Harvey Rumplemeyer and David and Goliath
Copyright ©2012 by Nonno Vecchio
All Rights Reserved
Hear Nonno Vecchio tell this story
Once upon a time there was a space-time traveler named Harvey Rumplemeyer. Not only did he like to travel all over the universe but he liked to travel back and forth through time too! And one of his favorite times to travel to was Fake Bible times. Now, to me and you this might seem like something trivial, but to Harvey Rumplemeyer, this gave him thousands and thousands of years through which to travel and explore.
A Fantastical Discovery!
Now, Harvey did not always travel through time. In fact, he discovered time travel quite by accident. You see, he was a regular astronaut with his own rocket ship and everything. He had a snazzy space suit complete with kitchen and flat screen t.v. He had a really cool helmet. And he had a lot of gadgets that future astronauts have because that's when he lived - in the future! Well, one day as Harvey was traveling through space, he encountered a meteor storm. Normally, Harvey wasn't too worried
about meteor storms because he had a pretty good space umbrella out front of the ship. Now, I know what you're thinking. "How could he know where he was going if he had an umbrella in front of the ship?" Well, in the future they've invented invisible umbrellas. So, it was quite easy for Harvey to see where he was going because he was seeing right through the umbrella!
Anyway, Harvey wasn't too worried at first, but then he noticed a great big meteor heading straight for his umbrella! The meteor was huge! It was almost as big as a comet! So of course, that had Harvey worried. He began turning dials and flipping switches and pressing buttons to move the umbrella around to deflect the giant meteor. As luck would have it, just before the meteor hit and obliterated the umbrella, Harvey pressed a button he had never seen before. And just like that, the giant meteor disappeared! In fact, the entire meteor storm disappeared too. And that's when Harvey began to notice the stars were a little different. You see, astronauts can tell time in various ways. One of those ways is by looking at the stars and noticing their positions. Well, Harvey noticed the stars' positions were not where they were when he entered the meteor storm. So he began looking around in earnest to determine what happened. And that's when he realized he had traveled through time!
At first, he was a little flustered. But, then his astronaut training kicked in and he began really looking to see what had happened. One of the first things he noticed was that button that he had never seen before - it was all lit up like a Christmas tree! And right next to it were a series of numbers that looked strangely like dates. It didn't take Harvey long to figure out what happened – after all he did have a Ph.D. in Space Travelology – at which point he sat back amazed.
“Well I'll be!” He muttered to himself. “A Space–Time Travel Machine! How did I get one of these?” And he thought, and he thought, and he thought some more but he never did figure out how it was he got a Space–Time Travel Machine.
Well, the first thing he did was to figure out where exactly he was. And that's when he noticed he was still near earth. “Well!” He said to himself, “I'm just going to shoot on down and see where I'm at.” And that's just what he did. He pointed his Space-Time Travel Machine at the earth, set his controls, deployed his heat protect-a-lizer, picked a spot that looked like a good place to put down, and began his landing sequence.
“Computer,” Harvey spoke to the air, “see that spot right down there? Let's go there!”
“Okay, Harvey," the computer sounded like a girl, “that sounds like a good idea!” And then the computer began counting down. “ten, nine, eight, seven,” and Harvey's Space-Time Travel Machine got closer and closer to the earth. “six, five, four, three, two, one!” 
And as the computer said one, the heat protect-a-lizer kicked in and Harvey could see a very pretty orange glow surround the ship. Now, I don't know about you, but Harvey knew a good opportunity when he saw one. So, he went to his storage cabinet and pulled out a squishy bag of goo. Next, he went to his kitchen drawer and pulled out a sharp stick. Opening the bag of goo, he stuck that sharp stick down inside and poked and poked until he felt something stick to the stick and then he opened up one of the port hatches and stuck that stick out into space. You guessed it! He was roasting marshmallows!
By the time he had landed on earth, that bag of goo was completely empty! Harvey let out a burp so loud it could be heard back in the year 2333!
Fake Bible Times!
After his burp, Harvey looked around the ship with his electronical explore–a–rometer and noticed two armies not too far from where he had landed. Well, not one to ignore adventure, he made sure his Space-Time Travel Machine's invisible-izer was set to "Can't see me" and left the ship. Now, I know what you're thinking. "What were the people going to say when they saw Harvey walking up?" Well, you just don't concern your pretty little head about it. You see, Harvey's space–time suit had a special circuit in it that allowed him to be invisible whenever he wanted. And this was one of those times. So it was that Harvey was able to walk up to the camp of one of the armies unnoticed.
Another feature that Harvey's space–time suit had was a translator. Harvey could go anywhere in the universe and understand anything that was said by any type of life form. And when he was on earth it even had a special feature that would display the language that was being spoken right there on his flat screen t.v. And that's how Harvey discovered that he was in Israel!
“Wow!” Harvey thought to himself, “I wonder if this is the battle between David and Goliath?”
And sure enough, he noticed a young boy walking along a stream picking up a bunch of rocks. Meanwhile, all the soldiers in the camp huddled behind the king's chair urging the young man to put on some armor before he was killed.
“What?” The young boy asked. “Don't you know that God will take care of his own?” And with that the young lad kept picking up rocks and putting them in his pouch.
