CHAPTER EIGHT:
A STRANGE ENCOUNTER
Graham mentally kicked himself for not thinking of asking the UFO peoplefor a ride back to America. He had felt so much in awe of themagnificent spaceship and its unique occupants, though, that it hadnever entered his mind to ask a selfish favor of them. He now regrettedthat feeling. After all, the two aliens had made it obvious that theymeant to serve him and help him to learn. Surely they would never haveconsidered it a selfish request on Graham's part had he simply askedthat they drop him off in America on their way to wherever they mighthave been headed. But it was, alas, a little bit too late to cry overspilled milk. Instead, Graham had far more important matters to attendto. He had, after all, come into a very strange land where the physicallaws he was used to no longer seemed to apply. Not only that, but hispresence would be missed before too long, and he did not want to causeundue worry back home. But even more immediate: he had a powerful andvery wicked Witch to deal with who would soon catch on to his lies, andshe was not going to be at all happy with him. Had Graham been a lesserboy, he might have broken down and cried. But Graham decided instead tomake the most of the grave situation. He continued to walk past the areawhere the UFOlanders had been. His main concern now was to get as faraway as possible from the awful old Witch's castle. He was wondering inwhich specific direction to go when he heard a noise in the trees. Atfirst he could not identify the sound, although it was a familiar sound.Because it was so far out of place in Oz, it did not register at first.But, yes! Now he was certain. It was the sound of a television set. Thatis to say, the sound of human voices that could only be coming from aradio or TV. It is a sound you simply cannot mistake. Now the sound wasgetting louder. It was coming toward him. _What on earth could atelevision set be doing here_? Graham thought. And how could it bemoving toward him? The answer immediately became known when out from aclump of trees walked a robotic looking creature. He had triangularshaped legs and arms and body. In place of a face he had a portabletelevision set. Not only that, but the channels kept changing. FirstChannel Two with the evening news. Then Channel Four with a basketballgame. Then Channel Seven with _Jeopardy_! Then Channel Eleven with aprogram about UFOs. Then Channel Thirteen with a commercial for Head andShoulders anti-dandruff shampoo. And so on, and so on. Well, this wasthe strangest sight to behold. A walking television set. It walked rightup to Graham and stopped right up against his face. Then the screen wentblank for a moment and a face appeared. That is to say, not a human faceexactly, but sort of a cartoon type of face with large, bushy eyebrows;big, expressive eyes; a prominent nose; and a mouth in the shape of abig grin. "Howdy doody," said the mouth as the thing's hand shot out andgrabbed Graham's hand in a vigorous handshake.
"How--How--How--" stammered Graham.
"HowHowHow?" inquired the voice. "That's a funny word. I never heard itbefore."
"Ah ... eh ..." said Graham, his voice still a bit shaky. "I wasactually trying to say, 'How do you do?'"
"Oh, I see," replied the being, "but how do I do what?"
"No. I mean I'm trying to say, er ... 'howdy doody' to you."
"Oh. Now I understand. I'm sorry for being so dumb. But you see, myentire vocabulary comes from TV shows. I never actually went to school,so some things I do not know. I beg of you, forgive me!" he shouted ashe bent down on one knee and held Graham's hand.
"There's no need to be so dramatic," said Graham. "I forgive you."
"Oh, thanks a bunch," the creature said. "Is there anything you'd liketo watch? You can watch any television show that's ever been recorded intelevision history. Just say the word."
"Well, nothing right now," Graham answered. "But I'm really curious asto how you came into being."
"HOW! I! CAME! INTO! BEING? Hmmmmm. Oh, you mean how I was manufactured.Well, originally a tinsmith made me. But then I lost my head over agirl. Then one day an electrical genius from Mars came to Oz to discussa contract to build satellite dishes. They wanted to bounce signals fromMars to earth in order to relay Martian soap operas in exchange for someearth programming to Mars. Their favorite earth programs are reruns of_Mork and Mindy_ and _Star Trek_. They're even more popular than theirprime-time blockbuster, _My Favorite Earthling._ Anyway ... as I wassaying ... Let's see ... I had lost my head, and--"
"Now, wait a minute!" Graham interrupted. "There are no people on Mars.Besides, the environment there is too hostile to support life."
"Oh. You mean that they have too many harsh TV critics?"
"No. I mean that--For one thing, the temperature would be too harsh.It's way too cold on Mars to support life. Not to mention theatmosphere, which is mostly carbon dioxide."
"Oh, my dear boy," smiled the face. "You don't know anything, do you?Oh, you know your scientific facts all right but, according to my memorybanks, there is life all over the universe that your scientists' crudeobservation methods cannot even detect."
"You're beginning to sound like the UFO people I talked to," Grahamanswered with a tone of disapproval in his voice.
"Well, nevertheless, life exists simultaneously on many differentfrequency levels that are undetectable from one to the other--an analogywould be the many TV channels that are in the air simultaneously, butyou can only tune in to the one frequency that your tuning device islocked into."
"Well, I've heard that before," answered Graham.
"Yes. And people are tuning devices in themselves. That's why somepeople are sensitive to the vibrations from Oz and can see what is goingon there. Mr. Baum was the first person in America who was able to tuneinto Oz, and he wrote many history books on this land. Well, that is tosay, they were recordings of current events at the time he wrote them,but they are now history. And as much as he wrote, he was only able torecord a tiny fraction of our history. Since then, many people havecontributed. Some more than others."
"I wonder why no one in America was able to tune into Oz before L. FrankBaum," Graham said.
"Because there are millions of frequencies, but he happened to hit theright one one day when he was telling stories to the children. He wasvery lucky to hit it because of the tremendous odds against him. Butonce he did, it was easy after that. And it was easy for other people tofollow him because they knew it could be done and kept persevering untilthey were able to tune in themselves. The secret is not to give up ifyou are truly interested, because once you lock into it, you becomebetter attuned as time goes by. I heard a good example of this sort ofthing on my sports channel just the other day. They were discussingRoger Bannister and how he broke the four minute mile in 1954 and thatno one in earth's history up until that time believed it could be done,so no one did it. But once Mr. Bannister ran the mile in three minutesand fifty-nine point four seconds, other people broke the record becausenow they knew it was possible after all. They had never really triedhard enough before that, because they simply did not believe. This justshows that you can do anything you set your mind to do as long as youbelieve it's possible. Let me recite a poem I heard once on my PublicTelevision channel. This poem, if my memory banks serve me right, is bya gentleman by the name of C.W. Longenecker:
_The Victor_
_If you think you are beaten, you are. If you like to win but think you can't, Its almost a cinch you won't If you think you'll lose, you're lost. For out in the world we find Success begins with a fellow's will. It's all in the state of wind. If you think you are outclassed, you are. You've got to think high to rise. You can ever win a prize. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins. Is the one who thinks he can._"
"That's very inspirational," said Graham. "I must remember that. Butdoesn't it apply equally to girls?"
"Oh, of course!" the TV responded. "But the poem was written a long timeago, before non-specific gender language was in vogue."
"You seem rather wise for a manufactured person," said Graham. "Wheredid your brain come from?"
"Oh, I haven't really got a brain in the traditional sense o
f the word.My brain is largely electronic and preprogrammed from a lot of thingsI've seen and heard on TV. There are lessons to be learned, even fromthe poorest of shows."
"Do you have a name?" asked Graham.
"Well, most of my friends call me Telle. My full name is TelleVisionary. But you can just call me Telly."