The official list of malarkey

• There are no July Fourth parade officials or judges. However, there is definitely — no kidding — a July Fourth parade in Darwin.
  
  
• The section about past July Fourth parade training is fictitious; the illustrations are not from a book about July Fourth parades in Darwin.
  
  
• Contest mixups did not result in Lyle Beaver and Edgar Poon missing trips to Darwin. There is no Lyle Beaver nor Edgar Poon, and there was no contest to win a Darwin trip.
  
  
• The story about the Darwin Falls arms race on the Darwin Falls page is not balderdash. All facts as presented are true, to the best of my recollection.
  
  
• The news story about the X-mas intaglio on Panamint Dry Lake on the Panamint Valley page is utter hokum, although the intaglio itself does exist.
  
  
• A small nuclear blast was never used to break through the caliche layer to percolating soil.
  
  
• Midgets did not play a major role in the construction of Scotty's Castle. The little doghouse-sized structures were used to house hydrants, their hoses and electric junction boxes.
  
  
• Darwin French did not have a brother named Eddie "Stench" French.
  
  
• That is not really Mr. Ed's head in the Panamint Valley photo; it's a burro skull that was found nearby.
  
  
• The speed limit for military aircraft overflying Darwin is not 255 mph.  I have no idea what it is.
  
  
• I have never used Bwana Dusty as a weather-forecasting device in severely inclement weather.
  
  
• Mojave Desert residents really do not use a tire chain bolted to a phone pole as a wind sock. They use a small boat anchor chained to a boulder because phone poles can sometimes blow away.
  
  
• Darwin does not mean "the land without trees" in Lithuanian.

Happy now?