Tut Homicide Ruled Out

Probably the most famous Egyptian discovery, King Tutankhamen, has had a cat scan. It confirmed that he was not knocked on the head and murdered. The assumed head injury was found to be the result of handling, either at discovery or during the first round of x-rays and not some dastardly plot to assassinate the young monarch. There goes the sinister and romantic association to the young Egyptian king.

Okay, so this is not a profound concept. It does lead me to a story. The last time Tut was on tour in the United States, in the late 70’s, he made a stop at the Chicago Museum of Natural History. I belonged to a youth organization called DeMolay and a group of us went up on a weekend trip to see the sites. After going up in the Sears Tower, seeing the Museum of Science and Industry and several other local landmarks, we were going to see the Tut exhibit on Sunday morning and head home that afternoon. The best laid plans of mice and men certainly took a bad turn in the road because we missed seeing the exhibit.

Now you could assume it was teenage mischief or an unplanned breakdown of communication but what actually happened was that breakfast took 2 hours. We got to the restaurant before the museum opened. Our group of about 12 young men and the chaperone ended up ordering our breakfast 3 times before it was served. The waitress kept misplacing our orders or the cook kept throwing them away. Either way, the museum had been open for 40 minutes by the time we got there and the wait to see Tut was into the afternoon; too late for us to get in. We each soaked a penny in syrup and stuck it to the table as a tip for the poor service. At least there was some gratification to the whole debacle.

Icool


Cobb