I need to tell the story about taking a magazine away from cousin Tom (not real name) and the implications that arose from it. So the summer that I was staying at the PG's House in Jackson Hole - one day Aunt Mary (not real name) asked me to pick up the mail from the post office. They get all their mail at a PO Box because the mailman doesn't deliver out to the houses out there.
So I went and picked up the mail and included with it was a girlie magazine addressed to my cousin Tom (changed name to respect his privacy). Now I'm not saying I'm a saint or that we shouldn't appreciate female beauty but as a Christian I think we should try to avoid sins of the flesh especially that kind of stuff, so I took it upon myself to hide the magazine from Tom figuring he probably wouldn't know or remember it.
But the same day later that afternoon I'm downstairs and suddenly I hear an argument out there next to my cousin's bedroom which is right next to mine. It's my special needs cousin Arnold (not real name) & Tom arguing and then Aunt Mary (not real name) gets involved about where is the magazine . They know I picked up the mail so there's no one else to blame, but WHY would they know it's coming that exact day, that's the question.
So I pull out the magazine which I had not yet thrown away & not sure really what explanation I gave them -I didn't start preaching although I probably should have - I think I just handed it to them and walked away and that was the end of it.
But somebody started gossiping -probably Arnold (or was it Mary ?) ( who I think has always really hated me - not sure why cuz I really didn't know him personally much at all growing up - only a few times meeting on holidays or big family gatherings which were very few and far in between) to the Beatrice & Lonny family which is Uncle Warnock's brother & sister-in-law (who has since deceased, RIP ) about this incident & implied that I was taking the girlie magazine for my own self-gratification rather than the real reason.
And I never was given a chance to explain, and it became exceedingly obvious that Beatrice's opinion of me dropped precipitously after that. She wouldn't even talk to me. But the fact that they knew the magazine was coming that day & noticed it missing actually led me to believe that this was a setup to see if I would take it so they could actually create a false narration that I had taken it for my own self-gratification even though that was NOT the truth.
That was the only time Aunt Mary ever asked me to pick up the mail for them as well, before or after. So I just wanted to lay that out there and let people decide for themselves. By that time in life I was long past any kind of adolescent behavior such as the kind implied by this incident.
