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“The truth of these days is not that which really is, but what every man persuades another man to believe.”
Montaigne, “On Giving the Lie”, Essays (1580-88)
“There is no permanent, absolute, unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of ideas.”
Butler, “Truth and Convenience,” Note-Books (1912)
“The most mischievous liars are those who keep sliding on the verge of truth.”
Augustus William Hare, Guesses at Truth (1827)
“A hair perhaps divides the false and the true”
Omar Khayam, Rubaiyat (11th-12th C.)
“Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
Albert Einstein
“If you tell the truth, you won’t have anything to remember.”
Mark Twain
“Truthiness is the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what the facts will support.”
Stephen Colbert
I want to be honest up front with you: the following story is absolutely, positively true — except where it’s not. By that, I mean that all of the “characters” introduced here did actually exist — my former boss, Bill, my former colleagues, Bob and Bucky, as well as another quite interesting fellow (quirky really), Rick. And, you’ll find that like Rick, I fully intend to relate both the true and the untrue in the telling. Or, perhaps it’s unfair to call the tales that Rick came up with on a daily basis “untrue.” Because of their creativity and the fact that they began with and were built upon kernels of truth, I’d much rather refer to them as “almost true,” “nearly true” and “more or less true.”
The company referred to in this vignette “resembles” the place where I had my first job. And by that, I mean that it bears a remarkably strong resemblance to the place where I began my career writing promotional copy. And, since all of the anecdotes that the “real” Rick shared with us, his co-workers, were actually already more in the semi-plausible realm of yarns, I had little need to embellish them in the re-telling. What I quote Rick as saying was actually fairly factual — except where I needed to embellish it somewhat for added effect.
I still have to chuckle a bit when I think of good, old Rick Saylor.* It’s not that he was an out and out liar. No, not at all. But, Rick did have a way of playing with facts. Yes, the old boy kidnapped the truth and took it for a merry ride. Even though we always knew that much of Rick’s story on a given day was somewhat enhanced, there was also the implicit understanding, after awhile, that the man had begun his narrative with at least a grain of truth. After that, you were never quite sure where he was going to end up.
[* To be completely honest, I’ve changed Rick’s last name, in order to protect the innocent…]
I met Rick the day that I started my first after college job. I was to be the new, junior copywriter/editor in a small, sales promotion department at a northeastern utility company. Rick, then in his early sixties, was art director. Bob January, the senior writer, a mid-thirtiesh guy, was noted (by himself) for his “radio voice;” he was competent enough, I guess, and he aspired to something better than what he was currently doing, and, in more sophisticated surroundings. And, he constantly mentioned it to any and all who would listen. He let me know right away that he was: “not content to play in the minor leagues all my life; I intend to make it in the bigs real soon.”
Then, of course, there was Roger “Bucky” McCall. He was a utility company lifer from the word go. Started with the power company in ‘48, right out of high school. By the time I arrived on the scene, Bucky was almost 25 years into the job — or, perhaps more correctly, the job was 25 years into him. He was a delightful, friendly man and he kind of took me under his wing since I was brand-spanking new in the department and still wet-behind-the-ears. He engaged in loads of self-deprecation, in an almost knee-jerk fashion; to me, it seemed due to perhaps an underlying feeling of inferiority, if truth be told. That may have resulted from being surrounded by all of his colleagues with college degrees versus his high school diploma. Good old Bucky obviously realized that what he did every day wasn’t really what kept the place going. He occasionally gave slide presentations on outdoor lighting to local women’s gardening groups. In this setting, he was very charming and self-effacing (the older ladies loved him). Don’t get me wrong. I grew to love Bucky myself, even though I only worked with him for a year. And while it may sound insulting and disrespectful to the memory of the man — to be truthful, and that’s what this tale is all about — many of his co-workers considered that his position in the company was mostly unnecessary, if not irrelevant. I even heard one employee harshly refer to him behind his back as “deadwood.” And, in his heart, I’m sure he sensed that might be true.
