Crimes and Misdemeanors
Have you ever . . .
Fern: I’ve been thinking about the plagiarism scandal involving the now-departed president of Harvard. Followed by the plagiarism charges for . . . well, lots of people. Another administrator. Harvard’s head of diversity and inclusion officer appears to have plagiarized. The crime: publishing text without quotation marks.
Joe: I can’t believe investigating a more boring “gotcha’ crime.
Fern: Academia was a cushy gig while it lasted. I asked myself: Did I ever plagiarize? I did.
Joe: As a student? As a writer?
Fern: All writers are plagiarists in some sense. We listen. We read things. Maybe through some kind of osmosis, we take stuff in. A metaphor here. A turn of phrase there.
But in college I was brazen. I felt that education classes were such a busy-work waste of time so I became a righteous plagiarizer. We were assigned these “lesson plan units” which included research on –let’s say -- South America. You know: annual rainfall, agriculture, population density. Hard to put that stuff in your own words.
Joe: Annual rainfall? Your teacher probably never noticed. No. I never plagiarized. Twelve years of Catholic school and I was scared to cheat.
But when I had just begun teaching, there was a student in my class who copied an entire short story and handed it in as his own. I remember reading it and feeling kind of insulted.
Fern: Because how stupid did he think you were—right?
Joe: Exactly. It reminds me of something I read about one of Hemingway’s sons. When he was a young man, he found a story in a literary magazine that he’d taken from the mail before his father could get a look at it, and he copied it out and handed it to his father as his own. So he was a thief as well as a plagiarist.
Fern: Plagiarism is a kind of theft.
Joe: Well, Hemingway read the story and he was thrilled. He was so proud he announced to the family at dinner, “We have another writer in the family!”
Fern: Following in those footsteps was probably difficult.
Joe: The kid never came clean. He basked in the praise, while his father said what a perfect story it was. Only one thing would he change, just one thing. “See here,” Hemingway turned to a page in the story, “where you say ‘All of a sudden.’ I would change that to ‘Suddenly,’ because it’s always best to be brief when you can.”
And later, the plagiarizing son sneaked a look at the original which was hidden in his room, and he saw that he’d miscopied it. The original said “Suddenly,” and he had copied it out as “All of a sudden.”
So the only part of the story that was his own was the only part his father criticized as a mistake.
Fern: I had students plagiarize in creative writing classes. They were usually nice Iowa kids who fessed up when I said, “You didn’t write this, did you?” Some of them didn’t exactly know it was wrong.
Joe: AI will complicate everything further. I don’t know that I would be able to spot it. Some of the papers we read by real students were already kind of soul-less.
Fern: Plagiarism is a kind of cheating. But have you cheated in other ways? On someone you were in a relationship with?
Joe: No. Not me. Ever. Hey, you know that.
Fern: I do. How about something that’s against the law: Have you driven drunk?
Joe: A couple of times. And lucky to never have gotten caught. Or worse. Have you?
Fern: I was on two different juries, both concerning people who were pulled over for OWI. When the lawyers were selecting the juries, they asked who had ever driven after having too much to alcohol? Everyone raised a hand except me. I was the only one who answered in the negative. The only one! I don’t know if I ever drank enough to fail a sobriety test. I get mildly loopy after one drink.
Joe: You always were a cheap date. How about shop-lifting?
Fern: That I did. It was over fifty years ago. I was nine months pregnant and took some flower decals for my new baby’s nursery.
Joe: Aww, shop-lifting for your baby. That’s kind of sweet.
Fern: The line was long at check-out. Everyone had a lot in their carts. A big store like a Wal-mart. And I had to pee. So I just walked out with these sunflower decals, holding them right in my hand. No one stopped me.
Joe: No one’s going to stop a pregnant white lady. You should have taken something more valuable.
Fern: How about cheating on your taxes? I guess I should say our taxes?
Joe: Yeah, sort of. Years ago I filed using Turbo Tax. It was easy, just fill in a line and Mr. Turbo Tax would say You’re doing fine, Joe! Then I ran into a snag. There was a slot for Country you’re filing in, and a pull-down menu of all the countries in the world. I scrolled to the top for America, but it wasn’t there. So, I scrolled to the bottom for United States…and it wasn’t there either. I sat looking for about five minutes before I called you in to have a look—remember?
Fern: I do remember. And I couldn’t find it either.
Joe: Eventually, I moved on and filled out everything else. You’re doing terrific, Joe—you’re almost done! I pressed the finish bar. My taxes were complete, my refund calculated. Only one more thing, Joe! Seems you’ve missed something. And Mr. Turbo zipped me back to the Country you’re filing in tab. Again, I looked for America, United States, U.S.A. It. Was. Not. There.
So I guess it was cheating in a way. Lying for sure. I pulled the Country tab down to the first one, Afghanistan, and chose it. Bingo! That’s all Mr. Turbo needed. Our taxes were filed. A few weeks later we got our refund.
Fern: Lucky we weren’t deported!
And what about lying in general? You‘ve probably lied more than I have because you don’t ever want to hurt anyone’s feelings. How about when the kids were little? Have you ever lied to the kids?
Joe: Oh please . . .
Fern: I know. Santa and all that.
Joe: I left out cookies and milk. I made footprints from fireplace ashes.
Fern: My mom was a truth-teller. Her name was Ruth. And she had a memo pad beside the phone that said: The Truth from Ruth. I mean, if you asked her a question. She told you. And I was a child who asked a lot of questions.
I knew when I was very young that there wasn’t any Santa. And no one was coming to our Jewish house at any rate. I knew there was no tooth fairy. I also knew how babies were made at a very young age. I remember that there was a girl in my kindergarten class who told everyone that “the Stork” had just come to their house and brought a new baby sister. She was horrified when I explained exactly where babies came from.
Last year, Joey -- he had just turned seven -- said: “Grandma, do you believe in heaven?”
Joe: That was a hard one. What did you tell him?
Fern: I said I didn’t think that I did. But that a lot of people do. Many believe that there’s something after someone dies. I guess I hedged a bit and finally I asked: So do you believe in heaven?”
He was quiet for a bit. Then he said: “No, but I would like to.”
Joe: Honestly, wouldn’t we all?
Another great conversation, Fern and Joe. Thank you. I love Joey's response about heaven. Yes, we all want to believe there is something else, somewhere else.
"Little white lies" are said to grease the skids of society and lubricate rough spots. Maybe, but I long ago lost the capacity to remember who I told what so now it is all raw and grinding. Sorry.