JUST HOW OLD AM I?

TLW (The Little Woman) came home one Saturday to relate a sad story.

God, please take me?

It seems this old couple came into the Wanna-Be-Bank & Truss Company to do their banking business. And whom do they ask for but TLW.

Now TLW is an observer, she has observed all the years I know her and has made mental notes. Usually she refers to the notes about 15 years later and I’m in trouble. Kind of a reference file of my promises, or wild statements made under duress or with the threat of having to listen to her lecture me. Usually she is right, I just hate to hear it so well put.

This one particular night was about an elderly couple that bickered while they discussed their problems with TLW. He was a sickly old man, but a very nice man, and she was the one in control, interrupting him and he interrupted her. She obviously was in control with all the papers in front of her. She would say: “Shut up, you don’t know what you are talking about!” and so this is how things would go. From TLW’s observation, they loved each other because it wasn’t nasty, just matter of fact like. TLW did everything she could for them and they left.

A little while later one of them returns to the Wanna-Be-Bank & Truss Co., and the other is missing! Two women appear who are the daughters with their father. The old lady had died! They were helping Pop clean up matters since he didn’t have a handle on things. He was on the verge of tears and TLW expressed her shock and dismay at the passing of his wife.

When the business end of things was over, the old man shooed away his two daughters and sat with TLW and she asked him to come back again, and with tears of gratitude, he said he would. TLW is very sentimental and caring, I know because 1.) She told me so, and 2.) I’m a member of the Wanna-Be- Bank & Truss Co. having sat across from her at her desk.

Years ago, this story would not have had the effect it has on me now, because I was young and life was ahead of me. Now I’m day-old newspaper and it is all history. So I could relate to the old man and his gratitude for anything he can get done for himself that helps from others.