Any More Guesses?

My brain after telling just one
lie is unraveling!

Thanks to all who left their guesses in the comment section of my previous post!  It has been interesting to see which of these, so far, totally true elements of my life were so doubted.  After my wife and I moved back to Wisconsin I discovered with a shock that the compilation of my various experiences, as I related bits and pieces to my new coworkers, was coming across as highly unlikely.  I had known some "BSers" in my life, people who just made up one crazy story after another and still kept a straight face, but realizing that some of the guys thought I was in that category was stunning.  Hasn't everybody been beat up on the south side of Chicago, molested in a seminary, picking up chicks at their mother's funeral, taking a helicopter to work every day, sitting on a jury of a rape trial in Alaska, rolling a bus in a ditch, working day after day in horizontal rain storms?  And all of that was completed 20 years ago, before we started collecting more stories back in Wisconsin.


My tales are not so very 'crazy' maybe, but they are widely varied.  The list below, copied from my previous post, is really only a small hand full from the grab bag of my life's events.  Here I have marked all of the ones that were guessed at, and a few of the more obviously true.  Care for another go at the remainder before I reveal which one is the lie?  There are nine possibilities left open.  Also, please let me know which one you would like to hear more about.



TRUE          As a boy I was once dragged into a gangway and robbed by two kids.  When I cried, they let me keep my Mom's $5.00 and said they would come to my house to teach me how to fight (I'm still waiting).

TRUE          Sitting on our porch roof in Chicago throwing dirt clods at  passing trucks seemed like the most natural thing to do.

I went to the Bozo's Circus TV show in Chicago...when I was in seventh grade.  When my teacher read my note, she was kind enough to keep my secret.

TRUE          The day we moved from Chicago to Genoa City Wisconsin, our old house was broken into and my shotgun was stolen.  (Mom laughed at herself because they bypassed all of her jewelry, but ran off with a large jar full of pennies!)

TRUE          If every teenager should have something they are really good at, my confidence was built by mastering the unicycle.

TRUE          When a guy at my boarding school high school asked me if I "had any rubbers", I said "Yeah, but they're back home. They're the kind with buckles."

TRUE          They say basketball is a "non-contact" sport but I managed to break my collar bone into three pieces during a  game against our school rivals.

TRUE          Once I accidentally set my neighbor's garbage pile on fire, but refused to admit it (OK, so I just admitted it.).

After I was the final graduate of my high school class, the building was sold to the state and turned into a prison.

During final exams as a college Freshman, I taught myself to juggle instead of studying.

TRUE          Never having heard the Gospel during four years of Catholic seminary, I finally got the message, and repented, at a public college.

I wore tights and an old curtain as part of a college class ("I auditioned for this?").

TRUE          After I invited a co-ed to my room to play cards, she later told me about her collection of Playgirl magazines. THEN I realized that she hadn't expected to play cards.


When driving from Wisconsin to Alaska, my car died in the middle of British Columbia.  I sold the car for the price of the tow to the bus station.

TRUE          Once my ankle was grabbed by a hook and cable from a hovering helicopter.

TRUE          I played a jazzed up version of Amazing Grace on my saxophone, standing on a floating dock in a remote bay on the third largest island in the US.

In Alaska, I lived one summer in a tent on a platform I built over a creek.

TRUE          When cutting down giant Spruce trees, they sometimes get snagged in another tree.  My solution?  Dynamite.

TRUE          I met a beautiful girl at my Mother's funeral, and married her.

TRUE          I skinny dipped in the Pacific Ocean off of Alaska, and still managed to have three great (non blue) kids!

TRUE          A friend committed suicide on my birthday.  I found the gun on the beach, but must have walked right past his body in the dark.

TRUE          I was sued for ruining a couple's sex life.

TRUE          With good cause, I shoveled snow from my deck, up onto the roof overhead.

I lived in southeast Alaska (the salmon capital of the world) for nine years and only caught one salmon.

TRUE          Two restaurants have burned down the day after my wife and I had dinner there.

TRUE          When I fell off a roof and landed on the sidewalk below, my first words were "They said it was inevitable."

Since I bought my first car in 1978, a '73 Maverick , I have owned over 30 different vehicles, averaging about 1 per year!

I once had the opportunity to tell my wife that even her uterus was cute (And no, I did not let the opportunity go to waste.).

TRUE          I have never tasted coffee in my life.

TRUE          From the middle of Wisconsin I somehow became a joiner, and have done high-end finish carpentry on multi-million dollar yachts that hang out at Monaco.

WAY TRUE          Even as such a............ man, I have become super proud, Grampa Mike!