I've Got A Secret"? (Revised)

Years ago, in the late 50's or early 60's, my family enjoyed a game show called: "I've Got A Secret". It was fun and a lot more interesting than "Test Pattern", my kid's favorite.

The show's original premise was simple. A guest walked out and allegedly whispered his secret to the host before the secret was shown to the audience and the viewers at home. The panel then had an allotted time in which to discover the nature of the secret via careful questioning.

Of course, that's back when we still had secrets in this country. Today, two or more officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized, would have let the cat out of the bag and your secret would have been a no-brainer. You'd have to do 10 minutes of shadow pictures and sneak off the stage.

In this age of information overload it's tough to keep a secret. Information is power, and we've got a lot of insecure people walking around who are dying to know the latest scoop so they can reveal it to someone else - and maybe move up a couple of notches in the world's order.

Did you think that all of those people you see driving around with their cellphones held in a death grasp on their ear are merely checking to see if Mom wants anything from Walmart? Get real! These people are digging for information.

What makes it worse is they're convinced YOU will give it to them. Today, people will ask you the strangest things about your personal life. I met one guy who, once he knew the identity of the company from which I had retired, demanded to know how far up in the company I was.

Even though I had nothing to hide, telling this guy anything would have been like trusting Lucy Ricardo to keep a secret from Ethel.

Despite this awareness, too often we seem to persist in our own unrelenting, maybe unknowing, effort to obtain information and reveal it at any cost to someone we're trying to impress. We've become like The National Inquirer of our neighborhood. It's become nutty.

We watched a guy on I-75 the other day who was using the car's steering wheel as a fulcrum so he could drive and text with both hands. Let's get real here. Did you ever see Karl Wallenda stop midway across his tightrope, and put down his pole, so he could take a call?

You might reasonably ask, Bar, "How do you know about all this stuff?" Sorry, if I told you I'd have to kill you. Maybe when I'm anonymous.

Please don't call or text me. I'm watching Nic at Night. Sheriff Andy is at home, on the phone, and is just about to tell Barney something really important. I hope Aunt Bee ain't (sic) listening in on the party line. I'd be so disappointed. (TPFIC)