Well, Harvey took in the situation immediately. So he ran back to his Space–Time Travel Machine and moved it closer to where the young boy was walking so he could sit back and enjoy the show. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this young kid was David because just on the other side of the valley stood a very large man. This man was dressed in brass armor and carried a sword and a spear. And he made fun of David everywhere David went. In fact, this man was so mean he even made fun of David's God.
Goliath Challenges Israel
“Fee, fi, fo, foo” The giant man taunted, “is this the best Saul can do? Is this puny excuse for a boy Saul's champion? Send a real champion to fight me and if he wins we will be your servants but if I win you will be our slaves!” And he taunted David some more while the men in the giant's camp laughed and called the Army of Israel nasty 
names.
David, for his part, just ignored Goliath - for obviously that's who the giant man was - and kept looking for rocks.
Meanwhile, Harvey's curiosity got the best of him. Since he was invisible, he decided to find out just how tall Goliath was. So, he moseyed on over across the valley and walked right up to that mean ol' giant. Of course, Goliath couldn't see him because he was invisible so Harvey was not in any danger. And even if he could see him, Goliath could not have hurt Harvey anyway because Harvey's space-time suit had a force field protect-a-lizer circuit built-in. Anyway, Harvey walked right on up to Goliath and opened a special pouch he had attached to his belt. Inside the pouch Harvey had a special measuring device that used laser light to measure whatever Harvey wanted to measure. So, Harvey pointed the light at Goliath's head and scanned the light down Goliath's body. Man was he tall! ! He could easily dunk a basketball without even jumping!
Finally, David had all the rocks he wanted. He walked into the valley ready to take on Goliath. Goliath, for his part, chuckled to himself and said, “this is going to be easy! I'll be grinding his bones to make my bread for breakfast in no time!”
Harvey Gets in the Way
Well, Harvey couldn't just stand by and see the boy get slaughtered so he kicked Goliath in the butt! To say this surprised Goliath would be an understatement. Goliath looked around and around and couldn't see anything of course. Laughing to himself, Harvey kicked Goliath in the shin as hard as he could! Well, Goliath grabbed his leg and hopped around yelling, “Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” A funnier site you never did see - this huge giant of a man hopping on one leg trying to swing his sword around him to hit whatever it was that had just kicked him! Obviously, Harvey had forgotten his Bible story. David however, had his trust in the Lord of Israel and simply loaded one of his slings with a rock. Around and around and around he swung that sling, all the while taking aim at Goliath's head.
In the meantime, Goliath had recovered and was barreling down upon David in earnest. So quickly had he recovered and begun moving toward David, that Harvey Rumplemeyer had been surprised and was left standing in the dirt. Harvey ran after him but could not catch up to him. For a lumbering giant, Goliath was fast!
David was not afraid however, because he knew that God would take care of him. So, once he had his aim set he dropped one side of his sling and off the rock flew! Up and up and up it arced, climbing higher and higher into the sky. Farther and farther and farther it flew hurtling toward Goliath and its intended target. But David had made a slight miscalculation in his aim because he hadn't counted on Harvey Rumplemeyer. By the time the rock had gotten any where near Goliath, Harvey had overtaken him and run around in front. Harvey's intent was to trip the ogre and give David a fighting chance. So instead of hitting Goliath as David had intended, the rock smacked off Harvey Rumplemeyer's force field. From there, it ricocheted toward Harvey's Space–Time Travel Machine where it bounced off the window and rocketed into the Israelites' camp. Once inside, that crazy ol' rock ricocheted through the camp bouncing off the soldiers' armor as they dived for cover! Harvey realized what was happening and dashed into the camp to redirect the rock as best he could. But before he could get there, something amazing happened. Right there before Harvey's very eyes an angel appeared! The angel was wearing a Yankees baseball cap and carrying a Dodgers baseball bat.
Heavenly Intervention
Well, that there Angel just took aim, lifted the bat over his shoulder, and let loose with the most perfect swing you could ever hope to see. Smack! The bat and the rock connected and Harvey watched dumbfounded as the rock's trajectory carried it away from the camp and straight to the middle of Goliath's forehead! Thunk! Went the rock. Goliath stopped dead in his tracks a look of shock on his face. Then he closed his eyes and fell! Down, down, down he fell. "Gasp!", the giant's camp gasped. THUD! Goliath hit the ground so hard he caused a tsunami in Japan!
David just looked at the giant, blew on the nails of his left hand and buffed them on his tunic. Then he moseyed on over to where the giant lay, took the giant's sword out of its sheath, and removed the giant's head from his shoulders. David then lifted the head into the air for all to see and shouted, “see? I told you God could do it!”
Now, of course to the Israelites and the Philistines, the angel was invisible. Only Harvey could see him because Harvey was invisible too! So to both armies it appeared that the rock bounced around and around and around until it finally flew straight at Goliath. To say they were amazed would be an understatement....
Once the shock of what happened had worn off, the Philistines realized the trouble they were in and they turned tail to run. The Israelites in the meantime, quickly understood that they had been handed the victory, and took off after the Philistines. When all was said and done, David was the hero!
For his part in the story, the Angel walked over to Harvey Rumplemeyer and smacked him upside the head for getting in the way. Harvey look sheepishly away, said a quick "thank you" for saving the day, and went back to his Space-Time Travel Machine happy that all had turned out well. As his Space–Time Travel Machine took off into the air, Harvey thought to himself how much fun he was going to have the next time he visited Fake Bible times!
THE END