By John Grindrod
Guest Columnist
While the origins of many words and expressions are often easy to pin down, others are shrouded in a blanket of vagaries. Often the best that can be determined by etymologists is when the word or expression first began to be used, and such is the case with the term “tall tale.”
The term describing a story that has an element of truth and a significant amount of embellishment began being used with frequency in the 19th century when frontiersmen tried to outdo one another around the campfire with stories of their travel experiences.
Of course, one of the most famous characters in the tall-tale genre is Paul Bunyan, who, as the tale is told, was so large at birth that it took five storks to deliver a baby whose crib was the emptied bed of a lumber wagon.
As for some tall tales, well, there have been those who’ve crafted quite an anthology to fit a variety of occasions. One subset of humanity, politicians, seem to have no problem telling their tall tales to pad their résumés and feed their considerable egos. Websites such as Factcheck.org and Politifact have exposed many of those tales. As for who tells the tallest tales between, say, our current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the previous occupant, well, in such a politically polarized America, more so than I can ever remember in my 72 years, I suppose that depends upon whether you favor the guy with the red tie or the one with the blue. No doubt, each has told his share of whoppers.
What’s always mystified me is, surely knowing there is no shortage of fact checkers who will parse every syllable and check for truthfulness, why politicians continue spinning their yarns.
Now, as a retired part-time bartender spanning four decades, I’m certain the number of tall tales to which I’ve listened number in the hundreds, especially, since many golfers and fishermen have sat before me. Like politicians, each of those groups has developed quite the reputation for stretching the seams of a story.
As for the fishermen, there’s one bar patron, Steve Contini, with whom I have kept in touch after stepping out from behind the bar. While I’ve heard many a tale from other fishermen that I’m pretty certain were exaggerated, with Steve, I’ve never had any doubts when it comes to his tales. Often when he has a particularly good day fishing the waters of our local reservoirs, I’ll get a text accompanied by a photo verifying either the size or the total number of his catch. I have long contended that Contini, who I’ve often told is second only to St. Peter in fishing talent, has actually posed far more often with fish than with people!
Now, as for those golfers, there’s one story I remember from my ‘tending days that I always suspected was stretched considerably. What follows is the tale that was told to me as I stood opposite him behind the bar at the Knights of Columbus, now so sadly, where once there was such fellowship and fun, gone.
The story began with his telling me that he’d played a solo round of golf at Tamarac Golf Course and had put his cell phone down on the ground to line up and execute a shot. He said he then picked his golf bag up but not his phone and went on to finish the remaining holes through the 18th. He said he then drove home, watched some TV and only in the late afternoon did he realize the phone was missing.
With darkness descending and some rain beginning to fall, he told me he drove back to the golf course. He said he remembered every single shot and where each landed from several hours before and, in the dark, walked with a flashlight to each landing spot.
I continued to listen as he ticked off hole after hole describing the club used and location of each stroke.
Periodically, I would need to snag a beer or a wine or make a drink for someone else, and when those moments occurred, my golfer paused his tale until I returned. Despite my disbelief in the alleged veracity of the tale, to be honest, I was curious how many holes it would take before the inevitable relocation. After all, anybody could guess the ending because otherwise, well, there just wouldn’t be much of a tale beyond a disgusted “Lost my damn phone at the golf course.”
Finally, it came! There, my golfer said, off the fairway on a bed of pine needles on the fourteenth hole was the phone. Combatting both darkness and rain for 13 and a half holes and recalling with near pinpoint accuracy where every shot landed and finding that phone certainly rivals many of the tales attributed to that legendary lumberjack, Paul, whose statue Lady Jane and I visited in Bangor, Maine, once upon a New England fall trip.
Among all those tall tales to which I listened over my four decades of filling buckets of beer and making Jack and Cokes and margaritas, that tale stood the tallest.
John Grindrod is a regular columnist for The Lima News, a freelance writer and editor and the author of two books. Reach him at [email protected].
