The Fischer-Storey mill sat on drained and diked tide flats near Memorial Field in Toledo. Originally the Fir and Spruce Lumber Co., it was bought by two men from Corvallis, Fischer and Storey, and milled lumber for several years before burning in a spectacular fire that left only twisted metal and sidewalls that soon needed to be torn down.

My grandfather used to tell me a story about an accident that happened at that mill that I believed until junior high, when it dawned on me that not everything you hear is the truth. He said the accident happened to a man who worked oiling the machinery of the mill.

In those days, before OSHA, conveyor belts were unguarded, and were exposed both on the floor where they ran, and in the ceiling of the room below.

My grandfather said that this man was oiling sprockets and other pieces of machinery, and went down into the lower area to work on the bull chain, a metal conveyor belt that took debris from the saws and dumped it into wigwam burners that burned day and night.

Stumpy Earl, who ran the cut off saw on the main deck, told my grandfather that suddenly everything stopped, lurched a little, then stopped again.

"Stumpy ran downstairs and there was the oil man, above him, on the ceiling. He had been pulled into the unguarded conveyor belt and was stretched out along the belt, woven like a long piece of jute," my grandfather told me.

When they finally got the oil man out of the machinery and laid him down on the lower deck's oiled floor, he was over 9 feet long! Of course, he had been killed, and everyone at the mill felt horrible. They called the local undertaker, who also ran the furniture store, and he arrived with the longest coffin he had, but the oil man would not fit in it. When I asked my grandfather how they got him in the coffin, I was told they had to fold him like a piece of cloth, and for years I would think of this man, buried in Toledo, folded like a blanket in his coffin.

Of course the story is not true, but when I first heard it, I was convinced that it was. My grandfather would not lie to me, and he swore the story was exactly as it happened so many years ago.

Not everything we hear is the absolute truth, and we should be aware of that. Life is like a big telephone game, the last person to tell a story or report the facts might not be telling it the exact way it happened, but repeating only what was told to him or her.

When we hear something that is hard to believe, or that threatens us in some way, it is only human to jump to conclusions, get angry, or pass along the story as we heard it, embellishments and all.

In this current day, with budget cuts happening all around and war on the horizon, it is best to try to ascertain the facts, find out from several people what they heard, go to the source if possible.

It is a scary time right now in Oregon, in the country, and throughout the world. We don't need to add to that with unsubstantiated stories that have little truth left in them after they have been told over and over again. They only add fuel to an already burning fire.

Mike O'Donnell is the director of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) in Lincoln County. He can be reached at 541-574-2684 or psvpdir@casco.net. His column is produced with assistance by Oregon Cascades West Council of Governments, the Area Agency on Aging for Benton, Linn, and Lincoln counties.