His idea of a very fulfilling day on the job was when he had to call and reassure major commercial customers during power outages and brownouts that occurred due to storms or equipment breakdowns. He referred to it as “manning the phones”, and you could see his juices stirring as he began making calls. He relished it as much as someone with more substantial accomplishments might relish the “glory years”. At work, on most days however, he was usually seen shuffling between his office, the water cooler, the coffee station and the men’s room. I say “shuffling”, because, even in his mid-forties — which should have been his prime years — Roger was already an “old man”. I didn’t exactly put a name on it back then, but when I’ve thought about those days, and Bucky McCall, my sense was that he had succumbed to “ennui.” Despite an attempt to project a positive outlook about things, the poor guy was encapsulated in — almost suffocated by — an aura of lethargy and weariness. Like Eliot’s Prufrock, to me at the time it seemed as if Bucky was resigned to “measuring out his life with coffee spoons.”
Rounding out the little department was our fearless leader, William “Bill” Sandy, a once-talented, but now hard-drinking, middle-aged, tippler; he was definitely past his prime — but, of course, I didn’t realize it at the time. Part of what fooled you (or, at least me) about Bill Sandy was that he was quite well spoken, quick with comebacks and actually pretty knowledgeable about marketing and advertising. Let me put it this way: he was never stumped for either an answer or the way to get something done. So, despite the many years of hard living, he still had enough left in the tank and enough mental wherewithal to seem pretty formidable at times, yes downright impressive. Remember, though, that I was just a young, impressionable kid straight out of college, so take some of this with a grain of salt. While Bill always treated me kindly, he certainly had his cynical side; and, it seemed that most of the young secretaries in the department considered him to be somewhat shameless, if not outright creepy. BTW, a typical day for Bill usually began by him coming in late suffering with a hangover, leaving early for lunch with the printing salesman, coming back late from lunch and leaving early for the day…
But, back to Rick. The first time I became aware of his penchant for exaggeration was my second week on the job. We were all standing around the coffee pot on Monday morning — Rick, Bill, Bob and me — when Rick launched into a story about his wife, Zoe: “Guys, so listen to this: Zoe landed a big carp on Apache Lake this weekend —biggest one ever caught there, by a man or a woman.”
“You don’t say, Rick,” offered Bill Sandy, with a sly look over in my direction.
“Yup, Bill,” Rick replied, chomping down on his Calabash pipe. He was starting to get into his story now. “You know her daddy was a world class angler himself, and he put a rod and reel into her tiny, little hands when she was only four.”
“That’s kind of unusual don’t you think, Rick? said Bob. “After all, most little girls are probably more at home with tea sets.”
“Well, yeah, I suppose,” continued Rick, “but, while other girls her age were playing with dolls, young Zoe was learning to properly bait a hook with a worm. Shucks, she even had her own subscription to Field & Stream by the time she was 12 years old.”
Bill shot me another look, this time adding an eye roll.
“So,” asked Bob, “exactly how big was this fish, anyway?”
“Well,” says Rick, puffing like crazy on the old pipe and clearly relishing holding court with a captive audience. “It was a 55-pound carp — what a struggle it was to land that sucker. It gave Zoe a good fight, but after about 45 minutes or so, she prevailed.”
Rick continued, warming to the situation: “It’s a real beauty, though, and we’re gonna get it stuffed and mounted. The Apache Lake community board is going to present her with a plaque at the annual July 4th picnic. I hear someone from the Guinness Book of Records will be there.”
Bill looked over at me one, final time and not only rolled his eyes, but twirled his finger near his temple, to indicate: “cuckoo.” Obviously, Bill found it hard to believe that a 90-pound, female sexagenarian could have had the wherewithal to battle for three quarters of an hour and finally land a fish so big and possibly even record-setting!
