you can't make this stuff up.
Making stuff up is easy. Apparently enticing other people to propagate the fiction is also rather easy.
[Sarah Palin] started speaking of the fond memories she had in Idaho when her father was in a bowling league. What she [failed] to mention was she moved from Idaho when she was 3 months old. She remembers things that happened when she was 3 months old?!
Nobody has yet produced a quote from Ms. Palin to substantiate the allegation that she claims to remember events from the period when she was three months old.
well, let's try this then …
The following statement was published in a June 30 article on examiner.com and written by
Mark Miller, a freelance writer in Texas who is reportedly “an authority on bowling past and present.”
Palin recalled her youth when her father set pins in Idaho.
“My Dad was on a Thursday night bowling league," she said. "He bonded with his buddies. I have memories of that point of my life which mean very, very much to me.”
The next day,
Andrew Sullivan republished that same text and alluded that Ms. Palin had claimed to remember when she left Idaho at the age of three months. He used a
press release published by the Bowling Proprietors' Association of America to “confirm that account” …
Professing a personal appreciation for the bowling industry, Palin also noted that, during his high school years, her father Chuck Heath Sr. worked as a pin boy and that she herself has fond childhood memories of watching him play in this Thursday night bowling league.
The only direct quotes attributed to Ms. Palin (in the above recitations) are:
- My Dad was on a Thursday night bowling league.
- He bonded with his buddies. I have memories of that point of my life which mean very, very much to me.
I think it is fairly obvious that Ms. Palin is not claiming to remember the period when her Dad was in high school – that was clearly a time before she was born. Nonetheless, she apparently
does remember a period during which her Dad participated in a bowling league.
The Heath family initially moved from Idaho to Skagway, Alaska. Five years later they relocated to Eagle River, which is situated on the opposite side of a relatively narrow portion of the Cook Inlet from Wasilla – Both towns are located just north of Anchorage along Interstate A3.
Based only upon limited research, I think it is reasonable to assume that opportunities to engage in bowling existed in these areas when Sarah was young. Currently, the
Elks Lodge Bowling Alley in Skagway has two lanes open year round. There is also a very competitive bowling league at that location during the winter. Similarly,
Eagle River Bowl is a very nice facility that sponsors leagues. And even in the unlikely circumstance that Mr. Heath (Sarah’s Dad) never bowled in Alaska, it is also quite feasible to imagine that he may have participated in the leagues back in Sandpoint, Idaho during the family’s return visits to his hometown.
So when Mr. Sullivan asks if this is “another odd lie,” I am inclined to answer that it appears more as another effort in his ongoing attempts to malign a public figure that he dislikes.
And Jasun,
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him think.
