Piggy holds the conch....

I once met a man who is determined to swim the Bering Strait. Unlike Lynne Cox who swam the Strait between Diomede Islands, about 2.5 miles apart, Mr. Stellant Gregory of 54 New Court Drive, proposes to swim the 50 or so miles between Alaska and Russia proper.

Mr. Gregory has been in training for his remarkable event since 1987, some 22 years for those educated in public school. He has invested approximately $737,239 in bagged ice ...

to daily cool his above-ground pool in order to acclimate his body to the extreme cold he will have to endure when he attempts his much-anticipated crossing.

Mr. Gregory has financed his training by entertaining people at special events. Mr. Gregory is a mer-clown -- perhaps the only one in the state, maybe in the nation. While mer-clowning may not at first seem a lucrative profession, think for a moment about how many mer-clowns there are and how dangerous it is.

Through amazing feats such as underwater juggling and hyper-hydrated fire breathing, Mr. Gregory has managed to contract with some of the worlds wealthiest families for children's birthdays, weddings, bar/bat mitzvahs, etc. Recently, my company even hired Mr. Gregory to entertain at our monthly Employee of the Month anointing ceremony.

When people are properly anointed an oil is used. Sometimes, though, people use something other than oils. And that brings us to today's topic, Piggy and the conch.

First, we must clarify how "conch" is pronounced: k[o^][ng]k according to the dict, my preferred dictionary (http://www.dict.org/).

I think Webster's is about the worst dictionary of the English language I have ever seen. Misters Merriam were crazy to take it over when dear Noah passed away, or perhaps they ruined it. Who's to say.

A conch is a sea animal, specifically a marine gastropod, that God created for us to use as trumpets and telephones. Most people have not figured that out yet, and just set them around the house as really cool looking kitsch. Mr. Gregory, however, saw a great financial opportunity in conchs, so he borrowed $15,000 from his terminally ill sister and bought a metal building. Then he went for a swim. Mr. Gregory, trained as a mer-clown, can stay underwater at any conch-infested reef for a very long time -- enough, apparently, to fill a metal building with desiccating conchs.

The odor was horrendous, so much that the neighbors complained to the landlord (Mr. Gregory bought the building, not the lot it was on). The landlord (Joe) complained to Mr. Gregory. Mr. Gregory had inserted by means only clowns are privy to, a very clever legal phrase that held Joe responsible for any foul orders emanating from Mr. Gregory's building. While his conchs had been rotting, Mr. Gregory had been fomenting discontent and greed in the minds and hearts of his neighbors in the trailer park. By the time the odor reached them and had grown beyond that which was their own, the conchs were well on their way to oblivion and the neighbors well on their way to lynching.

It did not take Mr. Gregory long to convince the trailer park residents that the real reason they and their homes smelled like dead wet dog was due solely to his conchs, for which Joe was responsible.

Tipping off Smarm, Warm, and Dipple, attornies at law, Mr. Gregory ensured that the trailer park residents were educated on their rights and well represented by a respected local law firm that cares. The plethora of law-suits that followed broke Joe. Mr. Gregory quickly bought up all of Joe's real-estate ventures in the unadvertised bankruptcy auction that followed. He turned around and sold all of his newly acquired assets at a very fat profit, ensuring his heroic swimming training endeavors would be well-financed for decades to come.

With his training secure, Mr. Gregory has had only to do enough clowning to subsist.

In the Lord of the Flies, the only one allowed to speak was the fly holding the conch. For insects, this simple rule holds, but for humans it also holds. Though humans do not have wings and flies do, holding a conch prevents a fly from flying. This makes humans and flies equal under the authority of the conch.

Doug Sabermouth, standing on the beach in 1986, watching a man in a clown suit dive beneath the waves in Hawaii was far more interested in the wetness of his bucket of sand than in conchs. He paused only a moment at the oddity that was Stellant Gregory slipping neatly and quietly into the surf. Then he went back to his sand castle. When his family moved from their single-wide to the double-wide across town, he thought it was because his dad got a promotion and a raise at the mill.

Now, 22 years later, Doug has wives of his own and children with whom he sometimes lives with his parents in that blessing of a double-wide that followed shortly on the tail of the magical visit to the Hawaiian beaches where he witnessed a clown vanish beneath the waves when he was five. While Doug has clearly benefitted from Mr. Gregories acumen, the world still waits all a titter for his promised performance.

Some claim that he never really ever planned to swim the Strait. Others that the Strait is only just the beginning and that he wants to be sure he is ready for the brazen challenges that will follow his success. Still others claim that Mr. Gregory was just out to make a buck.

Regardless, it is clear that the world remains unchanged, yet Mr. Gregory holds the conch.

Make of that what you will.