A young man graduated from University of New Zealand with a degree in
journalism. His first assignment for the newspaper who hired him
was to write a human interest story. Being from NZ, he went back to the
bush to do his research. He went to an old farmer's house way back in
the hills, introduced himself to the farmer, and proceeded to explain to him why he was
there. The young man asked, "Has anything ever happened around here that made you happy?"
The farmer thought for a minute and said, "Yep! One time one of my
neighbour's sheep got lost. We formed a search party and found it. We all rooted it and took it back home."
"I can't print that!" the young man exclaimed. "Can you think of
anything else that happened that made you or a lot of other people happy?"
After another moment, the farmer said, "Yeah, one time my neighbour's
daughter, a good looking girl, got lost. We formed a big search
party that time and found her. After we all rooted her, we took her back home too."
Again, the young man said "I can't print that either. Has anything ever
happened around here that made you sad?"
The old farmer dropped his head, looked up timidly at the young man and said "I got lost once."
