Family Secrets Non-Preserved

In a small town, they say there are no secrets!   That is a bunch of bull, first;  people just protect those secrets in selected spreadings.   And that was especially true, when your father was a Baptist preacher in a small town.  I grew up protecting family secrets.   My oldest brother came home from Ouachita Baptist University and it wasn't long until we knew that he had a problem with the bottle---so the three "little kids" were told to say nothing about his being home or that he had lost his job or anything else.  This was a little difficult for me since I was the baby and everyone who suspected something would ask me about it thinking that I was a chatterbox and would give them an answer.   They would not have thought of asking my parents such a question!   So I made up stories.  Like about his job in Lepanto, Arkansas which he didn't have.   One time, I even heard one of the biddies say to her biddie partner, "I guess it isn't true.   Janie doesn't know anything about it."

You think not, Miss Biddy.   I lived in it.   Most of my siblings had their own homes and they didn't have to stay in it.  I did.   And I wanted to announce it to the world and tell them to "Buzz off" or to remind them of their own closeted skeletons --some that were not closeted.  But I grinned and skipped off.  And I played their game.   I still do--when I choose!

A big word today is "transparency".  I can't decide if it is good or bad, in the end.   Do I want to know all the facts about spying or the next possible war or how many terrorists are out there waiting to happen?  Would it have helped anything, in the end, for Daddy to go to the pulpit and announce that his son was an alcoholic or this or that about another child?   Not a bit.   Some secrets don't need to be spread around;  some need to be forgotten,  all in the name of semi-transparency or time limited transparency.

I prefer to remember the fun times.....and I have had plenty of those good times!  I will deal with the secrets in my own, sometimes un-transparent way!   It is called "Managed Secrets".