I'd like to say there's about as much chance I'll run for public office as there is I'll take up helicopter skiing down the side of a live volcano, but that wouldn't be true.
The skiing thing is much more likely. And sounds like more fun.
Basically, I have no interest in running for office. And not just because I'd get bored and want to declare war on somebody. Which is kind of hard to do when you're on the city council.
In truth, I don't want to run for public office because I'm not a particularly reliable witness of my own life, and, like most people, I don't want to have to explain every exaggeration, embellishment or downright prevarication I've told, mostly for entertainment value.
However, "catching" people in a bit of personal history hyperbole appears to be all the rage this never-ending election season. And it's being made worse by the fact that the only thing politicians seem to like more than that aforementioned hyperbole is writing books filled with it. I mean, never leave evidence, folks! Any fifth-grader who has fed broccoli to the dog knows that!
A completely-exaggerated-to-the-degree-it's--borderline-if--not-totally-untrue story about your youth most of us might tell after a few adult beverages at a tailgate tends to drift off in a haze of hops and barbecue grill smoke. Next morning, people appreciate it for what it was: namely, a fairly interesting tale that would have been even more interesting if there were any chance that it was in any way accurate.
But run for public office, and all of sudden, for no good reason, someone has actually written the story down, and just as suddenly, veracity counts. I mean, really, who saw that coming?
So, just in case, for some strange reason, every other even marginally qualified person decides they have better things to do and I come back from a bathroom break to discover I've been drafted to run for public office, I'm going to "get out in front" of my own life's story. And when my opponent (and I'm sure there will be one) wants to "try to connect with voters on the strength of his or her compelling personal saga (whatever that means),' and then has to walk back half of it, well, I'll be miles ahead. OK, maybe not "miles." That would be an exaggeration. Maybe, like, half a mile. Or a few feet anyway.
But I digress.
So, in the interest of heading off any investigations, or at least saving people valuable time that could be better spent on ... well, frankly, anything, here's what you need to know about my past.
• I did not walk 10 miles to school, barefoot, uphill both ways (a really interesting geographic feat I've been assured can take place) in the snow. It was five, tops. And it wasn't always snowing. Sometimes there was flooding. And did I mention the wolves?
• About the wolves. Yeah, not so much. Though our next-door neighbors had a pretty frisky looking dachshund that might have been trouble. Well, except that they over-fed him so he looked like a bratwurst with legs and would high-center on a garden hose. But he did have kind of crazy eyes. Of course, we found out later it was the cataracts.
• My school was not the roughest, toughest, worst place on the planet. I mean, one arms deal in the parking lot and suddenly you're the "guns in the trunk" school. Actually, we were pretty average. If you wanted to get into trouble, you could. If you wanted to stand out, you could. If you were too tall, too thin, had a funny accent and absolutely no plans of sticking around the place after you graduated, you were ... me.
• Ditto my neighborhood. I mean, come on. I lived on a military installation. You want to talk about a gated community? When the guy at the entrance to your street comes equipped with an M-16, a sidearm and a dog who really wants to play fetch with an intruder's spleen, we'll talk about security.
• Basically, my entire high school football career can be summed up in two phrases; "I had no business being out there," and "I was only out there because high school football has cheerleaders." The former should have colored my fascination with the latter. It certainly colored theirs.
• I did not attack anyone with a hammer, a lock or a knife. In fact, the only weapon I ever employed was my rapier wit. So, as you can see, I've gone through most of my life, basically, unarmed.
• If all of my college classmates got up and walked out of the room and I stayed behind, it would be less a matter of my honesty and more that I hadn't woken up from my nap.
So there. I 've successfully punctured the balloon of my own self-created mythology and revealed myself to be, well, somewhat ordinary. And if I ever did run for public office, that would, thankfully, put me in very good company.
Because, for some reason, we tend to forget the country wasn't built by the extraordinary so much as the ordinary doing extraordinary things. If I might be so bold, perhaps it's a good thing to remember that the strength of one's ideas might be more important than the length of his walk to school or the many probably imaginary challenges he's overcome, and that it might be important to select our leaders based on that.
And that's the truth.
Commentary on 11/13/2015