Taking white-elephant parable to heart: It takes a team to manage 10 spring-breakers
Richard Espinoza’s son invited 10 friends, all of them seniors with big — elephantine, you might say — appetites and day-to-day needs. Richard Espino, former editor of the Johnson County Neighborhood News, experienced a difficult task to manage a spring break trip for his son and his friends from the Midwest to the West Coast. The trip involved 10 high school seniors, all of whom were invited. Despite their well-behaved behavior and lack of knowledge about the dangers of the white elephant, Espino found it difficult to manage the trip. He used a parable where a king gave one of these animals to a courtier he wanted to punish, which resulted in a burden that led to the man's destruction. Despite the challenges, the team managed to find a solution and maintain their friendships.
Published : 2 months ago by Richard Espinoza in Science
One of the things I do in my day job is figure out ways to get important information to a huge group of people. Everyone has a unique learning style that makes it easier to take a message to heart, so I have communication tools in my box that range from short bullet points to personal storytelling.
Storytelling is the one I have the most fun with. But as I sat a few days ago among the ruins of an old cautionary parable that I recklessly brought to life around me, I think I spent too much time in the Show Me state. Apparently now I have to see a lesson unfold in front of me to really get it.
The parable I’m talking about is the story of the white elephant. You know the one: A king gives one of these glorious animals to a courtier he wants to punish, and what looks like a gift ends up being a burden that seals the man’s destruction.
I told that story last Christmas to a bunch of teenagers who didn’t know why I was calling the gift exchange they were planning a white elephant party, then walked away feeling good that I’d taught them a lesson about watching out for traps in purported blessings.
My naive smile as I packed for my older son’s spring break trip from the Midwest to the West Coast was proof that this was one lesson I was absolutely unqualified to teach.
See, this spring break, a week packed with day trips from my parents’ house where I grew up in Southern California, isn’t only my son’s vacation. He invited 10 friends, all of them high school seniors with big — elephantine, you might say — appetites and day-to-day needs.
Looking forward to the trip through rose-tinted glasses, I assured all the other parents that I had everything handled.
“No need,” I told anyone who offered to help. “They’re a good group of kids, well-behaved and sensible.”
And white elephants might be good pachyderms, maybe even the best-behaved, most sensible elephants a king can bestow. That’s not going to stop them from destroying anyone and anything that’s not ready for them, though, starting with any rose-tinted glasses that might be around.
A wiser man than me would have recognized the early signs that he was walking into a white elephant situation. You know, little things like having to figure out whether my hometown friendships were still strong enough for me to round up a midnight caravan from the airport.
Me, I required a 35-pound clue to see what was unfolding.
Thirty-five pounds of meat, specifically, which is what my brother smoked and grilled in various cuts for the spring breakers’ first dinner around his swimming pool. It was when I saw they’d polished off almost every bite that I really understood the ruin that could be hiding in the gift of seeing my son and his friends enjoying their last high school spring break.
This wasn’t just one white elephant. I’d signed up to wrangle the whole herd.
Even something as simple as finding everyone a place to sleep was going to be a hurdle until one of my aunts dropped off enough spare bedding to turn my parents’ house into a crowded hostel.
For breakfast the morning after our poolside feast, one of my parents’ neighbors made things easier when he stopped by with a few pounds of fajitas ready for the skillet. Another neighbor dropped off a basket of eggs from her backyard hens.
All week long, my parents laughed along with the boys at loud, festive breakfasts. I spent precious time with my mom cooking for the crowd while she showed me what goes in her special pot of fiesta beans and I taught her my own family’s favorite chicken and rice recipe.
And everyone who split the work of making the visit manageable kept sending others photos and stories of what the boys were doing, all of us sharing in the fun that we’d come together to support.
We not only survived the week, we figured out the solution to the problem in the old parable. Try to manage a white elephant by yourself and you will surely be ruined. But share your gift with friends and family, and everybody has a blast taking care of the thing.
Richard Espinoza is a former editor of the Johnson County Neighborhood News. You can reach him at [email protected].
Topics: Wildlife, Elephants