“I was wrong”

It was a “boys” weekend campout, tents, sleeping bags, hamburgers, chips, cigars and beer, lots of beer. Our wives had given us a weekend pass to get away from them and the kids. This was the fourth time we had gotten together, mostly the same group of Dad’s with one or two newbies who may or may not get invited back next year.

One of the new guys this particular year was Bobby. I knew his wife better than I knew him but the one defining feature I had heard about him from everyone was that he was a know-it-all. Sadly he showed everyone Friday night around the campfire that his reputation had preceded him.

There wasn’t a topic or a question he didn’t have an opinion on or answer too and the more beer he drank, the more opinionated and louder he got. Honestly it became pretty funny just listening to him spout out one dumbass fact after another. The rest of us did come to one unanimous conclusion, Bobby wouldn’t get invitation back next year even as entertaining as he was.

In those days me and a couple of the other guys were big NASCAR fans and four of us had secured tickets to the race at the Bristol Motor Speedway, once upon a time, a very difficult ticket to get. For those of you unfamiliar with Bristol it is a half mile track shaped like a bowl where drivers whip around with their foot pressed to the metal at 120-125 mph.

Saturday night we had settled in around the campfire and Bobby was holding court. Someone started talking about Bristol being a half mile track and Bobby disputed this fact, in his words “Everyone knows it is a one mile track”.  Now I had just gotten the Official NASCAR Media Guide in the mail and brought it along for a little light reading. I got the guide out of my tent, found the track facts section for Bristol and showed it to Bobby. There it was in black and white in the OFFICIAL publication of NASCAR; track size half mile.

Suddenly nine drunk guys got very quiet. Other than the crackle of the fire we were all waiting to see if Bobby would utter these simple words; “I was wrong”. He stared at the guide for a minute then closed it and handed it back to me. Somebody finally broke the silence and asked, “Do you believe it now?” and amazingly he said no it had to be a misprint.

We had a couple of more years of these campouts but as we got older they became more difficult to schedule and a hell of a lot harder to recover from until we all just declared No Más. Bobby was never invited back but we never forgot our weekend with him. If somebody was acting like an ass it became known as “Being a Bobby”.

Today we learned two important things from the testimony from F.B.I. Director James Comey. One about the Obama wiretaps, “I have no information that supports those tweets, and we have looked carefully inside the FBI” and two about the Russians “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counter-intelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”

So what are we waiting to hear from our President? “I was wrong” and maybe throw in a “My bad President Obama”. Honestly it seems like the only reasonable and responsible response he can offer. Instead we get this; “FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia.” and “The NSA and FBI tell Congress that Russia did not influence electoral process.” and this “FBI Director Comey admits Obama’s White House had ability to “unmask” American citizens.”

Yup, I would have happy with a simple, “I was wrong” or maybe he could start with baby steps, “Whoops-a-Daisy”.