T. GAMBLE: I’ve got a secret, comrade

I have struggled for months as I harbor a deep, dark secret.

Secrets are hard to keep. Secrets are impossible to keep in small towns. I’ve had secrets in Dawson that I never told a soul, only to find out later 20 other people already knew the secret, usually in a different — and better — version than the version I knew.

That’s one thing I like about secrets. You can tell ‘em a thousand times and they are never the same.

I once had a buddy make me swear not to tell a secret he was about to reveal to me, only to discover the secret he was revealing was one I told him a few days earlier. This occurred while I was in college. Heavy tequila drinking can cause such things to happen from time to time when you are in college. I guess the best way to keep a secret is to not tell it, but then what fun is it to have a secret?

All my life people have come up to me and said, “I’ll tell you so and so but you have to swear not to tell anyone.” Ten minutes later, I talk with another buddy, who says, “I’ll tell you a secret I just got told if you swear not to tell anybody” and — you guessed it — it will be the secret the other buddy just told me.

I don’t know who breached whose trust. Was it the first buddy who told me not to tell anybody, but then he told my other buddy? Or was it the second Buddy, who told me the secret my first buddy told him not to tell? Or maybe me for telling two other folks before the night was over.

Tequila will make you do that sort of thing, too, you know.

Well, anyway, I’ll now admit my secret.

I have been contacting the Russians.

I know everybody else has been, so why not me, too? Comrade Putin, as I like to refer to him, is really a jolly fellow when he is not torturing folks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Oops, I let that secret out. I don’t think everyone knew those were his torture days. You know, once a KGB agent, always a KGB agent!

Putin has a keen eye on Georgia. We all know he invaded it several years ago and almost took Albany, except his troops got behind a 1978 big-tired Impala going 48 mph in the fast lane on the by-pass and they gave up and went home.

I don’t really want anything from the Russians but I’m tired of all the fake news, so I call over there, and they read me the state newspaper Prada, which, as far as I can tell, does a better job of telling the truth than the press over here is doing.

They don’t drink much tequila, but, boy, can they drink vodka. Donald Trump told me that. I don’t know where he found that out. It could be from Bernie Sanders, as I think he honeymooned in a communist country close to Russia.

I can tell you one thing. Putin is not nearly the threat to the U.S. as the press makes him out to be. Nope, he figures we’re doing a pretty good job of self-imploding, so I would not worry about an invasion anytime soon.

I have to go right now. I think comrade is on the other line.

Email columnist T. Gamble at [email protected].