Bud Grossmann’s Words of the Week for the Week of February 22, 2015 Previously unpublished fiction. © 2015 by Bud Grossmann. All Rights Reserved.   Man Lying Under a Cherry Tree (1974) © 1974 by Bud Grossmann RECALLING WITH ADMIRATION THE YOUNG GEORGE WASHINGTON I am going to try to tell you almost exactly the complete story of what I remember of how Dave Fischer told me about the second time he ever met “A.” With Fischer’s permission I have repeated this story a few times over the years, and maybe I already told it to you, but this is the first time I am putting it into print. When I asked Dave today when this particular incident occurred, he couldn’t recall for sure, but he says it had to have been a little over twenty years ago, sometime in the early 1990s, when A. came to Honolulu to lead some training sessions at Fischer’s wife’s place of business. A. had no meetings scheduled on her first full day on Oahu, but Fischer’s wife did have to work, so she asked Dave to “take A. around the island, show her some sights.” Fischer had met A. once before, which he’s probably told you about—the time when Fischer and his family had a meal with A. at a hotel on the Mainland, when A. took some kind of offense at something David told her about himself. This next time they met was maybe a year later, he figures. Fischer did as he was told, packed a picnic lunch, picked A. up in Waikiki, and took her around the island in his van. He showed her the back side of Diamond Head, the overlook at Hanauma Bay, the Blow Hole, and probably Bellows Beach. They had their lunch somewhere along the North Shore, and then, late in the afternoon, they drove back on the H-2, across the cane fields and pineapple fields, and the entire day they talk, talk, talked non-stop, like pals who had known each other forever. Fischer was hoarse, nearly voiceless, at the end of the drive. A. was maybe not so voiceless, though half the day’s words had been her own, and it was there, as they came back into Waikiki, that she said, to illuminate some revelation she was making, “Dave, I have to tell you something. I am a pathological liar.” David gave it two seconds’ thought before he said, not meaning to be funny, “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” And that’s the story. One hundred percent true, approximately, and one hundred percent just the way David Fischer told me. I ran it by him today, this story, and asked if he had anything else to add. He suggested I tell you two things more: First, far as Fischer ever found out, A. meant exactly what she said. And, furthermore, far as Fischer is aware, he has never encountered anyone more honest than his friend A. ♦         ARCHIVES         Click for a list of other Words of the Week I would welcome your thoughts on this page (or any of my others).  Write to me at the following address.  Please be sure to spell Grossmann with two n’s and mention what page you are writing about. Thanks!  BUD GROSSMANN Top of this page | HOME | Fine Photography | Picture of the Day | Writings | | Words of the Week | Mom & Pop Prop. Mgt. | FAQ |

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