a letter from Aunt Mary dated Oct. 16, 2014

{excerpts}

a good tour at the Vaile takes 45 minutes to an hour.

Last October, a friend up Mayes Rd. 9 houses told me on phone that she had a sympathy card for me when I came her way & was out walking. This irritated me that she expected me to call, so she could run out and hand it to me. Then, later, she said she also had a Christmas card for me and had laid them by her front door. The holidays came and went and the cards had "vanished" and she had no clue where they were. I had told her that she could put them in my mailbox, but she was full of excuses, (it was raining or her husband had been out running errands.). Last week, on Friday or Saturday, she called to tell me that she'd moved an end table and SURPRISE! SURPRISE! there was the lost sympathy card. (I guess miracles never cease! HA) She said, "It's bent, but I still intend to give it to you!" I responded, "I wouldn't bother!" This week (phone) told her that I'd found this offensive. It ran off like water off a duck as she didn't think so, "If I'd intended to be offensive, believe you me you'd know it!" The more I thought about it, the more insulted I felt. I wrote her a note stating that her intentions to give me the bent card 51 weeks after my brother's death are insensitive and tacky and I was dumbfounded, in dismay when she'd called me and told me this. I put the note in a bag with the newspaper and stuck in her mailbox yesterday (the door was hanging open and there was mail already delivered and her vehicle was gone.) When I told 2 other friends about her & the card, they each said, "That's ridiculous!" She's probably furious with me, but I was offended. Anybody else would've put a stamp on the card and I would have received it in a timely manner!

Three Sundays back we voted to hire an interim pastor. If I had it to do over, I would not vote for him. Last Sun., he ranted/raved about homosexuals. He said that they won't go to Hell for their sin and that it's not the unforgiveable sin. He made a judgmental remark about Mormons and condemned divorcees. He claimed re. homosexuals, "God didn't make them that way!" I don't think anyone knows that for a fact!! I wanted to get up and walk out as I was infuriated, but I stayed wondering what ridiculous thing he'd claim next. And at least I wasn't rude by sticking it out. Virginia and I and a few friends believe gays are what they are when they are born.

Freeda wrote that she wished we could walk around our old home place by Cainsville. So do I! I'd prefer to go when the snakes & chiggers wouldn't be a big problem, if we should ever do it. She mentioned a toy, iron car that dad found when plowing a garden. It probably got lost in our sand pile at Cainsville farm. It would be nice to go there with a metal detector. The toy must've belonged to dad's Uncle Alfred Boyd's kids.