EDITOR’S NOTE: I published a “Yes It Is, It’s True” column earlier this month about the lies and damn lies you can find so easily on the Internet and on Facebook. The following is part two:
My old fishing buddy Jam
es Wasserman and I took a vacation at Seney in the Upper Peninsula in 1976. It was there he told the tale of author Ernest Hemingway’s short story, “Big Two-Hearted,” about his experiences on the famed trout stream. Trouble is, what Hemingway did was not on the Two-Hearted, but on the Fox River just about where we were camped.
Hemingway described how he arrived at the scene as taking a train north from Seney about six miles and then walking through massive numbers of mosquitoes and grasshoppers to a trout stream that produced many beautiful brookies.
Wasserman and I motored north about six miles and boondocked our way to a makeshift camp site on the banks of the East Branch of the Fox River. We saw everything the famed author described.
I read accounts about how Hemingway wrote about the Two-Hearted, which was quite a ways east, not far from Newberry. They were false. And I wondered how normally intelligent people could continue to promote the lie.
Finding the truth sometimes seems only to be a pipe dream, especially when so many people believe lies and myths.
Two alarming examples showed up on my Facebook pages in the last month, one trumpeting the time change for early October and telling readers to “fall ahead,” the other suggesting we set clocks back one hour on Sunday, Oct. 25. Where do people get this bad information?
For the record, we are supposed to set our clocks back, not ahead, at 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 1, the day after Halloween. Don’t forget, “Spring Ahead, Fall Back” and “Thirty Days Hath September, April, June and November.”
Too many inaccuracies appear on religious subjects, but I’ll bring up just two in this treatise.
One is the result of Fox News’ “War on Christmas,” in which we’re told we can’t say “Merry Christmas.” We can so. There is absolutely no penalty for wishing someone a Merry Christmas, except perhaps disapproval from a Jew, an atheist, a Muslim, etc. But you won’t be hauled off to jail by the politically incorrect set.
Saying “Happy Holidays” is done by people who want to be inclusive of all faiths. It’s done by those who want to show good manners, just like those who stand at attention for the playing of our national anthem or those who stand and put their hand over the heart while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
But saying “Merry Christmas” is not banned, as suggested by the cartoon accompanying this piece.
Finally, the Supreme Court has not decided that “everyone must perform gay marriages.” Such ceremonies now are permitted, but if two gays or two lesbians asked to be wed at the Wayland Calvary Church, they would be turned away. But public officials no longer can deny marriage licenses to gays and lesbians because the law now permits them. To deny them a license would be as wrong as denying them the right to vote or denying them a driver’s license.
“If you insist on telling the truth, you’d better be funny. Otherwise people will kill you.” — George Bernard Shaw
Hemingway used the Two Hearted river name instead of the Fox – has a more romantic ring to it.
As for “Merry Christmas” greeting, it is the season for celebrating Christ’s birthday, it is the reason for the seasonal holiday. Saying “Season’s greetings” is acceptable, but not descriptive of the real reason for the holiday. You can be politically correct all you want… I’ll say “Merry Christmas” and those that don’t like it, this is America, and I have just as much right to say what I want as whom I’m addressing can respond in any way they wish. The politically correct crowd doesn’t own speech – at least not yet.