Who Were The Black Olives?

A Remarkable Tale from the Land of Podd was my fifth book, and first children's picture book. On the first page (after the title page) there is a picture of a can of olives, with the statement Dedicated to the Black Olives. Because I've been asked fourteen thousand times "Who are the Black Olives?" I decided to tell, for the sake of posterity, the backstory.

A Remarkable Tale began as a poem that I wrote in the 90's in response to a work incident. The occasion was a training video that I'd written and was producing. There was a need at one point for someone to demonstrate the application of the product. The manager, however, did not want her hands on camera and declined doing the demo, which involved rolling out a piece of film to adhere on a surface. (Only her hands were to be shown.) Because she would not do it, all of her subordinates also declined when asked to show how the process is done. Only their hands would show, I reiterated. They each made excuses and it appeared that we were going to be stuck. But then the department director did it for us, even though he had a mild palsy which he had to go to great lengths to conceal during this shot which focused on his hands.

After all the footage had been shot, two days of editing and post-production followed. There were three of us involved in these two very long days. The second day took almost 14 hours because we were resolved not to have to return for a third day. Because of our determination to finish we decided not to break for supper and instead, as it was getting increasingly late and we were getting increasingly hungry, ordered a pizza.

As is often the case in most pizza decisions, arriving at agreement on the toppings became a problem. After much negotiation the one topping we all agreed on was black olives. One thing led to another and we decided to call ourselves The Black Olives and in the closing credits of the training video we included an acknowledgement to The Black Olives. It became our inside joke. When the finished product was delivered Debbie Anderson, the producer, also brought cans of black olives, one for myself and the department head who worked on the project with us. We had had some great laughs and I brought the olives home to put on a shelf in my office.

Because this poem was connected to the incident that served as its catalyst, the can of black olives became a symbol that belonged associated with the lesson which is contained in this book. Hence, the dedication.

The book is available online at Amazon.com and locally at Goin' Postal. The list price is $15 but I've been selling them for $10. I was disappointed that the Duluth Public Library felt the cover was too scary to be in the children's book section. I probably would have had a more cheerful cover image had I thought more like a marketing person. C'est la vie. My illustrator, Ian Welshons,  produced some absolutely fabulous pictures to illustrate the story. You can see a few of them here. You can see more examples of Ian's work here.

Meantime, life goes on. Que sera sera. 

Wordless Wednesday: Images by Ian Welshons who is illustrating my story A Remarkable Tale from the Land of Podd

A Remarkable Tale from the Land of Podd

The event kernel that triggered this poem was nothing like what you read here per se, yet upon reflecting on what occurred this poem popped into my head almost as a whole piece. A number of my poems have happened that way.

The occasion was a training video that I had written and was producing. There was a need at one point for someone to demonstrate the application of the product. The manager, however, did not want her hands on camera and declined doing the demo, which involved rolling out a piece of film to adhere on a surface. Because she would not do it, all of her subordinates also declined when asked to show how the process is done. Only their hands would show, I reiterated. They each made excuses and it appeared that we were going to be stuck. But then the director did it for us, even though he had a mild palsy which he had to go to great lengths to conceal during this shot which focused on his hands.

Needless to say, the project was saved in the end. Once we go the shot we could exclaim those magic words of the film business, "It's a wrap." And now...

A Remarkable Tale from the Land of Podd

In a faraway land, in the Land of Podd,
folks felt themselves each just a little bit odd.
Why in fact, not a few,
not even a dozen,
and not just a sister or uncle or cousin...
'Twas the entire country caught under this spell,
each believed only others were anything swell,
and each felt discouraged, just a smidge, by his lot,
and this is what happened, believe it or not.

It had been a bad year, and in addition to famine
there were enemy troops on the borders of Salmon,
their unfriendly neighbors near the Mountain of Yore
and the King was near certain that his land was done for.

So he needed a messenger to save their lands
and he sought out a hero from the kingdom's bands.
But each made excuses, for this and for that,
One said, "My hair's funny,"
and "I can't wear a hat."
A second, who resisted, said his nose was too fat!

The king tried reason, and he also tried terror,
but quickly realized that the latter's an error,
so he promptly decided to appeal to God,
'cause these were strange people, these people of Podd,
for nothing was wrong... though each thought he was odd.

The king finally saw, although quite peculiar,
that the land would be lost -- including their ruler! --
if he couldn't find someone to carry out this task,
but there seemed no one else in his land left to ask.

Yet the Kingdom was saved, it turned out in the end,
all because the king knew that to save his own skin
he would have to step down from his throne, to the street,
and even though he didn't like his own feet,
he became a great leader by hiding it inside,
and he ran 'cross the hills to the far other side
to bring back an army or some kind of troop,
to finish forever this enemy poop.

I guess that is why some are kings, some are not,
We're really all the same, and we're all that we've got.

copyright 1996 ed newman
PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED if attribution is cited.
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