I have a confession to make. When I was nine, I misrepresented myself
to a United States congressman and profited from it.

I should preface this by explaining that in those days I was the odd
kid talking to the trees at the edge of the playground at Ingleside
Elementary. I was what polite adults would call "bookish" and what
not so polite classmates would call "weird." So weird, in fact, that
I conducted extended club meetings with fictional characters in the
cabin of my father's boat drydocked in the driveway. So weird, in
fact, that these meetings were conducted in strict accordance with
Robert's Rules of Order with me serving not only as parliamentarian
but also keeping elaborate minutes as recording secretary. So weird
that these minutes sometimes had to be amended when a fictional
member of the group refused to approve them as read.

The mission of the club was hardly an original one. I co-opted a few
tenets from the SPCA, the Humane Society, and the Animal Assistance
League. (PETA was founded a few years later.) The name of the club
was pinched from the efforts at the time to bring home prisoners of
the conflict in Viet Nam. In this case, however, POW stood for
"protect our wildlife." Members of the club were characters from
books I'd read including a pair of children who had formed an "SPCR"
to protect a stray dog named Rachel. We were a like-minded group.

Aside from the occasional squabble over accuracy of the minutes, POW
meetings were uneventful until the club voted to announce our
existence in a letter to Congress demanding that Something Be Done to
further our mission. As president of the club, I wrote a heartfelt
letter about the plight of endangered animals, the horror of wearing
fur, and the need for more space in local pounds and animal shelters
on orange stationery with paisley Sock It To Me stickers. When my
brother saw the sealed envelope addressed to US CONGRESS, he
suggested that I add “ATTENTION: G. William Whitehurst” because he
thought our local representative might be sympathetic to my cause. My
family knew the basic content of the letter, but not that I had
described the efforts of a group of imaginary children in an
imaginary club.

A package from Rep. Whitehurst arrived a few weeks later. In addition
to a letter praising the initiative and dedication of POW members,
Whitehurst included a book from the U. S. Department of the Interior
about endangered species in America. By this time, I had joined a
real junior garden club with nonfictional members. The package came
on the day members of the junior garden club were turning in
scrapbooks to be judged in a statewide competition. Terrified that my
family would discover that the letter praised my make believe group,
I hid it in my scrapbook, Endangered Species in Virginia, and took it
with me to the meeting.

You can guess the rest. I forgot to take the letter out of the
scrapbook when I turned it in. The letter praised the club without
naming it, and judges assumed I had scored a congressional
endorsement for the junior garden club. I won big. I wanted to hide
in the cabin of the boat.

The shame of what I did has stayed with me ever since. Following a
nearly vegetarian diet (shrimp don’t have eyelashes) and taking in
stray cats doesn’t seem to ease my guilt. If Mr. Whitehurst can find
it in his heart to issue a retroactive congressional pardon for me,
maybe my conscience can finally rest.