\ec·lec·tic\ adj. selecting from various systems, doctrines, or styles. n. a person who uses various methods in philosophy, science, or art.

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Las Vegas SUN. Today: July 29, 1998 at 10:29:20 PDT LV man uses the Internet to compile "Things I Didn't Tell My Mother" By Lisa Ferguson LAS VEGAS SUN It's buried deep within your soul -- so deep, it's easy to forget it's there. But every so often, it creeps up and rattles your psyche with the force of a freight train: The dark secret you've hidden for decades. Maybe it's the piece of your great-grandmother's china that you accidentally broke as a kid. Or the cashmere sweater you swiped from a ritzy department store. Or maybe it was the time you went behind your parents' backs and snuck out of your bedroom for an elicit rendezvous with your sweetheart. For years, you've ached to tell someone -- anyone -- this juicy tidbit. But who? Ted DeCorte hopes you'll spill your guts to him. The Las Vegan, who is vice president of operations for Nevada Pacific Dental, is compiling such confessions via his website ( http://www.geocities.com/MadisonAvenue/Boardroom/4278) for "Things I Didn't Tell My Mother," a book he's editing and hopes to publish next year. The project is being undertaken in a spirit similar to the wildly popular "Chicken Soup For the Soul" book series, in which people worldwide divulge personal stories -- in this case, secrets -- for publication. "People enjoy seeing their stories in print," DeCorte says, "and (the book project is) also just a way that you can indulge in a little bit of confession." The idea for "Things I Didn't Tell My Mother" was spawned when DeCorte, who was raised in Phoenix, was there visiting friends and family. During conversations around a patio table, "we realized that there were subjects and things that, even well into our 40s, we had never talked about and really hadn't discussed at all" with their parents. What skeletons are in 46-year-old DeCorte's closet? "I think there's probably plenty of indiscretions (from) high school and college," he says. "Maybe getting in too late and fabricating a story about a car breaking down, or maybe a little incident with the police over some shenanigans on Halloween night." The father of three hasn't hidden much from his own mother, though. "I think I've told her just about everything." Still, there's one incident that continues to haunt DeCorte, former dean of students and social studies teacher at Bishop Gorman High School: He was caught drinking once during his teen years. "I know my friends from college and high school, when they heard that I had become dean, called me up and said, 'that's the strangest place for you to end up ... because we did all of this stuff," he says. DeCorte has done some very basic, very limited research on the psychological benefits -- and pitfalls -- of baring one's soul. "I think the situation is going to vary according to the person," he says. "You can have an individual who feels guilty about how, as a child, they took a dollar out of the collection plate in church and that could bug them for the rest of their lives. "Another person, their experience would be that they had stolen something out of a bookstore, or shop-lifted, or maybe treated someone badly. It really doesn't matter because everyone is an individual, and whatever would bother one person may not bother another, and I think that's what makes (the book project) kind of fun." The repercussions of exposing such confidential information could have both positive and negative impacts on the person divulging -- and those around them -- according to Dr. Chris Kearney, associate professor of clinical psychology at UNLV. "It can have a positive, cathartic effect in that people ... might not be able to express something directly to a person, but they can do it indirectly through a letter or an e-mail or like that, that allows them to express some of the emotion without direct confrontation," Kearney says. On the other hand, "I don't think a lot of people fully understand the ramifications of what they're doing when they do that. The fact that a lot of their friends and relatives may see it, and that they're disclosing personal information not just to people they don't know, but to a lot of people they do know who are going to have access to the book. "I worry that people haven't thought that through completely and eventually, it's going to get back to them ... and then they are going to have a lot of regret," he says. "My point would be that there are some things better left unsaid, or that are better said within a smaller group of people." While DeCorte prefers visitors to the website leave their names and other biographical information along with their secrets, he also respects their anonymity. "Though, interestingly enough, most of the people have identified who they are," he says. DeCorte's website, named Eclectic Mouse Experience after a 1960s one-hit-wonder rock band, has been operating for about a month. So far, he's received 30 submissions, most of them by fax, largely from women, and from as far away as Australia. From creepy to cute, horrible to heartfelt, he is in search of all varieties of secrets. Among those he's received are disturbing tales of the punishments people endured as children. "I had one lady that had to eat dog excrement, for some particular reason," he says. "Some of those, I'm not even certain I would want to use." Another woman's confession, however -- that she was not able to tell her father, who died of cancer, that she loved him -- is a keeper. "We hear that (type of story) all the time," De Corte says. "We see that type of thing on television, but to get someone to actually commit and say that, what they wish they would have done ... those are kind of touching." While he doesn't want to restrict any submissions, Monica Lewinsky-wannabes are clearly not welcome here. The website's tongue-in-cheek disclaimer reads: "Please don't give me anything that I would later have to testify to a grand jury about or may ruin your budding political career." Still, he notes that he didn't want to put any guidelines on the submissions "because I can see where there will be different (topic) segments within the book." While he hopes to have amassed enough "quality" stories to publish the book by next year, DeCorte says there's no rush. "I think the process (of compiling the information) is what is enjoyable, not the product. Whether this gets self-published or picked up by a publisher is not as important to me as the process." DeCorte, who also previously worked as an aide for former U.S. Rep. James Bilbray (D-Las Vegas), consulted with "Chicken Soup for the Soul" editor Mark Victor Hansen about the book project. "I was able to pick his brain in terms of publishing and things like that," he says. The "Chicken Soup" concept "has been very, very successful in the fact that (Hansen and his staff) aren't really writing it, just editing it, and allowing regular people to write their stories." Besides a place for secret submissions, the Eclectic Mouse Experience website also features a slew of links about topics that DeCorte holds near to his heart: Valley High School's jazz band (his son is a member), Nevada history, his alma maters (UNLV, Arizona State University, Scottsdale Arcadia High School), business, art, architecture, science, culture and the media. Eclectic, indeed. "I look at many websites as being an educational tool," he says. "I think it makes people more educated, more in the know of what's happening not only in their own community, but in the world." All contents copyright 1998 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. Home © Rights Reserved 1999-2008 Eclectic Buzz / Eclectic Mouse Experience