We are shaped by incidents in our childhood. Something happened to my husband sixty-two years ago that made him obsessive about telling the truth, and difficult to forgive those who lie. This is his story:

Mothers have a knack for taking the fun out of life. When I was ten, I often rode my bike to a park in the rougher area of the city. More than once, older boys attacked my buddies and me at our “tree house” fort. Being the runt of the litter, I always got the worst of it.

The first time I came home with bruises, my mom knew exactly where I had been. She made me swear not to go anymore.

So I continued to go to Crank Park, and I continued to get punched out on an irregular basis. Long-sleeved shirts hid the bruises from Mom until the afternoon a fist landed a couple times in my face. By the time I got home my jaw had swollen to twice its size, and my left eye didn’t feel quite right either. Mom took one look. Her eyes narrowed. Her face scrunched up dangerously.

“Did you go to Crank Park again?” she hollered.

“No ma’am.” I looked her squarely in the eye.

“You telling the truth?”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“How did you get that black eye then, and what happened to your chin?”

“Well, um, I was riding my bike close to the ditch, and a truck came up from behind, and he honked his horn, and it scared me, and I lost my balance and—”

I was in the middle of making up a great story about hitting a tree and falling down a hill and tumbling over big rocks when Mrs. Riley from next door barged in without knocking. She headed straight for me but spoke to my mother.

“Is your son okay? I heard he got beat up at Crank Park again.” She looked anxiously at my face.

My mother’s look wasn’t so sympathetic. For the next twenty minutes I heard a lot about going to Hell for lying. A beating at the park was mild compared to her tirade.

At the end of it, I made a different promise to my mom and to myself, a promise that I would never lie. To this day, I rant against those who circumvent the truth, and I put my faith only in those people who practice honesty no matter what the price.