I went to visit some of the old folks again. One lady is a widow who lives alone and she was one of those who bought a wood stove in fear of what might happen with Y2K. But she has no way to get firewood so I took her some just in case Y2K is a few years late or maybe her power goes off because of weather.

She told this story:
There was a woman that she knew who had a bad marriage. She kicked her husband out and he moved off to another town. After a few years, she met a man she liked and decided that she wanted to marry him. But first, she figured she needed to get a divorce from her first husband. The lawyer sent letters and posted messages in the classified, but the guy never replied, so the divorce was granted and she married her new man. A few years later, she and her husband were in the town where her first husband had moved and they asked someone if they knew him. They did, and they said he was dead and had been buried in the local cemetary. So they went to find his grave and the dates on the tombstone confirmed that she had in fact divorced a man who was already dead.

The lady who told me this knew about divorce and marriage. She had shed a husband once herself. When she finally decided to remarry, she went to the court house to get a marriage license. They asked if she had ever been married before and she said yes and gave them the name of her ex-husband. Then they wanted to know the name of the man she wanted to marry, (He was in the Navy and had not yet arrived for the wedding.) So she gave the name of the groom. There was a long silence. A very long silence. Then the clerk said, "Do you mean they have the same name?"

So she said, "No, he's the same man."

Then she told about her apple tree. It was a good tree that produced lots of apples, and good ones too. But through a misunderstanding, the man who does her yard work cut it down. She came home after dark and did not look in the back yard until morning. She got up early and looked out the window in her bedroom and there was the tree cut and neatly piled next to the stump. She said she ran into the bathroom and looked out that window and there it was again. So she ran into the kitchen and looked again. Same thing. Next stop was the dining room.

She said, "You know, ever window I looked out the tree was still down. I couldn't believe it."

So go visit those old folks. You might hear some good stories.
Howard