[ihc] To tell the truth

[John Hofstetter <hofs@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> ---I practice truth. Sometime my words may not come out right and if you
> picked, you might find contradictions, but if brought to my attention, I
> will try to set it straight.
Well, this is going to really surprise my buddies who gather with us 
each Spring in Death Valley, but I have exaggerated a few times for 
the sake of emphasis, and the making of a good tale.

I was putting on a slide show one time for about 50 of my photo 
students and folks that had traveled with us on Death Valley 
adventures. I was illustrating some close calls that we'd had and got 
sidetracked into a story about a friend of mine who was following me 
up a trail where I had just crossed a major train track. His Land 
Cruiser got stuck between the tracks and he was no sooner stuck than 
a train going down hill came around the corner of the mountain and 
knocked his vehicle high in the air and off to the side of the track.

As I was telling the story, I said that the train must have been 
going 70 or 75 m.p.h. because it was going downhill. This old fellow 
hollered out from the audience, "I was a train conductor for 45 
years, and the maximum that train could have been going on that track 
was 50 m.p.h."

Kind of took the starch out of my story. He, now 10+ years later, is 
still trying to get back on my good side. <g>

John
--
John Hofstetter
www.goldrush.com/~hofs