Saturday morning we made a trek through Lisbon to visit my mother and then on to Alexandria, MN to celebrate the granddaughter's birthday. Trees and foliage all the way hung heavy with thick coats of frosting. Visibility wasn't a problem, so we had a beautiful new world to view for many miles.
This morning I attended a presentation at the Institute about the history of two little towns west of here: Sims and Almont. A married couple living in that area take seriously the job of preserving their local history and presented an interesting perspective. Almont still consists of a small population, but Sims can be called a ghost town with only two people still calling it home. The term "ghost town" is appropriate, too, since a ghost is reported to reside in the vacant parsonage. It so happened that two sisters attended this morning who were children of one of the pastors. They reported to us that the presence of this spirit was comforting; they were not afraid of it. Such things as footsteps, cold breezes, furniture being moved around, etc. were the signs of its presence. One of them had a picture painted of the house from a photograph, and upon receiving it remarked that he painted in the ghost in an upper window. The artist didn't know what she was talking about until the lady pointed to the cloudy figure he had unconsciously included.
Baxter Black, my favorite cowboy poet, told this one. A rancher called a veterinarian one day and said he had a cow with a broken leg. The vet wasn't going to waste his time on an animal he knew was doomed. "Shoot the cow," he told the rancher. A while later the rancher called back. Now he had a cow with a broken leg and a bullet wound.
This morning I attended a presentation at the Institute about the history of two little towns west of here: Sims and Almont. A married couple living in that area take seriously the job of preserving their local history and presented an interesting perspective. Almont still consists of a small population, but Sims can be called a ghost town with only two people still calling it home. The term "ghost town" is appropriate, too, since a ghost is reported to reside in the vacant parsonage. It so happened that two sisters attended this morning who were children of one of the pastors. They reported to us that the presence of this spirit was comforting; they were not afraid of it. Such things as footsteps, cold breezes, furniture being moved around, etc. were the signs of its presence. One of them had a picture painted of the house from a photograph, and upon receiving it remarked that he painted in the ghost in an upper window. The artist didn't know what she was talking about until the lady pointed to the cloudy figure he had unconsciously included.
Baxter Black, my favorite cowboy poet, told this one. A rancher called a veterinarian one day and said he had a cow with a broken leg. The vet wasn't going to waste his time on an animal he knew was doomed. "Shoot the cow," he told the rancher. A while later the rancher called back. Now he had a cow with a broken leg and a bullet wound.
