Hello SJDers, 

I took the liberty of posting a unique story from D+D. Since the story is 
long, it'll be broken up into different parts. Hopefully, this story should 
be finished posting by friday.  Here's a note from the authors, D+D. 
Tomorrow, the first section of the story "The Land of a Million Elephants" 
will be posted.

--------------
The old man was so much a part of the village that we always expected him to 
be there, he wasn't called old man of course.  We always called him 
Grandfather, as this seemed to please him, it became a habit with us. 
Grandfather always enjoyed our visits; we would always take him small 
presents and Uncle Lance never failed to bring him some tobacco, which always 
delighted Grandfather. Grandfather was in fact a grandfather unfortunately he 
had never seen any of his grand children who would carry his name after he 
was gone. Many years before his three sons had fled from Laos to avoid 
re-education. After many months in a Thai refugee camp they were accepted 
into the United States. They all wrote to their father regularly, sending 
photos and descriptions of their wonderfully successful lives. They loved to 
boast about all the money they were making and promised that they would 
return to Laos to visit as soon as the pressures of business allowed.

Each time we visited, Grandfather would show our Uncle all the letters and 
photographs from his sons. Uncle always said how wonderful it was that 
Grandfather's sons were doing so well in America. Then Uncle and Grandfather 
would smoke a cigarette and drink some beer. One night after we had visited 
Grandfather, our brother Tee asked Uncle when he thought Grandfather's sons 
would come to visit because Grandfather was getting awfully old. Uncle 
thought we were asleep so he said that the sons would never return. People in 
their type of work don't earn very much money and what they do earn is only 
enough to make ends meet. The sons would never return. We were very sorry for 
Grandfather but knew we were not allowed to tell him what Uncle had said.

When we went to our mother's village, Grandfather would always tell us 
stories. We really liked Grandfather and we really liked his stories so we 
always looked forward to seeing him. When we went home to mommy's village 
last Christmas, Grandfather wasn't there. He had passed away. We were very 
sad about this and our real grandfather told us not to be sad. He said 
Grandfather had a good life and was a happy man. We always feel happy when we 
remember Grandfather's stories so we want to write some down and share them 
with other people. Our brother Tee is going to help us, we hope you enjoy 
reading the stories Grandfather told us.


"The only true immortality a man can aspire to is in his children and that 
knowledge and wisdom he passes to them."
                                                                              
                                                             Willmont Williams