Sierr (13-1/2") in his natural habitat on Roxbury Pudding Stone

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, when giants were common, in a place now known as Massachusetts lived a family of giants who were not very good cooks. At least that was the opinion of the most difficult and tantrum prone child in the family. Like all parents, the elder giants wanted to please their children and tried and tried to make tasty meals and treats which would delight their offspring. They knew the children especially liked puddings, ones with lots and lots of fascinating, sometimes even magical, ingredients. The children gobbled up puddings made by their extended family whenever they had a chance to visit them on the opposite side of the ocean. But, it seems, in those days, excellent pudding ingredients were no where to be found on this side of the ocean. The parents had to settle for less than delightful substitutions. As a result, the puddings tasted, I’m sorry to say, really quite dreadful.

Finally one fateful day, the youngest, and yet largest giant child, couldn’t take it any longer. He (or she - no one knows for sure) threw the biggest tantrum in the child’s life. After considerable yelling, screaming, and general flailing about, the giant child grabbed hold of the entire bowl of that day’s pudding and threw it so far and so hard that it landed deep inside the earth’s crust.

Now, since giants are, after all, rather large, and making enough pudding for an entire family would result in a huge amount of pudding, this tantrum resulted in quite a disruption of the ground beneath what is now called Massachusetts ...especially in the area now known as Roxbury.

That pudding mass oozed between rock strata , then was cooked hard by the heat of the earth’s core...and there it lay, scattered. Every once in a while it would come to the surface in large or small mounds as a result of volcanic eruptions or other seismic activity deep within the earth. To the inhabitants of the area who had grown up listening to the legend of the giant’s tantrum, it became known as Roxbury Pudding Stone.

End of story? Well, not quite.

You see that Roxbury Pudding Stone lay around for a long time. It was there when fields of maize were harvested long before any Europeans even thought about coming across the sea to this continent. It was there when George Washington used the Roxbury High Fort to lay siege against the British in Boston. It was there when tales of an extraordinary woman named Harriet and an unusual railroad were whispered from person to person. It was there when the Fort was taken down and replaced with a Victorian water tower. It lay around watching homes, schools, and churches being built where there used to be orchards (sometimes hearing construction folks expressing their frustration at the omnipresence of the stone). It heard children play and listened to adults share their concerns of the day in many languages and with many accents. It heard of war and violence at home and far away. It heard about efforts at peace and reconciliation. It was saddened by the cycles and familiarity of problems. It marveled at the diversity of the inhabitants on the surface and at their persistence in continuing to try to assert their stubborn ounces to make the world a little better place.

And, of course, it heard music...so much music... singing, chanting, drumming, clapping, the sounds of Irish jigs emerging from the doors of local dance halls, vibrations from jazz clubs, jump rope songs, symphonic sounds , electronic sounds...and on and on and on.Then one day, something amazing happened.

All the talk and music had shaken the ground so much that small pieces of the formerly congealed (and perhaps slightly magical) pudding mass started breaking loose...and dare we say , even seemed to dance! Slowly, slowly, slowly some of those pieces of Pudding Stone began emerging from the ground, stretching, jiggling, gesturing, and yes, dancing.

And so were born, the Pudding Stone People. A species of mythic proportion as diverse as the many ingredients which went into that original pudding....and as wise as stones which have stayed within the earth through the centuries listening to humans try to sort out life.

Why have they emerged now? No one knows for sure. But it is just possible that it has something to do with music and dance ...and a philosophy that believes that one should soar skyward with dreams, but at the same time never forget the ground we walk on, the inhabitants we share it with, and that all actions (including tantrums) have consequences!

But that is only one guess.

Credits:
Photography by: John Polak, Paul Jeremias, Jerry Anthony, George Post, David Eagan and Wendy Ellertson