That’s 42 kph for the roadrunner, about 70 kph for the coyote.

I think as children we all knew that the Roadrunner cartoon was fiction. After all, coyotes don’t have bombs or anvils, both of which I remember playing a big part in the weekly narrative.

Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were lies, but I will concede that they were well-meaning. But were other things in our childhood lies?

Probably not. That’s not because adults wouldn’t lie to us if they thought it was necessary. They just didn’t see it as necessary.

Adults try to protect the children in their lives from the reality of adulthood. That’s probably not a bad thing – young kids just aren’t ready to deal with taxes, inflation and climate change.

That’s not lying; that is just being selective as to what information gets imparted. I’m okay with that.

I have days when I wish I could be a child again. It would be nice to be blissfully ignorant of the situation in our world or our country. Wars and natural disasters, political incompetence and corruption, job losses, crises in immigration and housing, not to mention a failing justice system – it would be nice to have nothing bigger to worry about than the cartoon conflict between the roadrunner and the coyote. Even if they did lie to us about it.