Two For the Money

Today's Link
Old Lady Lincoln

Saying for the Day
What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely. ~Franklin P. Jones

Picture of the Day
From the Archives

A Picture Story from Jeff's Portrait of Words

Before you read this truly unremarkable story just a few words about how it came into existence. Betty and I decided it would be fun to write a story together and thus the idea for this story was born. To keep us from killing each other a few rules were devised.
1. Each person would write one line and then the other a line until the end of the story.
2. We would not discuss what we had in mind or where we wanted the story to go.
3. No hitting or screaming.
This then is the product of our effort published on both blogs on the same day.

Sandy was just becoming comfortable with living with the stupid penguin when she found the two messages from Father Bill on her answering machine. Of all people, Father Bill wanted to know about the penguin. He wanted her to come down to the church hall now even though this was the day of the big casino fund raising effort and the place would be packed. She dressed quickly and grabbed the recently gifted stuffed penguin.
Ann Haggerty met her at the door to the hall and asked her if she knew anything about roulette wheels as it seems nobody could get the church's new wheel to work. Sandy looked at Ann with an odd expression on her face.Out of the corner of her eye she saw her penguin rushing toward the wheel. She felt that there was going to be trouble ,or maybe help,because that penguin was so unpredictable.Suddenly, the wheel began to turn and it certainly looked like it was working. Applause echoed through the hall, and Ann grabbed a bouquet of yellow roses used too decorate the hall and gave them to Sandy.
Sandy, however, was more concerned about where the penguin had disappeared to and what it was up to now. She excused herself , and walked into the sanctuary. Father Bill was not there so she went immediately to his office and waited for him to come back. There was a side door to the office, which opened, causing her to jump back in response . At the same moment she saw through the window her penguin running up and down on the fire escape of the building next door and being watched by a strange man in a white hat. Brother Joe had come in the door and commented on her watching the man in the white hat. Sandy not being able to say anything about the penguin on the fire escape said she had just noticed the fancy sunglasses the guy was wearing and thought she might get a pair.

Sandy heard a commotion coming from the hall , so she left the office running past the softly lit candles in the sanctuary. It seems the wheel was now stopping on number 10 every time and Ann was about as angry as you can get. Sandy said," The penguin did it. The penguin in the cinnamon floppy hat and the yellow jacket did it." It was at that point that the man in the white hat showed up, took her by the arm, and said " They can't see him dear".

"He looks like this." Sandy pushed the stuffed penguin in his face sobbing softly. " I know dear. I can see him. Father Bill called me in to help you. I'm an expert on the para-normal."

News from Pigeon Falls
The little town in my basement where the trains still run, dragons fly, and life is back to normal
After the discovery that the puzzle pieces were not with the puzzle the search for the pieces began. Every old box in Mabel’s attic was gone through. They spread out years of junk that had been put away for the someday that never came. Not finding it in attic they did the same thing in the basement. Every shelf was checked and every storage place but no puzzle pieces. Tommy UK and Tammy were beginning to feel that they had failed. They knew what had to be done and couldn’t do it. All the while that this was going on the shadow continued to grow.
Mabel remembered putting the pieces in a plastic bag and sealing the bag but couldn’t remember what she did with it after that. She thought she had put it in the trunk with the flower pots but it wasn’t there. That’s when Tammy pointed out that there were no flower pots in the trunk.
“That’s because I took them out for my African violets”, Mabel said.
Tammy then suggested they might be in one of the pots. Mabel was horrified at the thought of dumping out her prize flowers to look for the puzzle pieces but Tammy convinced here that if the shadow came the flowers would be gone anyway. So we great reluctance she agreed . They decided to try the biggest pot first which, of course, held Mabel’s favorite flower. With as much care as possible they removed the flower and the dirt from the top half of the pot. Then they poured the rest of the dirt out and there at the bottom of the pot was a plastic bag containing the three puzzle pieces.
Tammy took them and placed them one by one into the puzzle base and nothing happened. They waited and nothing happened.
Have we come this far only to fail? Will Pigeon Falls be destroyed? Can nothing stop the shadow? Doesn’t the driblet count? And though it seems to have less and less meaning is Tommy UK really the undertaker’s kid. If Pigeon Falls is still here tomorrow there could be an answer in News from Pigeon Falls.

Wrap Up

A very good breathing day. I took the oxygen downstairs with us but used almost none of it. In the morning Betty went to Bible Study and I started on our annual year end letter. I will try to finish that tomorrow. In the afternoon we worked on the layout. We cut off the new module and gave it its own transformer. Now we can run four trains at the same time each from its own transformer. It is also possible to move the bottom three trains from one module to another by throwing the proper switches. When I came up I visited all of my links. Now I need a breathing treatment.
GBYA

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