MOUSETRAPS AND THE TRUTH

In the 5th grade at Roosevelt Grade School on the way to school I stumbled on a half-dozen mousetraps in a vacant lot we often used as a shortcut. This was directly across from school. Of course I had to pick up a couple such neat items, though not knowing for what purpose at the time.

On arriving at school on the playground before the principal rang the bell to call us to enter, I found an appropriate use. If the girls, especially with long hair, heard me snap a trap believing my intent was to pin their hair, they would squeal and run; and I would chase them – snap, snap. Especially Barbara Stevens, a prim and proper girl who was always challenging me to be the best at math, spelling, etc. A couple of years later she was 2nd trumpet in a trumpet trio performance in which I played the lead after her challenge.

Well, the principal, Miss Casebolt, quickly put a stop to this playground disturbance by telling me to take those traps back home. Knowing class was about to start and I would be counted tardy (which I would have to explain to my parents) I started running for home through the cut-off. The thought struck me that flinging the traps about where I had found them would be good enough since home was another three blocks, and they didn’t come from home in the first place.

On returning to school out of breath I heard the bell ring. The principal caught up with me in the hallway and asked, “Did you take them home?” Time-wise, she surely knew the answer to this test, but I said, “Yes,” probably with a deer-in-the-headlights look. The next thing I knew I was called from class to the principal’s office. She had called Mom at home, who reported that she hadn’t seen me. Both Mom and Dad were asked to come to the school – highly embarrassed, as both were in the school system. (Dad taught high school chemistry and physics, and Mom substituted in Home Economics, biology and English.) We four had a very serious conversation mostly about my lying behavior and some about teasing the girls.

This day a lesson was firmly and emphatically implanted – that truth is always the best policy. No matter how unpleasant the anticipated repercussions of the truth, they are never as bad as the events that will unfold from even what seems an inconsequential lie.

The second lesson, less important, was don’t tease the girls, it’s counterproductive. Unfortunately, not everyone who has passed through my life has had such good instruction on the matter of TRUTH.