Sidetracked Charley

Lying seems to be all the rage these days.  We are told so many lies in a day it is hard to know what the truth is. Alternate facts are not the truth regardless of what the spin doctors tell you. I recently got involved in a conversation about the nature of truth and lies and when lies become your truth. As a child I was an excellent liar. My brother got the blame for a lot of things I did because my version of the truth was believed over his. In my early years I was a military brat. Military brats lie. There is even a comprehensive study of the phenomenon. John Irving in Cider House Rules points out orphans lie too. His reasoning in the book is because it is the only thing in their lives over which they have control. I believe that is true of military children too. Three bases in the second grade is definitely out of your control. But it can be really freeing because you are never held accountable. You could reinvent yourself and your history every new school or house. My ...

Antelope on the Eastern Plains I have always said it is about quality and not quantity. But I frankly never thought I could have both. I was born a year before the baby boom. Not sure how my folks worked that since my father was an US Air Force pilot. And there was WWII going on. Never wise to question your parents too much. The story is he was flying over Omaha when I was born. I think it was the city and not the beach. But my parents and both sets of grand parents died before I could figure out what questions would be important later. I was never all that rooted to truth. Growing up I found there were my father's stories and my mother's silence. Mother was the truth holder and she held it very tightly behind pursed lips. Dad was the source of legend. I liked Dad's version of life far better. It was grand, and exciting and it did not result in those vertical wrinkles on your upper lip. It gave you laugh lines instead. It would be decades before I discovered that was...

The Devil and his Friend The devil once went for a walk with a friend. They saw a man ahead of them stoop down and pick up something from the road. 'What did that man find?' asked the friend. 'A piece of Truth,' said the Devil. 'Doesn't that disturb you?' asked the friend. 'No it does not,' said the devil, 'I shall allow him  to make a religious belief out of it. ' People that cling to a nugget of truth make no progress because they are sure they have found it all. They know the way. And the more their way is questioned the more hostile and dogmatic they become. They are blind to the whole. It is wise to not rush to judgment but live within the question. And yet that is a difficult place to be like balancing on the point of a boulder high up on a cliff. Everyone will jump in to try and tell you where to put your foot so you can climb down. They never ask if you wish to come down or even what the view is fr...