Two Truths and a Lie

Saw this icebreaker game on the web and was thinking of using it over here. Talking about two truths and one lie. I like that lying is an easy thing to do. It's telling the truth that's hard. Not all truths are hard. Some are very easy and so true. Like I love my kids. I love my grandkids. People can tell stories about those truths without any measure of difficulty. Tell a truth that examines some of your darker self. No one wants to look there. But if you're going to lie, I say go to town. We lie so many times in little ways that it's not a big deal. We lie when we say our boss's stupid remarks don't bother us. We try to shrug it off or rationalize the feeling away. Even those little lies to our selves weigh heavy after a long time. That is what happened to me. Having a friend and a boss that was abusive. I lied to myself all the time that he was just having bad days, he is really a kind person. That is not the case. Even today I still lie to myself that this relationship did not do harm to me and my family.

I did a thing that I can never get over. I still try to make up for my selfish act but it is not an easy thing to do. It was when I was 19 years old. I went Wild Rice picking with my Dad and my brother-in-law.
The travel was very far by boat. We had to take a couple of boats and a lot of camping gear. At the island where we camped there were other people camping and picking rice there as well. A number of my cousins were there camping and picking rice as well. My Dad was into the drink those days. He was never sober. It was very frustrating and maddening. I couldn't take it anymore. When the bush plane (a Beaver) came in to pick up rice bags. I took the money from the rice. I took my share and gave the rest to a guy that was loading rice as well. I told him to give the money to my Dad. I got a ride with the plane back to the loading docks. I just left my Dad there. Don't know how he got back. If he got his money. How long he stayed in the bush. I never asked him or my Mom what happened. That is a regret that I have to this day. I was not a good son to my Dad in my younger years.

I sent my kids away to a residential school when they were young. The school is called Lebret.  The school no longer exists. It was in close proximity to my Uncle's Reserve in Saskatchewan. I drove six hours every weekend from Manitoba to Saskatchewan to see my kids. We used to stay in a Travel Lodge motel in Regina. There was a little pool in the hotel where the kids could swim. This one weekend these little Indian kids were swimming in the pool. My kids were there and I was sitting around reading. One little kids must have been about four. She stood close to the shallow end of the pool but kept bouncing on her feet. She went out to far and was up to her nose in the water. She could not bounce on her feet back to the pool stairs. My kids were on the other side of the pool. The older kids that this little girl was with were on the deep end. I tried to reach the little girl but she was beyond my arm reach. So I jumped in with all my clothes and sneakers. Wallet in my pocket. I pulled her to the stairs. She didn't say anything and her siblings didn't say anything either. I was the hero of the morning.

I once won seventy-two thousand dollars. It was a raffle with the Manitoba Theatre Centre. I used to live in the north end of the city. Winnipeg I paid $24,000.00 for the house. One day there was a message on the answering machine asking me to call this lady. I erased it and did not bother to call back. The lady called again and again. I never called. It was about a week when the lady finally got a hold of my wife on the phone. The lady did not want to tell my wife why she wanted to talk to me. My wife told her, might as well not wait for my husband to call back, he won't call you. The woman told my wife that I won a prize but not to tell me. Anyway when I got home that day, my wife told me the lady called. My wife said,"you should call her, she sounded kind of nice". :-D My wife convinced me to call. The lady told me I won the grand prize of the MTC draw. I didn't really believe but hoped it wasn't a joke. I went to the MTC at the date and time they told me to come. There was a representative from the MTC and the local Jaguar dealer. You see the first prize was a choice of a Jag, or a RX7 with a MPV Van, or a BMW, or cash. I took the cash. With the cash my wife bought a house in the suburbs, bought my Mom a 1992 honda civic for $15,000 and a Maytag washer and dryer for my wife's mom.

And those are my stories.