RAMIFICATIONS OF PACKWOOD'S PECCADILLOS

Now, I'm in a mess. Perhaps, laying down more exact perimeters and definitions, I could qualify and quantify the mess as being potential.

Who and what is to blame? Why, the esteemed United States Senate, of course. More specifically, the Ethics Committee and more specific-specifically, Senator Packwood and his diaries. No, I'm not mentioned in them. It is the diaries, per se.

It's like this. For years, at writer's conferences, workshops sessions with school children, etc., I've been urging my listeners to keep a diary or journal. In my mind, the two are the same. I've spoken about how writing something every day in a journal can start a writing career, or improve one that is well along the way, saying such things as, "Pick your words as carefully as a diamond merchant and put them into a setting as would a world-class jeweler. Each day try to come up with a simile you've never heard or read before. Describe a real or fictional character and his/her antics as well or better than did the Bronte sisters, Dickens or Hardy."

That last sentence contains advice for producing a potential mess, achieving a dilemma or inviting a ride to the court room.

Now here is where the potential mess might come in. Some of my listeners may have listened and actually done it.

Scenario: Some local, state or national leader may have entered into his diary some peccadillo he had gotten into. It's common practice --the writing, that is. Writing such events down on paper where you can read them back to yourself is akin to confession and you know what confession is good for.

By some quirk of circumstance, the facts entered into the journal become known to others -- others being those who stand as watchdogs, or pit bulls, over the same venue in which they are operating. Something has to be done to preserve the venue's image. The diaries are seized. ??!X&ZX# breaks loose.

"But," you may ask, "aren't you getting away from your mess? We want to hear about that."

All right.

In this litigious era we are walking darkly through, there are those who fly to the protection of those whose peccadillos have been put out to swing in the wind. They strive to go back and back, in a Freudian manner, to seek a culprit that caused the peccaillo-er to write down his activities or fantasies. It is similar to the story, "This in the house that Jack built. These are the people who live in the house that Jack built. These are the things the people did who lived in the house that Jack built." I've almost forgotten how the story goes. But the psychiatrists takes the patient back and back and back until, ah, it is the parents fault. They made me do it.

So the Packwoodillo-ers may be asked, "How long have you kept dairies? Who told you it was good for the soul to make written confessions? Augustine? Rousseau? No? Then who? Think back? The one who told you to write down such things must be brought to justice. It's his/her fault! Sue!

In the thicket of justice we walk through daily, some F. Lee Baily or the one with the spectacles worn on his head can dazzle the brains right out of a jury.

Loosely defined, that's the mess I'm potentially in. Hereafter, if and when I encourage people to enhance their writing skills by daily personal journal entries, I might just say, "Write something such as this: The sun came up in the east as usual this morning. Well, not really. The earth in its rotation makes it seem as if the sun came up in the east this morning." Be careful what you do with the written word, folks, while we're walking through this brambly valley.

REJOICE!