Michael L. Roesch, co-editor of the Siskiyou Humanists newsletter, lives in the town of Weed, which is near Mount Shasta in Northern California. In the July 1991 issue of the newsletter, he editorialized about why people are willing to believe some rather bizarre stories.
Here's an example he gave of such a story; it's one I've found in two other recent publications as well:"I was told about an event that `honestly happened' to a lady residing at a local rest home. The elderly lady, unaccustomed to leaving our rural environs, signed up for a trip to Reno.
"Soon tiring of the slot machines, she clutched her purse to her chest and walked off to take one of the elevators up to her room. Just as she got into the empty elevator, a large black man jumped in.
"When the door closed, the man, out of breath, bellowed, `Hit da four.'
"The elderly lady, already somewhat terrified, believed the man was commanding her to `Hit the floor.' She did so.
"The man, at first shocked, realized the misunderstanding and said, `No, lady. I said, "Hit the four." ' " He was still laughing as they got off the elevator.
"Later that same night, the elderly lady is pleasantly surprised when she is delivered a large bouquet of flowers and a fruit basket. The enclosed card is signed by Richard Pryor."
Among the goals of the Siskiyou Humanists, as listed in their newsletter, are being "committed to the application of reason and science" and being "skeptical of untested claims to knowledge." So it's somewhat surprising to read that Roesch admits that at first he had believed the elevator story to be true.
Then he heard a second version in which the scene was Las Vegas and the black celebrity on the elevator was Eddie Murphy. Roesch changed his mind; as he stated, "I refused to believe America's black comedians were united in a struggle to dispense fruit to elderly white women."
Having recognized a perennially popular urban legend, Roesch rushed out to get a copy of my book "The Choking Doberman" in order to read up on the many variations of this story. I call it "The Elevator Incident," and it has circulated for at least a decade.
For the past few years it was usually Lionel Richie who supposedly scared the tourist; earlier it was Reggie Jackson. But I've heard everyone from Jesse Jackson to Lionel Hampton cast in the starring role of this little drama.
The stranger - with or without a dog - is always black, is never recognized and inevitably is mistaken for a mugger. The other common trait of this legend is that everyone ever named in it has denied the story.
Coincidentally, at about the same time this summer, the old Reggie Jackson version was quoted in a very different publication, The American Baptist magazine. Executive Editor Philip E. Jenks in his column "The Little Scroll" repeated the story as it was supposed to have happened to someone's pastor's dentist's mother when she and her sister were staying in a hotel in Pittsburgh.
But, like the California humanist, Jenks also doubted the story, and he compared it to other urban legends, noting that such stories "persist because truth is not a prerequisite for their telling."
The third publication where I found "The Elevator Incident" was the spring 1990 newsletter of the Nordic Institute of Folklore in Turku, Finland. In his report on a recent NIF conference about folklore and tourism, a Swedish folklorist named Ulf Palmenfelt mentioned this:
"In New York I heard a Swedish guide tell a group of tourists the traveling tale about the two ladies who happened to get in the same lift as Harry Belafonte and who sat down on the floor quite frightened when he shouted to his dog to sit down."
Add these three published versions of the story to the many letters I've received lately from readers reporting the times they've heard it, and it seems that "The Elevator Incident" is a golden oldie that's still a hit.- "Curses! Broiled Again," Jan Harold Brunvand's fourth collection of urban legends, is now available in paperback from Norton. Send your questions and urban legends to him in care of the Deseret News.