Henrietta Hay's Column

Anyone who has ever written anything more than a High School theme can empathize with Edgar Allen Poe as he mused, "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary . . ." Now there was obviously an author searching for an idea. In his moment of truth he was reduced to writing about a big black bird. All columnists have such a moment of truth weekly or daily or whatever the schedule demands.

But there are others. We use the phrase, "moment of truth" to define the small or large crises that we face every day. The funniest one to me is a very old one. It was a cartoon many years ago showing an anxious father-to-be escorting his wife into the hospital delivery room. Very tenderly he asks her, "Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Nearly as old and still used regularly by cartoonists is the drawing of a skier on the downside of a tree, which his tracks have straddled.

My personal moment of truth, in addition to the weekly literary ones, comes when the airplane door closes with a "wumpf" and I'm trapped while the attendant starts to tell us what to do if the plane comes down before we get where we are going.

Handing the car keys to a newly hatched 16 year old has been a moment of truth for most of us at one time or another. The comic strip, For Better or Worse, shows the poor father flat on his bad back, looking up into the pleading eyes of his 16-year-old son who needs wheels to do an errand. In a moment of great weakness, the father hands the boy the keys to his beloved sports car and faces his moment of truth. As this is being written, neither the kid nor the car has yet returned home.

My friend the philosopher says that her ultimate moment of truth came when she got off the ski lift at the top of the run at Powderhorn for the very first time, looked down the hill and realized that she had to ski down it, slide down it on her new ski pants or wait 'til spring.

She was the unlucky one who was watching a group of teen-agers in a ski contest in Aspen not too long ago. She looked up and saw a group of people gathered at the spot where a young skier had gone off the edge of the course and down an embankment. As she went over to look, someone said to her, "I'm glad I'm not that kid's mother." She looked down the hill and in a moment of truth, realized that she WAS that kid's mother.

In the first issue of Ms. magazine, way back in the spring of 1972, Jane O'Reilly had an article called "The Housewife's Moment of Truth." She talks about the "click" that goes off in a woman's head when she "suddenly and shockingly perceives the basic disorder in what has been believed to be the natural order of things."

One parental moment of truth comes when your offspring is about two. You have had this lovely child and have gotten used to him/her, assuming that you are in control and will continue to be. Suddenly the small person looks you squarely in the eye and says, "NO." Click. Life as you knew it is over.

One friend who is a professional woman says that her greatest moments of truth have come while trying to function as a woman in a man's world. She remembers most vividly one instance when, as an expert in her field, she made an articulate presentation with facts and reasoned conclusions to an all male group. One of the men later said to her with amazement in his voice, "I can't believe a woman could do that." Click.

President Clinton said in an interview that the morning after the election he woke up, looked at his wife and they both started laughing. A major moment of truth. A similar political story is that on the morning of President Reagan's inauguration day, his aide went to wake him up. After some unsuccessful efforts, the aide finally said, "Mr. President, you really must get up and get dressed for the inauguration." President Reagan sighed, pulled the covers over his head and said, "Do I have to?"

There are some truly serious moments of truth in life, and we need all the practice we can get. It's easier if we can laugh at some of them.