Opinion: A jungle of pleasant memories

I was listening to a radio review of Disney’s new blockbuster “The Jungle Book,” when I heard Mowgli’s name pronounced “Mow-gli,” as in “mow the yard,” rather than “Mao-gli,” as in “Mao Tse-tung.” I was offended, outraged. My childhood memories had been violated. The name was pronounced Mao-gli on the 78 rpm record I listened to some 70 years ago. For me, that pronunciation is authoritative. Enough said.

As I listened to the review, Mowgli and his jungle came back to me with vivid clarity over the long arc of time and I heard again the sing-song voice of Sabu, who played the part of Mowgli, pictured on the record cover as a wild-looking, long-haired youth wearing nothing but a loin cloth: “My name is Mowgli. It means the Little Frog. This is the name the wolf pack gave me…”

Mowgli had been raised by a wolf pack in the jungles of India. He lived among wild animals whose characters were represented by musical instruments – Bagheera, the black panther … Kaa, the python … Baloo, the bear … and the tribe of monkeys called the Bandar Log. In my innocent imagination, these characters were real. Mowgli represented freedom, adventure, danger, glory, heroism. I was his companion and accomplice. I roamed the jungle with him and his animal friends. I was with Mowgli in the river when he killed Shere Khan, the tiger who’d killed his father.

I remember that record and others that inspired my fantasies and the RCA label with the icon of a dog peering into a gramophone and the motto “His Master’s Voice.” They were like magical conveyances that transported me from the tyranny of adults and the confines of my home and neighborhood to exotic, fairy tale lands. I was there with Sinbad when he built a fire on the back of a whale, mistaking it for dry land, and when he grabbed the talon of the monstrous Roc that lifted him aloft. I was in the tree with Peter when he lowered his rope and marched in triumph with him after he’d lassoed the wolf. Remember, this was before television when records and the radio were the vehicles of entertainment and you had to conjure up your own images. You played a more active role. Your imagination was more engaged. In some ways, the experience was more intense than watching.

Long ago those records were put away and soon enough reality molded me into one more conventional little man, sat me at a desk with a filing cabinet and assigned me a catalogue of petty duties and worries. But the memories didn’t vanish. They just waited for a cue. And when they returned they’d lost nothing of their power and wonder. For a priceless moment, I was a child again. What happens to those memories when we arrive on the banks of the River of No Return? Must we check them with the ferryman and lose them forever? Or does he allow us to carry some of them to the other side?

— George Gurley, a resident of rural Baldwin City, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.