Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era

'Tree that wasn't there,' and other lies

Barry Girvin says his father told a story about a curious incident that occurred while he was growing up on a farm near Quarryville.

"There was a problem with squirrels,'' Girvin writes. "They were constantly making their way to the corncrib from their sanctuary in a large oak tree nearby.

"Since my grandfather needed the corn to feed his livestock, he decided to cut down the tree, thus encouraging the squirrels to move to another location.''

So Girvin's grandfather locked several squirrels in the corncrib and cut down the tree.

"When the squirrels were released,'' Girvin claims, "they ran 100 feet in the air before they realized the tree was not there.''

With this squirrely family story, Girvin, of Smoketown, wins the Scribbler's fourth annual Liars Contest.

Choosing this year's winner was not easy. After only two fabricators entered the contest, the Scribbler ran a second plea for participants and received another 22 fibs. From famine to feast.

Here are some close second-placers:

n Back in the 1980s, down below Quarryville, a man kept a hard-shell clam as a pet, says Gene Moore, of East Hempfield Township.

"Mr. Clam,'' as he was known, was "of pleasant disposition and of greater than average intelligence,'' says Moore.

He had become a ventriloquist, using a stuffed shrimp as his dummy. Mr. Clam entertained at church socials and the Solanco Fair.

"I was not that impressed with his talent,'' Moore says, however, "as I could always see his lips move.''

n Jeanne Mitman, of Manor Township, says her palomino mare had been injured on a horse trailer and thereafter was difficult to load.

But Mitman wanted to raise and train her own colt, so with help she loaded the mare on her trailer and hauled her to a stud farm in Annville.

Mitman said the first breeding attempt failed, so the next month she determined to haul the mare up there again.

The mare was more than ready to go.

"So,'' a friend said to Mitman, "you're telling me that she walked right on the trailer, right?''

"Better than that,'' Mitman said, "she hitched the trailer up for me.''

n Ken Rogers, of Elizabethtown, says Vice President Joe Biden is not lying about playing golf within earshot of the massacre at Nickel Mines.

"I was playing golf with him,'' Rogers says. "so I know he isn't lying.''

n Pennsylvania has legalized marijuana, according to Joan King, of Pequea. So East and West Hempfield townships have reclaimed their historical crop, growing hemp on thousands of acres. A huge processing plant and warehouse is located in Neffsville.

"Living in the southern end, I worried that I would have a tortuous commute through the center of Lancaster to the processing plant where I work,'' she writes.

But a north-south bypass has been built with taxes raised by the new crop.

And the Lancaster County Convention Center is in the black with a constant stream of hemp auctions and tourists coming "to gawk at the local hemp overlords.''

·Last but far from least, Bob Horst, of Lancaster, is the most concise of three entrants who have built their lies on cow dung. Bob knows the rules of the game; he won the first Liars Contest sponsored by this column.

His entry is entitled "Amish Games.''

To capitalize on the success of the TV show "Amish Mafia'' and the popularity of reality TV, Horst says, the soon-to-be-opened Spooky Nook Sports complex proposes to provide real cow pies at strategic locations on its blumsack field.

Spooky Nook also plans, Horst claims, to "televise the games of the new Amish Blumsack League, wherein players will wear goalie-style masks for the dual purpose of prohibition of photos and to keep [cow manure] out of their eyes.''

And, on that clever note, these fabulous fibs are finished.

·The Scribbler welcomes comments and contributions at jbrubaker@lnpnews.com or 291-8781.