If Garrison Keiller ever quits, you should take over. Your lumber yard scene would be the great basis for "The Yankee Home Companion". The level of trust and familiarity in small towns is something cityfolk can have a hard time adjusting to. Too bad. I grew up working on a farm in Kansas and was constantly amazed as a young man how business people would let an unknown 15-year old kid buy $5,000 worth of parts and fuel and pay for it with a counter check out of an account that wasn't even mine. (For those of you who don't know, businesses in these small towns have books of checks from all the banks in the area right there on their counter. They are basically blank--no name, address or account number. You fill in the pertinent info and off you go. No ID or "Let me run this by my manager".) I guess that as long as you wore a Co-op or Cat Diesel Power hat, had a pliers pouch on your belt and were appropriately dirty, they figured you were decent folk.

Thanks for your posting. It is good to see this stuff still happens in our wired world.

Brent in Durham