The truth? Um, sure, it's all true. Every bit

SHELTON E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published December 19, 2001

Um, boss, do you have a minute?

We need to talk. It's, uh, about my resume.

Technically, and I'm sure you'll understand the error, I did not score the winning touchdown in the 1979 Sugar Bowl. That was Alabama running back Major Ogilvie. Heck, people confuse us all the time. It's an easy mistake to make.

I'm sure you understand. People are trying to get a job, they want to impress someone, and so they just nudge the truth along. Anyway, that part where I personally assisted Dr. Christiaan Barnard in that heart transplant? It didn't happen. If Dr. Barnard is around, however, I have a question. Would it work on a football team?

Sorry, I got off the subject. My resume. There is an item or two that I've helped along. I'm sure you'll understand. You see, I'm an O'Leary.

No, really. You can trust me on this. My mother's name was O'Leary, and her family hails all the way from County Cork. Frankly, it's been a tough week for the family.

You probably heard about cousin George, didn't you? He had a couple of, well, let's call them "typos" on his resume for Notre Dame. Poor George. A lot of us Irish people kiss the Blarney Stone. George wanted to mate with it.

So George said he had a master's degree, and he said he played ball at New Hampshire, and he said he had dated Madonna in the late '80s. Hey, he might have gotten away with all of it -- let's face it, who didn't date Madonna in the '80s -- if he had known the New Hampshire team mascot isn't the "Battlin' Bullwinkles."

Poor George. He doesn't return calls. He just sits in the dark, in that log cabin in which he was born, alone with his Best Supporting Actor award from Prizzi's Honor. Whatever is to become of him? Politics? Personally, I don't think the real scandal is whether George fibbed on his resume; it's whether Clyde Christensen copied his paper.

Inside the family, we'd tell you Notre Dame just doesn't have a sense of humor. What's the big deal? Notre Dame didn't get all up in feathers after the George Gipp mythology, did it?

What's the difference? After all, O'Leary was hired to be a football coach. What's the trouble with fudging the truth compared to the nine national titles he won at Georgia Tech.

Oh, he didn't?

Never mind.

At any rate, boss, it's a family trait. We, uh, embellish. I mean, can you imagine the expense report O'Leary turned in for the interview? You know what I always say: No harm, no foul. That's right. I made that up.

Anyway, back to the resume. That part about playing bass with the E-Street Band? What I meant to write was I have all the albums. That's sort of the same thing, isn't it?

What else? Okay, if you want to be strict about it, I did not discover radium. I did not win the Medal of Honor three times. No, not even once. I did not write the lyrics to Mr. Tambourine Man. And, sigh, I never was Miss Utah.

Also, I never won the Heisman Trophy, not that that's any big shame. I never fought Peter McNeeley, although I made sport of Mike Tyson. That guest appearance in Major League III? It never happened, although considering how many people saw the movie, you'd never catch me on that one. I did not invent the Internet, although a lot of people seem to want to use it to sell me Viagra.

Furthermore, I never saved Private Ryan. That was ex-Blue Jays manager Tim Johnson, or not. I never pitched in a Little League World Series. That was Danny Almonte, or not. I never played tailback for Southern Cal. That was Al Martin, or not. I never was a street mime in Miami. That was Eugene Robinson, or not. I did not have sex with that woman, Monica Lewinski. That was Bill Clinton, or not. Look, don't blame me. This is the way things are these days. People lie for the sake of lying. It's like Mulder and Scully said, back when we worked together. The truth is out there. And we're all in here, hiding from it.

Little League coaches lie. High school coaches lie. And have you ever listened to a recruiter? If Pinocchio had been a football coach, he'd have put out a kid's eye.

We lie. This is what we do. We lie like it's a tall tale's competition. The check is in the mail. He's not home right now. We just want to be friends. We have no idea who chopped down the cherry tree. We like to lie so much that we didn't have a place for all of it, so they invented a game called "golf."

I don't know about George, but my conscience is bothering me today. I just wanted to set things straight. And might I add, that's a striking tie you're wearing there.

What's that?

Item Four? No, I'm sorry. I have to stick by that one. I am Luke Skywalker's father. In a certain light, you can see the resemblance.

Or not.

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