Once when i was six I saw a magnicficent picture in a book about the jungle, called True Stories. It showed a boa constrictor, swallowing a wild beast. Here is a copy of the picture.
In the book it said:" Boa constrictors swallow their prey whole, without chewing. After that they are no longer able to move, and they sleep during the six months of their digestion."
In those day I thought a lot a bout jungle adventures, and eventually managed to make my first drawing, using a colored pencil. My drawing Number One looked like this:
I showed the grown-ups masterpiece, and I asked them if my drawing scared them.
They answered, "Why be scared of a hat?"
My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Then I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so the grown-up could understand. They always need explanations. My drawing Number Two looked like this:
The grown-ups advised me to put away my drawings of boa constrictors, outside or inside, and apply myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic and grammar. That is why I abandoned, at the age of six, a magnificent career as an artist. I had been discouraged by the failure of my drawing Number One and my drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never undersand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again.
So then I had to choose another career, and I learned to pilot airplanes. I have flown almost everywhere in the world. And, as a matter of fact, geography has been a big help to me. I could tell China from Arizona at first glance, which is very useful if you get lost during the night.
So i have had, in the course of my life, lots of encounters with lots of serious people. I have spent lots of time with grown-ups. I have seen them at close range... which hasn't much improved my opinion of them.
Wherenver I encountered a grown-up who seemed to me at all enlightened, I would experiment on him with my drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I wanted to see if really understood talk about bridge and golf and polictics and neckties. And grown-up was to know such a reasonable person.