It was becoming very apparent to me that whenever Rick commenced with a story — usually with a twinkle in his eye — you learned to fasten your seat belt and hold on for all you were worth. The journey was typically a joyride of hyperbole that took a fair bit of license with the truth; but, it was nevertheless always entertaining and his enhancements never yielded anything negative or malicious. So, no harm, no foul I guess.
Several weeks after the “fish story,” Rick’s wife was again the heroine of his next narrative. This particular morning, Rick, uncharacteristically, showed up late — actually, two hours tardy. He came trudging in, huffing and puffing, threw his jacket up on the coat rack and exclaimed:
“Well, I just came from the hospital, Zoe took a nasty fall this morning at home.”
Bill Sandy was just walking by at that moment and exclaimed: “Geez, Rick, is she okay?”
“Well, she was carrying a load of laundry down the stairs, when she missed a step and came tumbling down.”
“How many steps, Rick, one or two?” asked Bill.
“No, all 22 of them. Luckily, she didn’t bang her head, but she landed hard on her right wrist and broke it in a couple of places. And, she’s bruised all over.”
Now somewhat concerned, Bill suggested: “Rick, shouldn’t you be there with here? Take the day off, man, really.”
“Nah, it’s okay, she’ll be fine. Zoe’s a trooper. They tried to give her a local anesthetic or some pain killers, but she refused. She doesn’t like the idea of being drugged up. She’d rather feel the actual pain and know what she’s dealing with.”
“I guess this is going to put her out of commission for awhile, right?” queried Bob.
“Yup, the doc said she can’t pick up anything heavy for a few months at least. Lucky for her that she’s ambidextrous and does everything with either hand.”
We all felt terrible for Rick, and of course, for Zoe. About two weeks later, however, Bob January burst into Bill’s office while he and I were having a planning meeting. He wanted to share an addendum to Rick’s recent story: “Guys, I was in the Grand Union last night and happened to run into Zoe. I was about to ask her how she was recovering from her injury, except that she looked perfectly fine — especially since she was carrying two loaded grocery bags, one in each arm.”
Bill quipped: “Seems like there must have been a divine intervention and the woman’s been miraculously healed.” Of course, none of us mentioned any of this to Rick. And, the legend of Rick only continued to grow. I think it was exactly at that moment that I began to think of his story-telling behavior as The Rick Saylor Syndrome.
I have to admit that I began to look forward to Rick’s daily forays into parts unknown. And, I also have to say that he didn’t disappoint. For instance, Rick could be counted on to share the latest exploits of his son, Brad. Though I never had the opportunity to meet him, I assumed he was a guy in his mid-to-late thirties. Well, it seemed that Brad was technologically pretty savvy, almost a genius to hear Rick tell it.
As an example, supposedly Brad had completed a Harvard education in only three years. (Bob later told me that he actually had trained at the RCA Institute.) Obviously, that training allowed him to fix Bill’s stereo one day in “just thirty seconds.” Oh, and Brad also happened to be blessed with “telescopic vision.” Looking out the window in our department one day, Rick said: “See that water tower way out across the field?” (It was about 100 to 150 yards away..)
“Frank, can you read the writing on the tower?”
“Of course not, Rick,” I replied.
“Well, Brad would have absolutely no problem telling you what it says from this distance. He’s fortunate enough to have what they call telescopic vision— it’s very, very rare.”
So, I took this exchange with more than a few grains of salt. After all, 20-10 is considered perfect vision. Which is, of course, seeing at 20 feet what most people see at 10 feet. (BTW, up until about 10 years ago, I had 20-15 vision myself.) It means, then, that in order for Brad to see clearly at 20 feet what was at least 100 yards away would mean that he had 20 – minus 280 vision!!
