Can You Keep a Secret?

Came upon this the other day when the topic of secrets came up. Many people are not good at keeping secrets, yet many are. I guess it depends on your personality and how much of a busybody you may be. If you are the one that loves to be up on and talk about the latest happenings in your life you may suck at keeping secrets. You will be the one saying…

Don’t tell anyone I told you this…

But Bob is having an affair on Betty who is sleeping with Ben, Bob’s best friend. Okay so maybe not but you get the idea.

I Am Good at It

This is what most people will say but how good are you? Are you as good as my uncle John was?

Well, let’s see… when my uncle John was tasked with an amazing secret, we didn’t know he would have taken it to his grave if it was not for an unfortunate misstep on my dad’s part.

You see when my family escaped from Hungary, my dad told Uncle John that if he received a postcard from Germany that read.

“We are in Bamberg and we will stay a little longer…”

Well, that was the signal that my family would be defecting from Hungary. This meant we were not coming back to Hungary. Hungary was communist and this was code without saying we would never come back and escape.

Uncle John

Well, Uncle John never told anyone about this. Until about 22 years later we had been discussing this with my aunt and uncle and my dad kinda said something like.

Well John knew from the postcard.

If looks could kill, my uncle would have been dead. He kept the secret for decades and never said a word. If it was not for my dad at the time he would have taken it to his grave. This does not sound like much. But back then in the communist area, this would have gotten you jail time. So how good are you at keeping secrets?