Why let truth get in the way of a good story?

Exaggeration - hyperbole - has long been a literary device used in Jewish story telling. When someone says they are so hungry they could eat a horse, it isn't meant literally. Just give them a sandwich. In the age of rapid, comfortable, steamship travel, a performer with scheduled tour dates would not be crossing the Atlantic to the U.S. on a masted sailing ship nor would it take 3 months. All families tell stories that have been embellished. Genealogists learn to eventually discern the grains of truth and which are simply good yarns.

Pat Weinthal
Massachusetts, USA