Utah Man's Confession: No One Gets Away with Anything

Patterson wraps up his final words with a somber note on how his cigarette habit deprived him of more years with his family. But it's also clear that he loved life while he was here and was determined to go out with one last laugh. And his wife confirmed to KSL-TV that all of the confessions were true.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/utah-man-confessional-obituary-owns-life-pranks-180934687.html

Val Patterson supposedly had the last laugh in his obituary, admitting to some unseemly and seemingly unimportant infractions in his life, perhaps indicating after death that he got away with every wrong thing that he did.

No one gets away with anything, no matter how prolonged or startling the last-minute confessions may be.

Honestly, what purpose does it serve for anyone to publish the evil that men do, even in a thumb-nose obituary?

First up, the former engineer admits he never earned the advanced degree from the University of Utah that gained him entrance to his chosen professional career.

If he did his job well, notwithstanding the false pretenses for his having earned the job, then who cares? Perhaps the institutional integrity of the university. And what about all of those individuals who have pressed their time and resources into pursuing advances degrees the old-fashioned, admirable way, by earning them?

I see nothing funny about a man who exposes to the reading public that he fudged his way into a career. One wonders how many sleepless nights this man had. . ."What if someone finds out what I did?" He may have asked himself. I can tell you that men and women who earned advanced degrees through fraudulent institutions had to abandon their careers when the truth came to light, even if they acted with the greatest of integrity from interview to hire to forced resignation.

"I AM the guy who stole the safe from the Motor View Drive Inn back in June, 1971." And in a far more comical confession, "Now to that really mean Park Ranger; after all, it was me that rolled those rocks into your geyser and ruined it. I did notice a few years later that you did get Old Faithful working again."

A petty thief who could not live without someone knowing what petty articles he took. A man who steals from another robs himself of peace and goodwill, for if he does not honor the property of others, then what assurance does he have that others will honor his own?

I admit that I would find it far more hilarious if someone else admits that they perpetrated serious harm against him, without his ever knowing it.

"To Disneyland - you can now throw away that 'Banned for Life' file you have on me, I'm not a problem anymore - and SeaWorld San Diego, too, if you read this."

A man who was barred for life from amusement parks must not have had much of life, if his only jollied were harassing park employees or creating enough of a disturbance to merit so sweeping a ban.

His smoking habit, I am sure, robbed Mr. Patterson of far more than he claimed responsibility for. I wonder if the crimes that he perpetrated were a contributing factor to his nasty habit.