True or False?

[ER]

True or false: This true or false thread hints our good-hearted friend Trevor may actually be incapable of lying. 

[ER]

OK, here is one. Is this true?

A co-worker of mine was retired US Army special forces, and one day he told me and some others about when he was stationed in a jungle backwater base in Panama in the late 1970s. All there was to do when not working in this remote spot was to go hang out in a bar run by a local woman, and one night there a Panamanian man from a village farther into the deep jungle came into the bar with two girls, maybe thirteen or so, and he said they were his daughters, and he'd let anyone spend the night with one of them for twenty US dollars, or both for thirty-five.

The offer disgusted my future co-worker and some of those with him so much they got up and chased off the man and told the girls they'd try to help them by taking them into the city and telling the authorities about their situation, but to their surprise the girls screamed and fought against the soldiers and ran back to their father outside.

All this disturbed my future co-worker and his friends so much that he and two others got up and went after the girls' father to put the fear of God in him about the consequences of them catching him trying to pimp out his kids again, but when they caught up with the man on a dirt road heading back to his squalid village, the girls fought the soldiers and told them to leave their father alone, he was all they had in the world. So, shocked and disheartened, the three Americans let the family walk away.

They went back into the bar and the Panamanian woman running it said nice try but they should stay out of things like that. She said if they beat the man up it'd leave the girls worse off, and if they killed their father then there'd be nobody at all to protect the girls, and then someone else who cared even less for them would come pimp them instead.

So the soldiers didn't do anything, and to their disgust saw the man come back into town and even around the bar, and while they wanted to beat up those (even some US soldiers) who accepted the father's offer for the girls, they just became dispirited when they saw how hopeless and awful life was there for so many of the people.

My co-worker said being there to see that forever changed his outlook on life, and he was glad when his time in Panama ended.

So, was I really told this sad tale of survival amid  late-20th century Third World poverty?

[indianasmith]

You've had some odd experiences, to be sure, and the tale rings true enough - in the Philippines in the 1980's I heard of families bringing their 12 year old daughters into the city to become prostitutes . . .

But I think you're pulling our leg with this one!

[ER]

No, I truly was told this dreadful story.

[indianasmith]

No, I truly was told this dreadful story.

How depressing.

[ER]

True or false: On game days, the football stadium of the University of Nebraska temporarily becomes the third largest population center in the state.

[Trevor]

True or false: On game days, the football stadium of the University of Nebraska temporarily becomes the third largest population center in the state.

Going with yes.

[Alex]

Yes.

[Alex]

I once ate 13 bowls of porridge for a bet.

[Trevor]

I once ate 13 bowls of porridge for a bet.

Me say yes. 

[ER]

True or false: On game days, the football stadium of the University of Nebraska temporarily becomes the third largest population center in the state.

Yes!

[ER]

True or a big chubby lie: Cilantro and coriander are the same thing.

[Trevor]

My first personal introduction to big USA cars came when I was seven.

[Alex]

I once ate 13 bowls of porridge for a bet.

Me say yes. 

Correct.

[ER]

True or False: William Shakespeare's middle name was Bartholomew?