CELEBRATING AN EARLY NEW YEAR

Sharon and Bert Sargeant visited yesterday with bottles of wine in hand. We toasted the New Year early since they will most likely be snowed in with a good fire and  plenty of food and water. In fact, they attempted to visit the previous night and were snowed in. Then the melt. So, they came last night
 Bert is also a local prankster who at one time ran a county survey line across the front of our property and convinced husband George that the County was planning to confiscate 20 feet of frontage to expand the road. He enjoyed seeing George turn purple. He also put a very cheap priced for sale sign on a friend's 49 Ford and gave his friend's phone number to field all the phone calls. Well, that's Bert. We've managed a payback or two along the way.

My brother Norman is staying for the rest of the week. He's had some amazing unconventional experiences and we've enjoyed rehashing old stories, about his visit to the Peoples Temple in 1975, and meeting the "False Christ"  Jim Jones. Jones, if you remember, took 900 people to Guyana in 1978 and induced them to commit suicide by drinking cool-aid spiked with poison. He spooked Jones. He attended with his friends, John James and family and declared Jones a fake. Mrs. James was so upset with Norman's declaration that they never resumed their friendship.
Norman's been rich and he's been poor but he likes poor for the challenge better than the ease of the "easy" life.
HAPPY NEW YEAR.
If you celebrate, be careful. We will have icy roads and plan to stay safely tucked inside. Yesterday, just going out for my shoulder therapy at 10:00 a.m., I found the roads were slick and treacherous and there were a number of small accidents locally during the day from the slippery ice.