I was reading a novel today where the family was trying to keep a secret from the old matriarch, and it reminded me a situation when I was growing up.

My mother had a friend named Madeline McCrum and her nickname was 'Muddy.' Muddy McCrum, cute name. Somewhere she got an old marble fireplace surround and mantle, it might have been from a venerable hotel in Denver that was being torn down, or some elegant mansion. I don't know if she paid for it, but it was really important to her. She lived in a little tiny tract home, one of those ticky-tacky houses built in the early 1950s but it was her palace and she decorated it artistically. She had big plans for that mantle some day, but in the meantime she wanted it stored in her attic. Her son was helping put it up there, and in the process it broke, and nobody wanted to tell her.

I can remember my mother and father laughing about it over the years when I was a kid because every so often Muddy would bring up the topic of her mantle, that she was ready to get it installed, and nobody wanted to tell her it was broken. It was still up there when she died at age 90, but we'd lost touch with her, so I don't know if she ever found out.

We used to go to her house for Thanksgiving, and besides us there would be the sort of rag-tag folks who had nowhere else to go. One year there was an older lady and her son. The woman's husband had died the night before, but they didn't want to tell her and ruin the holiday, so we were all supposed to keep mum about it.

I don't know how I'd feel if I was in that situation, it's like everyone deciding to not tell someone they have cancer. I don't know if that is still done, but I can remember people talking about situations like that when I was younger. You could hardly hide it from today's patient if all of a sudden they are having aggressive chemo and radiation treatments, but maybe if it's untreatable, do you think they just tell you it's a bad flu or hepatitis and hope you never figure out it's cancer?

And then all of a sudden you've wasted away to nothing. "Oh look!" they could say "you've gotten your wish and those extra 50 pounds just melted off on their own this past month. Lucky you!"

On a cheerier note:
The desert tortoise known as Mojave Max -- the southwest's version of Punxsutawney Phil -- emerged from his Red Rock Canyon Visitors Center burrow at 2:03 p.m. on Tuesday, a sign for Las Vegas Valley residents that spring has arrived.



Well, I guess so. It's going to be 86 degrees here on Friday.