It happened when I was about nine. The public-school playground got a little boring, so a bunch of us found a maple tree just across the back fence of the schoolyard to climb, sit in and hang from. Word got around to the principal, Mr. Palmer Kilpatrick. If for no other reason than fear of liability, he announced that the tree was off limits.

That didn’t stop us. Next day, we headed back over the fence and scrambled back up the tree. Suddenly, it got quiet. All my fellow tree-climbers disappeared. I was alone. I looked down and there was Mr. Kilpatrick standing at the foot of the tree.

“Ted, come down,” he said sternly. “You know you’re not supposed to be up there.”

“Yes sir,” and I came down. Everybody else who’d climbed the tree with me that day had taken off. And I could have too. But something inside me said, “Fess up and face the consequences.” (more…)