SELF MYTHOLOGY: DEATH, DYING, PAT CONROY’S DAD

image via foundagrave.com

What are the best stories told but the ones we tell about ourselves. From Greek gods to Steinbeck sharecroppers we can be whoever we like when we tell our own stories.

Of course the best self mythology comes from the biggest liars and you can’t believe a word they say, still we need to take the Rod Stewart approach.

We need to listen and listen good. But first the soundtrack:

If I listened long enough to you
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true
Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

Someone like you makes it hard to live without
somebody else
Someone like you makes it easy to give
never think about myself

If I gave you time to change my mind
I’d find a way just to leave the past behind
Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

If I listened long enough to you
I’d find a way to believe that it’s all true
Knowing that you lied straight-faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

Someone like you makes it hard to live without
somebody else
Someone like you makes it easy to give
never think about myself

It’s been said that character is how you treat others when no one is looking. Add this for better effect: Character is the self mythology you spin when you meet new people. Why new people? Because everyone else has heard it all before.

Pat Conroy wrote about his own daddy’s death in The Death of Santini. The other story he wrote about his dad, or so we’re supposed to believe, was the novel The Great Santini.

His dad’s name was Don Conroy. From my bookshelf it looks like self mythology of the worst kind: mixing fact and fiction. Did Don Conroy even have a son named Pat, or was the younger Conroy conceived and birthed in the less than science-based atmosphere of an ally between Vulnerable Lane and Hard Ass Avenue?

When did the transgender Conroy fetus start blaming his dad for everything? My evidence-based guess, since I’ve read Conroy books in more diversity than any others? It started from the beginning and the entitlement only grew.

Reading about the Conroy family reaction to the dad’s death feels like a slap in the face to normal people. All the Conroys had a good cry. They cried it out on the phone and in person.

Pat Conroy’s priest uncle who beat him up when he was ten years old will officiate. The uncle slapped Pat’s brothers around, too. He wants us to know. Why?

Writers are odd like that. They either don’t count on our memory, or count on it too much. Odd writers and bitching readers make such a good match. Both are likely dabblers in self mythology, one because they’ve said everything and don’t want to repeat it, the other because they can’t help it. Bitching readers bitch about everything.

We need more bitching readers, the sort who can read these words and not tailspin:

transgender, diversity, fetus, vulnerable, entitlement, evidence-based, and science-based

This is the reported list banned from use by the Center for Disease Control in their budget proposals. Bitching readers see the problem, bitching bloggers include them in posts.

In finishing, what feels like self mythology today: my dad’s horse attended his funeral and put on the sort of show Blackjack didn’t do for JFK’s funeral.

It felt like the old man made a stop with his horse on the way up.