AN EPITAPH FOR HANDSHAKE
By A. John Ukpe
You have heard the proverb before, “never let a handshake reach the elbow.” Handshakes are matters of the palms (not elbows) reaching out to touch someone else in order to make this evil world a better place. Unfortunately, times have changed. Our forefathers, who coined that proverb, never knew, nor did they conceive, that big disease with a fanciful name would come and take the warmth out of that ancient bonding tradition. Now that good, old tradition known, called and addressed as “Handshake” is about to Rest In Peace. What a pity!
Hand shake was good while it lasted. It was used to seal covenants and cement peace deals. When President Bill Clinton presided over a handshake between former sworn enemies, the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the Palestinian Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, on the lawn of the White House, about two decades ago, the press described the occasion as a “Day of Awe.” A handshake between a cat and a mouse would not have evoked more global interest. If it were now, would they have had an elbow shake?
I am descended from a family with a long and enviable history of handshaking. My father, who was a traditional ruler, shook hands with everyone who had the privilege to step into his social distance. My grandfather did the same. All my ancestors were notable hand shakers in our community. I even suspect that the family dynasty began in antiquity because of our adeptness at shaking hands. That ancient tradition was passed on to me, along with our family name. It is in my genes and in my DNA. I have been shaking hands with everything that has hands and a little bit of common sense within my social distance. I am a compulsive and addicted hand shaker. Now the world wants me to grant some kind of personal “visa” to whoever wants to step into my social distance, and I should not (seriously) favour such with a handshake. Just how do you teach a right-handed old man to be left-handed?
Handshake had its ups and downs. Whenever I shook hands with a bodybuilder or world-class athlete, he would put his palm gently in my palm and remove it gently again. But whenever I shook hands with a skinny, hungry fellow, he would try to break the bones in my hand to prove to me that he is stronger than his sorry stature suggests. I took all these as the collateral damage one had to suffer to maintain the family handshaking honor and tradition. I endured and continued to shake hands in the hope of making the world a better place.
Over two decades ago, I even shook hands, against my better judgment, in defense of this family tradition. My friend, Joe Iniodu, and I, while strolling down a street in Calabar, spotted an uncle about three meters from us shove some snuff (powdered tobacco) into his nostrils, blew a string of brownish stuff out of them and wiped his nose with his open palms. Joe scampered to “safety” across the road to avoid a handshake. In his haste, he breached traffic protocols and angered a motorist who honked irritatingly. My uncle approached and thrust his palm at me for a handshake. That was the coldest handshake of all handshakes. Runaway Joe came back after my uncle passed. He bought a sachet of water from the store across the road - perhaps as an atonement for abandoning me In the war front. I was grateful and used it to wash my defiled hands. “He got you right there,” Joe humorously sympathized with me. Truth is I suffered sometimes for Handshake, but, well, that is the way it is with tradition. Sometimes you suffer for it.
Yet its benefits outweighed its ills - and by a mile. Even the deadly Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) did not have a patch on a handshake. Sure it shook the world, but many rushed to the defense of handshake, including the sports icon Magic Johnson (“You cannot get AIDS from a hug or a handshake...”) The tradition survived AIDS. Ebola, the more deadly cousin of Coronavirus made the first direct assault on Handshake as it painted its path red with blood. The world sent Ebola back to the dungeons of hell and Handshake was rescued once more... to make the world a better place.
What Ebola could not do, now its cousin has done. Handshake has moved to the elbow and now you have Elbow shake. How does a compulsive hand shaker like yours truly treat this addiction and get used to jutting out his elbow for an elbow shake? Elbows, unlike palms, are usually covered by shirt sleeves and there is no feeling in elbows touching each other. What sensory organs are in elbows, by the way? Elbows were meant to be used to elbow people out of your way, not greet people. Perhaps the only redeeming feature for elbows in this pandemic equation is that it is one part of your hand that you cannot use to rub your face.
I know all these but as a born and bred conservative, I am always for the status quo. But now that the world has moved on, I guess it is time to move and forget our family tradition. I am not lamenting, just writing an epitaph for handshake. Handshake you came, you did your best, now that you have been callously and wickedly murdered by Coronavirus with the active connivance of bats (those fiendish, envious nocturnal vampires) and their Chinese eaters, the world must move on. I will continue to mourn you and lay a wreath at your tomb daily as I shove my hands into my trouser pockets or clenched them into fists. I must now prepare my elbow to take your place. I will always remember you for you were good to my family and I. Rest In Peace Handshake.