled off the walls of the lecture hall.
“Students,” he said his sonorous voice reverberating off the walls and through each and every person there, “you have been indoctrinated in the beliefs of science and such. Yet you still cling to some age old concepts, magical impossibilities that from the time you could first understand language and reason, you were and still are blindly accepting. Why?”
The student body was unprepared for this opening. They had expected more of a light hearted lecture, the kind the good professor traditionally gave before the solstice holiday seasons. There was a murmur in the room that spread like a wave at a football game from one end to the other.
He paused and waited for the rustling to settle down before he continued. He leaned on the podium. His great weight could be seen to cause it to bend under the stress. He made eye contact with all about him. He began again, “Ah, my students, I don’t mean to upset you and divert from my expected lecture. However, sometimes a word or two is required to stir the mind in order to break the jar and get to the cookies inside.
“You all hold to mythological uncertainties, passed down from ages past. Some are based upon truth, but through the ages these stories have been altered to the point of fable and fairy tales.
“There may have been older civilizations that have existed contrary to what some of our most illustrious scholars would have you believe, maybe there was an Atlantis. There are radioactive sections of India that resemble what we have on record in Japan. They date from over 15,000 years ago. The data has been suppressed from our most learned institutions. I’ll leave it up to you to research and discover.
“I’ll add one more: the legend of the voyages for the Golden Fleece could actually be based upon an ancient city or civilization that used skins to filter out gold from streams in or near the Black Sea. That city was buried or destroyed by earthquakes and landslides. A recent journal mentioned this in their Humans and Society section.
Two students stood up and left. “WE came to be entertained not lectured to. It’s the holidays and we are not in the mood to work or exercise our brains.” Some laughed; a few others got up and left the hall too.
The good professor expected that. In fact he expected a few more to leave. He waited to see if any more would follow. He looked about. “Any others of you not interested in my stories? It is the holidays I will not hold it against you.” The rest of the student body remained. He continued.
He smiled his customary wide smile. The students in front responded likewise and relaxed. His voice deep and full obliterated any doubts that may have been lingering. “Okay, now that those who have left us are gone, I can begin. You all enjoy and wonder about the holidays. You have pondered the ability of a famous fat man, on some sort of delivery device; to carry and present gifts to a socio-religious grouping of humans that as has been promulgated in different and various fashions over the centuries.”
“Santa Claus!” Hollered one student from the back of class.
Laughter all around.
“Yes Francis, Santa Claus, a subject very dear to my heart.” He knew Francis’s voice. “I will combine the best of science and myth and sew into the warp and weave of your minds the truth as I believe it to be. I will present it as a poem of sorts. A hand written copy in gold will be available to all of you who have remained as my gift to you. And remember this, it is a gift to pass down to others, and so too you may put it to memory and pass it down reciting it to your friends and family who do not receive this piece of parchment.
“It goes as follows,” and he began:
“Up in the sky, upon the ground
the claws of Saint Nic
deep in the minds of children found.
Giving gifts of toys despite
all we read ‘bout the speed of light.
So how can he belong to all
and amongst all a delight?
To the masses here while to the masses there
hath he jets in his underwear?
No, me thinks this and me thinks, that
tis ‘bout… say, a quantum bit more;
some thing we have yet to set store
in our compendium…pray stay,
of learn-ed truth,
superposition is, for sooth.
All these places and all these times
Initiated… a blink,
and… gone.
Be still and consider anon:
No speed measured/ no sled seen.
Where none can see and none can guess
just how fast St. Nic is.
So by laws of science he can
be,
in all places one, two, three.
A simple answer yet complex
Quantum superposition is
my best guess.”
The class room was silent as a late night snowstorm. Like the hiss of snow falling, only the sound of breathing could be heard; then came the applause and laughter. It was a fun gift and they knew it.
The good professor stopped, looked at his audience in the lecture hall, bowed a deep bow and said, “Good night to you all, and to all of you a good night.” He walked off the stage chanting, “Ho Ho, Ho.”
