Do you ever make mistakes? I'll have to admit that I have once or twice. In fact, it might even have been more than that number. But what bothers me most is when I make a mistake in print right in front of both of my readers. One of them told me about a mistake I made several weeks ago. I was talking about our pride in Gordon Parks and his movie that was filmed in Fort Scott.

I called it "A Raising in the Sun." Of course it wasn't. That was a movie about a family in a city who wanted to get to the suburbs. It was a wonderful movie. But it wasn't Gordon Parks' Fort Scott story. That was called "The Learning Tree."

I saw it for the first time at the drive-in movie theater in Butler. Several of our friends from the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church also were watching it that night. We enjoyed sharing that experience. I tried to order the film recently to see it again and couldn't get it where I usually get my movies. I will still try. I think I owe it to Mr. Parks, after getting the wrong title put in the paper.

My other reader evidently didn't notice the mistake because the first I heard about it was when I returned from leading a class at an Elderhostel for a week. By then several weeks had gone by since my boo-boo was printed.

We often have the tendency to excuse ourselves when we are caught in an error. My first thought was "Why didn't someone at the paper notice this"? That was unfair because I send the columns in as an attachment and they are printed as I write them, usually. It was also unfair because the people at the paper are younger than I am and probably don't remember some of the older films as well as I do. In fact it is the current ones I can't remember. I usually do fine with the oldies.

My next thought was that I was very busy the week that I was writing that column and since both movies were so excellent it was easy to get them mixed up. That's not a good excuse either. If you are too busy to do a good job, then something should be given up. I really wasn't THAT busy. I was just careless.

So where does that leave me? I don't have an excuse. Another possibility might be to point my finger at other people who have made worse mistakes. It isn't hard to find public figures that have many more watching them than my two readers, who have made some big mistakes lately. Or at least I consider them mistakes. At least I can say, "Thank God, I'm not like them"! It might make me feel better for awhile, but it really doesn't solve anything.

So the best thing to do is admit that I was not being a responsible columnist. One good thing about it might be that I have reminded those two readers about our neighboring town's prominent son and share the pride we all feel for this young man who overcame obstacles and reached such heights as Gordon Parks did.

I hung onto every bit of news coverage about him as plans for his funeral were carried out. Soon I would like to visit the cemetery where he is buried. I might even write another column about it after I do. If so I will double-check every word to be sure that I don't get an even higher number of errors.

I really can't afford to loose either of my readers by making more mistakes. It has been a learning experience for me -- even without "The Learning Tree."