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Let me say this about that.

How hard is it to simply tell the truth?  What is so difficult about coming right out in the open and exposing the bare naked facts?  Well, apparently in America, we cannot live without hedging our bets when it comes to exposing the truth about almost anything.  We have become purveyors of:

Prevarication…. Equivocation…. Fabrication…. Adulteration…. and Exaggeration

Or, if you live in Alabama:

Shuck & Jiving…. Pussyfooting…. Lying & Flying…. Bull Crapping…. and Fibbing

Or, if you are a Democrat: ……. Misspeaking

I miss the ‘truth’.  The simplicity of truth has a grace and elegance that you just can’t find in any other human endeavor.  Many people under the age of 40 have probably never heard the raw, unabashed utterance of the ‘truth’.  Even in grammar school, kids born after the Vietnam War were told…    that they ALL were “special”.  No schoolyard game ever had a “loser”.  No kid was ever held back a grade.  In other words, they wouldn’t recognize the ‘truth’ if it jumped up and bit them in their tattooed asses.

So for all you ‘Special’ saps out there who have never been told the truth, let me take you back a few years and give you a few examples of what the ‘truth’ looks like.

A number of years ago, I lived in Ft. Lauderdale.  The locals called it “Ft. Liquordale” because the town has more bars than a Beethoven symphony.  One night a buddy and I were making a sizable donation to one of these watering holes when we noticed it was already past midnight.  We hurriedly finished our beers and went our separate ways.  The next morning he tells me that while he was driving home, a cop pulls him over.

Cop:  “Good evening sir.  May I see your license and registration please?”

Buddy:  “Of coarshh, oshiffer. 

Cop:  “Sir, have you been drinking?”

Buddy:  “Yeshh, sir.  But I only had a few beers.”

Cop:  “How many beers did you have sir?”

Buddy:  “Oh….I would say….13 or 14.”

The cop puts him in the back seat of the squad car, drives him home, and tells him that in his 20 years on the force, that was the first time anyone ever told him the truth when he asked “how many?”.

Last month was the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing by the crew of Apollo 11.  If you’ve never worked in the space program, you probably don’t know what a huge set of stones these guys had to have to fly this mission.  The mission commander, Neil Armstrong, has a reputation for being a ‘straight arrow’.  Two days before lift-off of this historic mission, Armstrong was giving, yet another, interview to a room full of witless reporters.  After apparently exhausting his usual list of inane questions, one reporter decided he would add a personal touch to the interview:

Numb-nuts reporter:  “Commander Armstrong.  Apollo 11 is chock full of electronic instrumentation and all manner of technological wizardry.  But, if you could take one extra thing with you that would mean something special to you, personally, what would it be?”

Armstrong, who was never known to commit the sin of verbosity, replied:

“More fuel.”

So, that’s what it looks like, you poor unfortunate Generation X’ers……… the God’s honest truth.

And, that’s all I have to say about that.

Shambo