Once upon a time, Pop was full of crap...and had lots of hair...

Yep, that is my Dad in 1984. Click on the pic to get a better look at the caption. This is a story about Cindy and how my Pops pulled the wool over her eyes. The first thing you have to know about Pop is that he likes to keep you guessing. One minute he is telling you the complete truth. The next minute he is feeding you crapola, hand over fist. In between that, its a lot of gray area. When we were kids, Pop...or Uncle Allen aka Uncle Peanut Butter (long story) would try to get you to believe just about anything. Between the boogieman, sharks in a fresh water lake, Uncle Jimmy being the shortest Uncle because he never got to the table before the other 7 kids ate all the food....stuff like that, you had to be on your toes to wade through his stories. He can be very convincing.

Anyway, this clipping is just another one of Pop's stories. Why would any fisherman give away the location of his favorite bass pond? He wouldn't unless he was an idiot and wanted that pond over fished in a week or two. What you need to know is that the City ponds were located at the Fairgrounds. They indeed had fish in them, but not large mouth that size. You should also be aware that he didn't catch those fish on a candy (gummy) worm, they would dissolve. Many people believe everything they read in the paper. How do we know that they believed that little story? The following day, you couldn't buy a gummy worm anywhere in town...FACT. Sure there were a few people that doubted his story. Great Uncle Orvil came up to Pop and said,"OK, what did you really catch those fish on?" He didn't fall for the candy worm story.

This brings us to Cousin Cindy, sweet, kind, Cindy. In 1984 she was 16 going on 17. Who would have thought that Cindy believed her Uncle Allen? Who would have thought she told lots of people this story over the years. Who would have imagined I would be sitting in her dorm room with her roommates as Cindy, in a state of excitement tells me to tell them that the story she has shared with them is true. The nerve of them! They didn't believe it. Who better to back her up than the mighty fisherman's oldest daughter. I was amazed and couldn't stop laughing. Poor, sweet gullible Cindy, yet another victim of Uncle Allen's tall tales.

Years later, Uncle Allen...became a Great Uncle to Cindy's daughter Dani. Yet another child to torture! He tried to convince Dani that there were dead people under the white landscaping rocks at the housing development where our Grandmother was living. He told her that you could hear them if you leaned over and listened carefully. So, there she is crouched down next to her Great Uncle. He said, "can you hear them?" She said, "No." He said, "Get a little closer and you will hear them." As she leaned in, putting her full attention to the "sound" beneath the rocks....he reaches his arm behind her , and yells as he touched her back. Dani, jumped up, and turned to run away so quickly that she ran right into a unused Bar BQ grill that was sitting there. Her head bounced off the metal and she spent quite a bit of time with an ice pack on the knot on her head. I think he felt pretty bad because he just wanted to scare her not injure her. Yeah, yeah, its all fun and games until someone gets hurt.

As a kid, I learned fairly quickly...when in doubt ask Mom if Pop was telling the truth. Unlike that husband of hers, she isn't a manure spreader.