The Wisdom of Oz

"Dear me!" remarked the Scarecrow, "what unhappy thoughts you have to be sure. This is proof that born brains cannot equal manufactured brains, for my brains dwell only on facts and never borrow trouble. When there is occasion for my brains to think, they think, but I would be ashamed of my brains if they kept shooting out thoughts that were merely fears and imaginings, such as do no good, but are likely to do harm"

The Magic of Oz by L. Frank Baum

The Scarecrow of Oz is one of the most recognizable literary characters in the last one hundred years. Simple minded and pragmatic, he bumbles through each story and adventure, a warm and cheery companion to his friends as they experience strange adventures in the Land of Oz. We who live in the real world could all learn something valuable from the Scarecrow, a character who has every reason to pass through life feeling humiliated and self concious. The Scarecrow is frail and fragile, he is made of straw and cannot walk for any length of time without stumbling and falling down. He is timid and fearful but is the first one to offer to sacrifice himself for the good of his friends if danger awaits them. He even looks comical and in his early adventures found it difficult to gain the respect of his peers because of his ridiculous appearance.

I had a friend many years ago when I lived in the Middle East. This fellow, Richard was from South Africa. Richard had fallen into some type of machinery when he was a very small child almost losing his life in this tragic accident but was somehow saved and stitched back together. When I met him he was about twenty years old and had arrived to live and work on the settlement I lived on at the time with many other travelers from all over the world in northern Israel. When the doctors had put Richard back together again after his accident they had done the best they could but his appearance could only be described as alarmingly peculiar. Richard was about five foot six inches tall but one shoulder was hunched higher than the other. His hands and legs and body on his right side were all normal and strong but the machine he had fallen into had caused his head to be severely injured and his left arm and leg were weak as though he had suffered a stroke. One eye was false and was sewn in place lower on his face than the other eye and he had a wry grin because of severe muscular nerve damage which left him with a sort of unilateral sneer and he spoke out of the right side of his mouth like Humphrey Bogart. The right eye was undamaged and peered with a directness that made you forget that the other eye had been lost. He had hair that was not exactly lusterous but did, for the most part cover the majority of his scalp. One other thing that was very obvious about Richard from the moment he arrived on our settlement in northern Israel, women loved him.

This strange looking fellow had spent his entire life being stared at, pointed at, laughed at and judged. He looked like the character of Quasimodo in the famous book, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame'. He set out from South Africa and planned to travel the world on his own. Richard was not part of a tour or a University junket, he was a regular vagabond traveler and accepted the risks and hazards of life without any safety net just like anyone else. He made his way from South Africa and traveled up the coast of Africa to Egypt and finally to Israel all the while enduring the strange looks and passing comments of his fellow travelers. Suffice it to say that if Richard was standing right next to Mick Jagger, Bono or the Queen of England, Richard would be the person you would notice first and would be more memorable than any international celebrity.

Women loved Richard because he had an infectious sense of humor, the quickest wit and the most winnning smile of any of us in that small community. He would tell the rudest jokes and laugh through the one side of his face while tears of laughter would come out of his good eye. Richard clearly loved women but more surprising than that, he expected that women he met would love him back. And they did. Looks clearly were'nt everything where Richard was concerned and, in his case, looks were a potentially severe impairment to his social life. It did not matter to anyone and it was surprising how quickly we forgot his poor facial reconstruction once he became our friend. Within several months, the Lebanon War started and we volunteers scattered back to Europe and elsewhere. It is rare in life to meet someone who so completely overcomes adversity and hardship so as to leave a lasting impression of only courage and laughter with the people he meets.

The Scarecrow of Oz is famous for making self effacing remarks about his construction and appearance as he trips, stumbles, catches fire and gets torn apart and his straw scattered through his many adventures. If he makes a passing reference to his ridiculous appearance this self effacing comment is always followed by a hopeful nod and an appeal to the reader not to forget his personal strengths and the story moves on. Since all of the Oz characters are flawed or misshapen in some way, we accept that it is a land full of misfits (just as in real life) so children who read the Oz stories learn to see past these visual descriptions and focus on the hearts and strengths of the characters. Most people we see every day are not as disfigured as Richard but we all have our flaws and many struggle with paralysis, amputations, illness and the curses of old age. As familiar as we all are with the characters in the Oz stories it is so easy to overlook their anomalies and to see the good in them. As we go through our daily lives we should all remember the poorly made Scarecrow who, like many real people, possesses great strengths and courage while suffering the misfortune of having the appearance of consisting solely of cloth and straw.