My Mother’s Lies

In the Spring of either 1959 or 1960, my mother and I stood in our front yard, watching a tornado plow through the cotton field about a quarter mile North of us. My mother was not frightened because the twister was moving away from us. I distinctly remember the long gray carrot-like funnel dipping down from the clouds and the spectacular vee of dirt it was scouring up from the Earth.

Our astonishment was interrupted by my father skidding our 1956 Plymouth station wagon into the driveway and screaming for us to take cover in the house. He pointed out that what looked like tiny specks of debris, having been lifted high in the sky, was in fact, the remains of a pulverized barn and what went up would be coming back down. It was the only time I’d ever seen him seriously scared. Seeing my dad’s fear, transformed that awesome experience into a troubling one and set the stage for the first of my mother’s lies — at least the first one I’m sure of.

Lie Number One
Being only five or six years old, I was so frightened by the experience that I had trouble sleeping for several consecutive nights. In order to assuage my fears and get me back to sleeping in my own bed, my mom told me, “If you’re inside the house and away from windows, tornados can’t hurt you.” That wasn’t overly helpful since my brother and I shared a bunk bed that was placed next to our bedroom window.

The real eye-opener came years later when I witnessed tornado damaged houses in my hometown and realized that my mother had lied to me as a child — perhaps with the best intentions, but a lie none-the-less.

Lie Number Two
My mother’s second lie was perpetrated with the assistance of the public school system and came in the form of “tornado drills”. In 1962, I was in Mrs. Holly’s second-grade class at Beaver Elementary when “tornado drills” became a weekly part of our routine. The school bell would sound three short rings, signaling every kid in the school to drop what they were doing and march into the main hallway where we would sit on the floor next to the wall and lean over with our heads on our knees, covering the back of our heads with our hands.

The whole “tornado drill” concept didn’t make much sense to me since I was still in belief of lie number one, but I went along — although Brit Vanderford and I kept getting in trouble for cutting up during those solemn drills. We also never gave a second thought to the cool stainless steel I.D. bracelets they gave every school kid for free that fall.

It wasn’t until a few years later that I learned “tornado drills” had actually been a feeble preparation in case that madman in Cuba made good on his threat to launch nuclear missiles at us — in which case we would have simply been in the proper position to bend a little further over and kiss our own asses goodbye.

Lie Number Three
Lie number three was an upgrade from co-conspiracy with the public school system to a conspiracy involving the federal government.

Throughout most of the 60’s and 70’s, my mom worked for Collins Radio as a typist, and during the late 60’s, she developed this weird routine. About once a month, on a Sunday afternoon, an olive drab Dodge sedan would pull up to our house. Two men in army uniforms, carrying sidearms, would come to our door. My mom would grab up her purse and leave with them. She would return home a few hours later.

When I grilled her on this, she explained that she operated an encoded teletype machine for Collins Radio and that the government sometimes asked her to relay routine messages on weekends. By “government”, she meant military. Since the Viet Nam war was in full swing at that time, I assumed she was sending messages to do with it, but every time I pressed her, she insisted it was “nothing important”.

I knew full well that she was lying because she would often return home in a troubled state and spend extra time reading her worn-out Bible. On one Sunday in 1969, she came back home as pale as a ghost and I knew something was up but all my grilling was a waste of time. She just maintained the lie that she was forwarding mundane government information.

That particular Sunday happened to be the day that Richard Nixon ordered all U.S. military into high alert for nuclear war, an action that would later be named “Operation Lance”. Every long-range bomber and crew was readied for immediate takeoff and all of the nuclear silos were opened and readied. While it was ultimately a bluff to let the Russian spy satellites view our preparedness, Operation Lance may have been the closest we ever came to nuclear war apart from the Cuban missile crisis.

A Time for Lies and a Time for Truth
I’m guessing that most psychologists would go along with the concept that small children should be spared the details of potential crises that they cannot understand, much less, solve. The problem is that our entire culture was raised with that mentality to the point that we now easily accept — make that “Expect” — our government lying to us. We also see little harm in telling a few lies when they further our own cause de jour.

So where’s the line? How old do kids have to be before we can trust them with the truth? And how old do you and I have to be before we should rise up in revolt when politicians and government officials lie to us. I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure at this point in life that I’m old enough to make decisions based on the unvarnished truth.

A meeting of great minds who think alike