The lie: 20 years ago my brother Dan, who was a circuit rodeo bullrider, was gored through the buttock and had his pelvis broken by an ornery bull. He hopped into the truck he borrowed from my dad and on the way to the hospital wrecked the truck because he blacked out from the pain.
The truth: just a few years ago Dan revealed the real story at a family gathering:
He and his friend borrowed dad’s truck, went drinking, and thought it would be funny to run over the post-mounted highway reflectors on the shoulder. They managed to mow down quite a few and then one punched a hold in the floor of the truck, gored Dan’s butt, and broke his pelvis.
He then wrecked dad’s truck. The part about wrecking due to pain was true, but it was inflicted by an ornery highway post, not a bucking bull. He and his friend concocted the story to cover-up their drunken stupidity and avoid dad’s wrath.
When my mother became interested in genealogy, my grandmother discouraged her. You don’t want to have anything to do with your relatives, Grandma said. They are all just poor white trash.
Mom did some research, and contacted some of our cousins, and got invited to a family reunion. Many of those cousins own oil wells, and thousand-acre ranches. It turns out that WE are the poor relations.
And, we learned, Grandma’s sainted father was the instigator of one of the juicier sex scandals in the family history.
Multiple-great grandpappy was hung as a pirate. Turns out that he captained a ship that sunk and, as the captain and an investor, was responsible for the financial losses of the other investors, and hung himself. Makes sense, as suicide, slightly more than piracy, runs in the family.