There’s no other explanation.  Simply put, I’m a fraud.  For over a year now, I’ve been pouring out my heart in The Lunar Report.  Getting in touch with and sharing some pretty heavy-duty truths about my life.  I hate to admit this.  But I don’t even know what the truth is anymore.

When I was a kid growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, the hottest local band was a group called, “Mouse and the Boys in Brass.”  I never heard or saw them perform.  But I heard plenty of radio commercials on WPDQ and WAPE, advertising the next “gig” for Mouse and the Boys.  The group’s name became very recognizable to me.

My junior year at Robert E. Lee High School, we were asked to vote on which musical group we’d like to perform at our Junior-Senior prom.  Mouse and Boys went up against a little-known group, called “Lynyrd Skynyrd.”  Well, they were little known to me anyway.  I led a very sheltered life back then.  Most of the members of that group also went to Lee High. They even named themselves after the basketball coach/math teacher, Leonard Skinner who made the band members cut their hair or something.  Still, I didn’t know who they were.  I had never heard them mentioned on WPDQ or WAPE.  That group meant nothing to me.  So I voted for “Mouse.”

Now – so far, I think, everything I’ve written is true.  I think.  But, for nearly 40 years, I have been telling anyone who cared to listen that my class voted down Lynyrd Skynyrd in favor of Mouse and the Boys in Brass to play at our prom.  It’s a good story, don’t you think?  Well, a couple of months ago, I was informed by a former classmate that Lynyrd Skynyrd actually won that vote and did play at the prom.  This guy should know.  He actually went.  I spent prom night making out with my High School sweetheart at her house while her parents were away.  

So here’s the thing.  I believed the story I’ve been telling for four decades.  At some point after graduating High School, I must have decided that telling people Lynyrd Skynyrd performed at our prom was not a good enough story to tell.  But why?  That’s a great story.  Why did I change it to my version?  And when?  What possessed me to do such a thing?  What bothers me most is that, until a couple of months ago, I truly believed my version.

So, I worry now.  What else is not true?  I believe so much about myself and other things these days.  I have 56 years of stuff that I believe.  What percentage of that stuff do you suppose I just made up?  Now if I were 80 years old, I’d cut myself some slack here.  But I was in my 20’s when I started telling that story.  Is there such a thing as youthful senility?  Something one grows out of?

I don’t know.  Fraud may be a bit harsh.  Maybe not.  Who knows?   I am gullible.  But I thought gullibility only applied when dealing with other people who take advantage.  Well, I took advantage of myself.  I told myself something and I was gullible enough to believe me.

And that’s the truth.  I think.

For the truth about lies, click HERE to go to "More Lunacy."