One day, at lunchtime, Rick and I had taken a ride down to Madison, a town where I grew up. At one point, we were on Ridgedale Ave and passed by the Saylor House, which was on the historic register and had a big bronze plaque at the front entrance to confirm that fact. Seems that General Anthony Wayne had used the old building as his headquarters back in 1777. I was familiar with the home, if not its history, as I had passed by it many, many times as a teenager when walking into town. I bring this up because right after we passed the Saylor House, Rick pulled over and then backed up so that we were sitting right in front of it.
“Yep,” said Rick, “the old Saylor House. Part of the family estate. It will probably be turned over to me some day, but it’s been tied up in the courts for years.” Well, the name on the plaque certainly matched Rick’s last name, so this obviously could have been the real deal. But, based on earlier episodes with our story-telling art director, I had some doubts and just kind of laughed quietly to myself. However, to me, the mythical status of Rick the fabulist continued to grow with each passing day.
Another example of Rick ranging far afield came one Monday morning. You know the routine: Bill, Bob, Bucky and me grabbing some java at the coffee station. Rick sees us all there together and, I swear, almost ran over to meet us. You could tell he had something to share.
“Hey guys, you’ll never guess what I did this weekend?”
“What was that, Rick?”, asked Bill, knowing that a new tale was on its way.
“Well, my buddy Bill, who’s a pilot for United, was due to fly into Newark Airport from Chicago. He called me Saturday morning — while he was still taxiing in — to see if I could meet him at the airport that afternoon. He had some kind of surprise for me, but didn’t want to tell me ahead of time.”
“What did he have for you, Rick, free airline tickets for you and Zoe to the vacation spot of your choice?” asked Bill.
“Nope,” said Rick, “even better than that. When I finally met him at the airport, he took me out to the tarmac to check out the Bunny Plane.”
“Really, Rick?” said Bob, “Hef’s plane?”
“Yes,” replied Rick, “and what an amazing thing to see up close. It’s a stretch DC-9 that Hef converted into a mile-high party place. So, my buddy Bill, through some connections, got us on board for a tour. The plane is outfitted with a shower, a TV room, a disco and a luxury bedroom featuring a heart-shaped bed. And, since they were fueling up and preparing to take off soon, a few of the bunny air hostesses in leather outfits showed up. It was quite a day, quite a day.”
So, let me do a follow up to this last Rick story. I actually already knew that the Bunny Plane had been at Newark Airport recently. But, it was not during the past weekend as Rick had told us. I remembered reading an article in that week’s Look Magazine, which had a slew of photos of the plane, as well as all of the information that Rick had just supplied us with.
Now, I’m going to admit that many of the stories that Rick shared with us contained a number of “untruths.” And that’s because they were not always 100%, factually correct. But, they did always began with a smidgen of truth and then seemed to somehow blossom from there. I guess I’d really like to refer to Rick’s tellings as “white lies,” since they were pretty harmless and often quite enjoyable. Typically, white lies suggest lying about a small, unimportant matter to avoid hurting someone; however, I feel that Rick’s white lies were a result of the fact that he loved rambling far and wide with his stories in hopes of simply entertaining his listeners. And who’s to say that Walt Whitman was not correct when he wrote in Leaves of Grass that: “Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.” Samuel Butler, the 19th century English novelist, had written in The Way of All Flesh that “The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.”
So, after experiencing The Rick Saylor Syndrome up close for awhile, I feel that the man did what he did not to intentionally mislead people, but merely to amuse them and to make an actual event even more interesting than it might have been. I’ll leave you with Carl Sandburg’s take on this topic:
“People lie because they don’t remember clear what they saw/ People lie because they can’t help making a story better than it was the way it happened.”
Carl Sandburg, The People, Yes (1936)
Postscript: Despite the fact that much of the narrative you’ve just read contains a range of fabrications, enhancements and exaggerations from one, Mr. Rick Saylor, I can honestly confirm this much for you: that what I’ve written about the events I’ve discussed, in the power company where they took place, with the people that I’ve cited — is mostly truthful. Well, at least more truthful than not…
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Resonance 