Strange Happenings

Quarters from Heaven?

I recall a song from long ago which I think was called "Pennies From Heaven."

This morning that song popped into my mind when I found a quarter. It is interesting where I found it - in the gutter.

Sure, you say, what's so unusual about that? Somebody's walking along by the house and pulls his handkerchief from his pocket, the quarter comes out too and he doesn't notice it drop into the gutter.

I was up this morning on the extension ladder cleaning the gutter - the RAIN gutter and lo - a quarter. The economy over the years has gone up quite a bit since pennies came from Heaven - thus QUARTERS.

YES, it was an unusual find but I have a good explanation for it. No doubt one of the roofers patching a leak in that 9-inch deluge on Saturday three weeks ago, pulled his handerchief from his pocket to dry his face and out came the quarter.

NEXT STRANGE ITEM

Just about the time I finished cleaning out the rain gutter, Lady B finished up fixing some wonderful cheese-flavored scalloped potatoes and announced dinner was ready.

"l'll leave it on your chair on the patio while I get your milk," she announced. So I climbed down from the roof and flopped down in my chair and found - a plastic bag of dog biscuits! It was an amusing, albeit puzzling moment.

Seconds later, Lady B emerged with my glass of milk, reached to the nearby table and placed my scalloped potatoes on the wide arm of my Highwayman-made Adirondack lawn chair. The dog biscuits had been there all the time - I just came to dinner too early.

BTW, the moniker Highwayman belongs to a son who lives about eight miles north of me. He's hobbying in woodworking and doing pretty nice things in his workshop.

AND THEN THIS -

Here's a funny one that falls into the strange things category. I don't think I wrote about this before but apologies if I did.

One early morning I was sitting in the shade of the pine trees on the busy side of the house where there's lots of traffic going to and from the junior high school down the road.

Often students and teachers heading for the school just a few blocks south are nearly late for school and speeding. A local policeman makes a habit of watching for them while parked on the side street in front of my house.

A nice looking car driven by an middle-aged woman suddenly was persuaded to stop just across the street from where I was sitting with my coffee.

The young and new policeman approached the car, politely asked for the lady's ID which she pro-offered, at which time the officer informed her of the existing speed limit.

Admitting that yes, she was going a little fast because she was late for school where she is a teacher, suddenly said rather loudly enough for me to hear "aren't you ______who was in my class a few years ago?"

Continuing writing a ticket, the officer, said "yes, maam, I am. I was one of the ones you kept after school so often."

There was some more conversation in tones I could not hear but as the ticket was handed to the teacher I heard " Here you are, I guess this is payback day Mrs.______."

A GHOSTLY TRIP

If you ever travel up into Canada on a vacation, and manage to find your way into New Brunswick, you can experience a strange happening in a place called Moncton.

If you don't find it on your Canadian road map, ask someone to direct you to Magnetic Hill.

At the bottom of a rise in the road with that name, turn off the motor of your car and experience a ghostly ride to the top of the hill, pulled up by magnetic force.

Don't ask me how that happens, nobody ever explained it to me but I experienced it with my young kids once on a rockhounding trip and am still mystified by the happening.

Strange things happen to lots of people. Maybe someone will blog back at me with THEIR happenings.

- Old Newsie