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When I was a lad I used to lie just for the challenge of making the lie work. When one has an exceptional IQ it gets hard to find things to challenge one. It never occurred to me to consider the fact I cannot remember a lot from one minute to the next. I wascaught in my lies quite often, and kept right on lying. What a dumb ass huh? Then someone very closeand very special to me lied to me. It Hurt, it hurt really bad. Worse it was a lie just to shut me up and make me go away. Got me to thinking though, as adversity often does. Were my lies hurting people in the same manner? It was a helluva piece of pie to swallow. I did not feel bad per se, my mental situation does not really allow me to go there, but I did feel something. Regret is something I simply am not wired for. So I came to a decision that I would try to tell the truth at all times for the rest of my natural life. The results have been somewhat humorous.
Now I was not surprised that folks I had lied to in the past did not believe a word coming out of my mouth. What other choice had I given them? But people I had never spoken to in my life also gave me the eyebrow. You know the arched "ya sure buddy" eyebrow. I was amazed! You could tell the truth all day long and no one would believe you anyway. Gave me some powerful insight into the world around me, that was not all that pleasant. It has also, however, earned me some unique friends and rather interesting relationships with individuals whom otherwise would have probably treated me like the rest. Cops for instance, love to arrest me. I am a non-violent person for the most part, and I will tell you exactly where the baggie of weed is hidden. What cop wouldn't love that, right? I was living in Leavenworth Kansas and I got in trouble a lot, A LOT. I was on a first name with many of the night shift officers, A lot of trouble. But my never flagging tendency to tell the truth endeared them to me or me to them(never sure how to use that phrase). So much so that after a while our positions reversed and they were the ones begging me. Give you an example....
Officer Rick Countryman, K-9 officer, rode around with a drug dog in his SUV. By the Book Countryman we used to call him. Hard Ass was also popular, several others that were even more flattering. To say the least he was not much loved by the fringe criminal community. By fringe I mean your teenagers. He had busted me so many times that it got to be joke around his own station that he was paying me to get myself arrested to make him look good. Of course Mike Steve Don Al and many of the others could also lay claim to having had me in their squad car nearly as often as they themselves were in it. I often got to ride in the front seat, so when they took me home yet again I could let myself out. So one day I am sitting in the Apple orchard out on the edge of town. I drove out there in my truck to sit on the tailgate and play my guitar and I had the proper mood inducing materials for just such an outing. So I'm sitting on my tailgate smokin a joint struming my guitar when who pulls up, but Officer Countryman. He parks his truck and procedes to get out. I have my bomber on some hemostats and I am hitting it as he approaches. His dog is going ape @!$%# because he can smell the weed. I set my joint down and hit a chord just as he gets up to me."What are doing out here (blank)" he asks. "Just burnin one and playin the ole geetar enjoying this wonderful day" says I. He eyes the joint, then he squints at me, looks off and kinda shakes his head in some kind of denial. Turns back to me and says;"You are never going to change are you son?" "Nope" I says. Then he says the strangest thing; "Would you mind going outside the city limits and enjoying the day?" I looked at him surprised and grinned. He says;" I am so tired of arresting you and dealing with you that I am just going to ask you to have your fun out in the county from now on." I says; "Sure Rick, if it will make you happy, I have a couple of places that would be near perfect." Rick says; "Thanks buddy, are you going to stay on this dirt top to get where you are going?" I says; "I can" He says "Well do that then." And I says "Alrighty!" And he procedes to get back in his truck and drive away. Just like that. And it came from my never having lied to him.
Telling the truth is one of the best ways I know to hide any thing you want to hide from others. Now as I say there are always exceptions to any rule and this is no exception. Some folks will know you are telling the truth, and they will look at you as if you have gone mad for doing so. Really sad when one considers what that means in the terms of the rest of the world. My X, drama lover, used to despise my habit of telling the truth. So much so that I would sometimes make @!$%# up just to give her something to rage about. My father thinks I am foolish to tell the truth at all times, says people will try and hurt me with that truth. I tell him that people will try and hurt anyone who looks even remotely happy too, should I just give up? He has no answer for that. Telling the truth can also get you into some trouble as well. Way back in the 19th century when I had insurance at an HMO I told my primary that I smoked pot. Big mistake that was. Forever after he was sure that every ailment stemmed from that, he was also convinced that because I did the one, I did all the others as well. Hell once he accused me of drinking anti-freeze when a high amount of glycol showed in a blood test. The man knew I was a printer. I used a chemical four days a week, bathed in it practically, that contained as the main ingredient Glycol some @!$%# some @!$%# some @!$%#. I eventualy had to bring a bottle of the @!$%# to an appointment to get him to believe me.
It also scares some people when you tell the truth. They then must respond to that truth. Some find that daunting. I was asked by a friend of mines wife some questions about myself because they had offered to let me rent a room from them. When I answered her truthfully, to me it was funny, my friend gave me two hours of solid hell for it the next day. She asked me if I had any mental problems that might cause me to get out of hand. So I told her ALL about my mental abnormalities. I really didn't notice the growing look of horror on her face. Anyway my friend said I scared the @!$%# out her. As it turned out I wound up sitting their autistic son quite often and was a productive member of their household and family. I am always looking for the truth, rarely finding it. I have found that one of the most often lied to people is ones own self. Being mentally different as I am, I cannot afford to lie to myself, it makes my problems worse when I do. But I see tons of people around me who must make some form of dividend from lying to themselves. When you run across someone who takes blaming to an art form. They probably haven't spent much time telling themselves the truth.
I passed my habit along to my daughter as she was growing up. And lo and behold it kinda backfired on my ass one night fishing off the dock at lake Talquin. My friend Mark my wife and my daughter and I were all on the dock at Wlliams Landing getting on towards dark. Mark and I had caught about 6 bluegills and had hung them on a stringer. We tied the stringer off to the bottom of a post on the dock so they would hang in the water and not easily be seen by anyone because we did not have our wallets with us, meaning we didn't have our fishing licenses with us as well. Well, we was getting ready to pack it in when a game warden ninjaed up on us and asked had we caught anything. Mark and I, in true redneck fashion, lied and said we hadn't even gotten nibble from these lousy good for nothing bait stealers. "Is that a fact?" the officer said. "Oh yes sir" says we. Right about then my beautiful daughter, she was about 6 at the time, lifts our stringer up out of the water and sweetly says;"Daddy what about these fishys?" You can let your imagination paint the picture. The game warden told Mark and I to follow him back to his truck, he had already determined neither of us had our paper, we didn't lie about that. We got to his truck, I'm thinking here goes another $150 bucks I ain't got. This warden he leans on the hood and starts to laugh, I mean roaring laughter. Tears are streaming down his cheeks, he goes down to one knee in his mirth. I'm just about ready to kick this son a bitch. He is wheezing all the while going sing song "What about these fishies Daddy" He finally gets himself under control and says; "Boys I ain't gonna write y'all no tickets. But I am going to tell ever human being that I know this story for the rest of my life starting tonight with my wife." He then walked around the drivers side of the truck slapping his thighs Goin "What about these fish Daddy" the whole way. I woulda taken $500 in tickets to avoid the humiliation. I never, however. said a word to my kid.
Anyway tell the truth, sometimes it hurts, but it is the most respectful thing you can do for others. For me there is no better form of stability than knowing exactly where you stand in the world, only the truth will allow you that knowledge. Tell the truth and you can give that to others as well. And as Mark Twain once said;
"If you never lie, you don't have to remember anything!"
