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please read Chapter 1
of Who Owns the Zebra
The Bartender believed
in table service
only when Prometheus
gave him a sign
In the first chapter of this story,
the big topic of discussion
—at the skating-rink-adjacent bar
in Rockefeller Center—
was a logic riddle
with fifteen sentences
of information
and twenty-five variables
The year was 1962 and Sam, the bartender,
guaranteed a solution the next day
None of the lunch-time crowd
at the bar believed he could do it
The crowd consisted of
some familiar faces from
the NBC network and
high-powered executives
of every stripe:
None of them had any idea
how to solve the riddle
and they were convinced
Sam couldn't either
He bet them $100
he would do so
After the lunch crowd cleared,
the bartender made one phone call:
to his wife.
"Would you please put a pack of index cards
and a pair of scissors on his desk"
She did so and that evening,
their son was excused from the dinner table
with a copy of the logic riddle
that asked two questions:
Who drank the water?
Who owned the zebra?
The boy spent twenty-five minutes
cutting twenty-five short, thin strips
of index card paper
then labeling each one
with a single word
Five of those "words"
identified ethnicity
(Norwegian/Japanese/Spaniard...)
five identified the colors of their homes,
five brands of cigarets, five pet animals,
and five favorite drinks
In all, this five-by-five riddle
had twenty-five "variables"
Within the next hour,
the twelve-year-old boy
solved the riddle.
He needed an additional 10 minutes
to accurately scotch-tape
the index card strips
onto a sheet of "typing paper"
The next day, Sam was given $100
collected from his favorite drinkers
A Shell Oil executive threw in
an extra $40 for the handmade solution
The other patrons of the bar
were given Xerox copies
of the solution
***
Chapter 3
When the bartender
telephoned his wife
about the solver's supplies
he didn't say that
there was a bar bet
Not a word about the $140
was spoken in his home
but sometime after 1962,
who was first to know about
his proud father's winning bet.
Thus solving another—
albeit very simple—
two-part riddle:
What is the bartender's last name?
Who is the twelve-year-old boy?
Sam is the older brother
of Tony and Paul Oliverio,
after whom his son was named
As to what happened with
the $140, I know exactly:
The first thing he did
was go to his favorite
subterranean gift shop:
Underneath Rockefeller Center
where only very deep-pocketed
people shopped
(Sam was not one of them
but the woman who owned
the shop gave him
"special discounts")
He bought another gold charm
for Linda's bracelet
This was the fifth charm
—all miniature animals—
and it was a pony
My then-fifteen year-old sister
had a feature unique
to girls her age:
She expressed gratitude
with enthusiasm and hugs
and kisses for BOTH
father and mother
When I first showed
the family the solution
to the logic riddle,
Linda's response was
—cryptically—
"I want the Norwegian's
phone number."
Christmas of that year,
I found what I believed
was the same $20 bill
in a pants pocket five times
It was not until 1973
that I realized a smuggler
had placed five different
twenty dollar bills
in my pockets
My gratitude for
the bartending smuggler
cannot be measured
but my father had died in 1971,
six months before being
reunited with my mother
***
Chapter 4
I tell this story for more than
nostalgic reasons
The primary reason
is to justify how forty-nine years
after solving the Zebra riddle,
every day of my life
begins with a logic riddle
It is more commonly known as
a Sudoku puzzle and whenever
I finish it, all I can think is
What is the Norwegian's phone number
***
PAUL OLIVERIO
©©©
The epilog is here
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