It should not have mattered as much as it did. But by the time everyone had a voice, I was embarrassed and partially annoyed, not so much by what they had said, but why they had to say it. I had gone to the auto dealership to pick up my car following an encounter with a deer, and now I was about to pay for the damages with a check the agency had previously made out to the dealership. The estimate was about $25 higher than the actual cost.

      "Could you cut a check for the difference, and make it to the insurance company?"I naively asked.

      The dealership usually just gives the customer the cash, the clerk politely explained. I repeated my request. The clerk said since she never heard of such a request, she'd check with her supervisor. The supervisor, as accommodating and polite as the clerk, said it's easier just to give the customer the difference, and I could do with it what I wanted. Most people do.

      A couple of days later, I gave my insurance agent cash for the difference. He profusely thanked me, and explained that in all the time he's been an agent only about a half-dozen people have ever paid back the difference between a higher estimate and the actual costs. Although an extra $25 would have been a nice treat, I explained that although the company had a high profit from customer premiums, this money belonged not to me but to the company. I didn't think it was all that big a deal.

      A few weeks later, I received a letter from the company's claims market manager. He said that personnel in the district office advised him of what I had done. "We truly appreciate . . . your honesty,"he wrote.

      Insurance fraud amounts to about $100 billion a year, with about 10-25 percent of premiums going to pay for undetected fraud, according to a survey conducted by the Kentucky Department of Insurance.

      The media occasionally report about someone who finds a wallet and returns it, with not a card or dollar missing--often to the derisive comments of their friends. Lying and cheating seem to be so much a part of our national identity that we long ago left the Age of Innocence and are now at the crest of the Age of the Moral Vacuum.

      About three-fourths of all college students admit to cheating, up three times from a similar survey in 1941. Eighty-seven percent of all medical school students say they cheated as undergraduates; 58 percent say they cheated on med school tests.

      Students continue to cheat upon graduation, pad their resumes, and fake grade point averages--which are seldom checked by prospective employers. Many people seem to think it's an inherent right to cheat on driver's tests, qualifying exams, and to assume company supplies are included as "take-out"privileges, along with claiming sick leave for hangovers or an extended fishing trip.

      Teachers also lie. When they don't take the time to properly monitor or grade tests, routinely issue high grades in an era of grade inflation, or don't know the subject matter because they spent more time taking education classes than classes in their own major, they lie to our children.

      Termpaper mills sell completed research papers to students; authors plagiarize from other authors; and TV networks and the Film industry routinely steal each other's ideas so that any creativity left is probably in the studio's cafeteria menu.

      Most independent blue-collar workers try their best to be competent and honest; they know how hard it is for others to make a living. But, the exceptions seem to be mounting. A neighbor recently paid several hundred dollars to a contractor to clean pipes leading to the sewer system because the original contractor, approved by the township and now missing in action, cut corners and didn't do the job right. About $8,000 in repairs on my son's home in an historical district were done poorly by a contractor recommended by the mortgage company. My son later learned that the contractor's license had been previously revoked by the state, and that the mortgage company failed to check on the current status. It lied as much as the contractor. Losses from white collar crime may be as much as 50 times that of property theft, according to criminology professor Stephen Rosoff of the University of Houston. But, it's easier for prosecutors to get convictions for cat burglars who usually have public defenders than for CEOs who have teams of Ivy-trained litigators. White collar crime "goes undetected or is viewed as a bending of the rules,"according to a recent report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP says the "victim of an assault will recover, however, the impact of a fraud can last a lifetime."Hazardous materials are still being dumped into our rivers; manufacturers still put out inferior quality merchandise because, frankly, they can get away with it; and Management routinely lies to its workers and, thus, the consumer.

      We cheat on our income taxes "because everyone else is doing it."We lie about how many beers we drank. We even commit "little white lies"by saying we have to help a sick neighbor so we can avoid having dinner with a boring couple whose only purpose seems to be to annoy us. Customers and businesses tell us "the check's in the mail"; the government tells us, "We're here to help you."

      How do you know a politician is lying—so goes a century-old observation—His mouth is open. The New York Supreme Court once ruled that politicians can't be responsible for any promises they make while campaigning because such promises are worthless.

      We know the President lied to his closest friends, advisors, and to the public. We know he cheated. Those in Congress who are judging him stand accused of adultery, fraud, deception, and of being a part of the Savings & Loan scams more than a decade earlier. But the President, like his inquisitors, are one of us. We shouldn't expect anything more than what we are willing to assume for our own lives.

       Perhaps there will again be a time when no one has to write a letter to thank anyone for being honest.