King of Fools

The late Larry King had a long career in the media - as a radio host, television talk show operator, and he even had a "three-dot column" in USA Today (e.g. "For my money, no sandwich satisfies like a BLT...I'll watch any movie that has George Peppard in it...Question: why do men wear suits with T-shirts? Make up your minds, fellas...").

I spent a lot of time listening to Larry when he did an overnight show on Mutual Radio. He interviewed guests, took phone calls, offered personal highlights, and the occasional story from his own checkered past. One such story was what he called the Carvel Ice Cream Story. He would mention that he would be telling that story in an upcoming segment, and it was as if Lynyrd Skynyrd was on there saying they were fixin' to play "Free Bird." It was Larry's Greatest Hit.

The story was that Larry and his friends (one of whom was Sandy Koufax, the legendary pitcher) got into an argument when one of the claimed to know of a Carvel Ice Cream shop that served three scoops of ice cream for 15 cents. As the story unfolded like a worn-out road map, the yutes from Brooklyn went to New Haven, Connecticut, site of the allegedly affordable ice cream, and found the story to be true...and after their ice cream desires were sated, they found themselves at a rally for the reelection of the mayor, and wound up introducing the man at his rally...

King's mugshot from his 1971 arrest for passing bad checks (he was in debt to a bookie)

The late King, born Larry Zeiger, polished that Homeric tale to a fine sheen, adding just enough details so that no one would question its veracity at all. But leave it up to the Washington POST, whose writer, David Finkel, contacted Koufax for a 1991 story about Larry.

Koufax said he had never been to New Haven, was never a teenage running mate with Larry, was never his friend at any age, and never even met him until he had achieved prominence on the radio, which was long after Koufax had been a star ballplayer. 

But there came a time when Sandy had the chance to ask Larry why he told this fiction so often.

"I asked him about it," Koufax remembered.  "He just laughed."

I hear there is a psychological term for someone who tells the same story so often and so forcefully that the speaker actually believes it is true. We non-shrinks call it "fooling yourself," and it should be avoided.