Having a reputation

Reputations are perilous things. Everybody has one, but outside of the way in which we conduct ourselves in our dealings with our fellow travelers down life’s highway, we have little or no control over what our reputations are. And even if we live exemplary lives in our own eyes, just about anything we do or say can be misinterpreted by somebody else. Sometimes those misinterpretations are unjustifiably ruinous to one’s reputation. At other times, people’s interpretations of what we say and do, are right on the money.
One of my oldest acquaintances in this area is Terry Tipton. Not that Terry is all that old, I’ve just known him longer than I’ve known most other folks here abouts. Terry and I don’t see as much of each other these days since our sons are all grown and gone and most of the occasions at which we would run into each other were ball games of one sort or another in which our sons took part. I risk his ire by mentioning him in this space because of a passing remark he once made to me. I suppose I had just said something of an outrageous nature (golly, imagine that! Me saying something outrageous), and Terry said, “That’s what I like about you. I never know what you’ll say next.” The fact that he was laughing so hard when he said it that he had tears in his eyes, probably is what made it stick in my memory. In any event, that remark pretty much defines my reputation in Terry’s mind.
There are those of you, gentle readers, who think of your humble correspondent as “that crazy guy that writes for the Hazen newspaper.” In fact, this is the most common form of address I encounter among those with whom I am not personally acquainted. I suppose this is because they don’t wish to risk mispronouncing my last name (Hint: It rhymes with Playdough).
Among those with whom I am personally acquainted, most are understandably reluctant to acknowledge that fact in public. Those few who will do so usually regard me as a harmless eccentric. Sort of like that cousin of your mother’s who the family kept locked in the attic until he nearly burned the house down by trying to etch his name into the floor using a magnifying glass and sunlight.
I have come to learn over the years there are few indeed, who are familiar with the words which appear in this space each week, who do not hold some vivid impression of the author of those words fixed in their minds. Most of these impressions are wildly inaccurate, although they speak highly of the imaginations of the folks who hold them. Most of these inaccurate impressions are the result of not being secretive about many of the things I did as a young man. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have been so forthcoming.
But, as I’ve said before, the statute of limitations has run out on most of the really bad stuff, and they do say confession is good for the soul, although it won’t do much for your police record.
Point is, how would you like your reputation to rest exclusively on what you did 30 to 35 year ago? Actually, I don’t really care what anybody thinks of me as long as I can stand to look at myself in a mirror, which, by the way, was never a pleasant task to start with.