Welcome to Mayberry

The other day (Thursday, January 26, 2012) we visited a lawyer in the nearby village of Honeoye Falls (“hone-eee-OYE;” as in “boy”).
The idea was for us old folks to get our affairs in order.
Following will be reflections of our visit:
We walked in and sat.
No one was there; not even a receptionist.
—1) Welcome to Mayberry.
It looked like the Sheriff’s office in the Andy Griffith Show.
“I’d like an explanation of his filing system,” my wife said.
Stuff was heaped in disorderly piles.
A folder of some sort was stuffed with detritus that emanated every which way.
Dark filing-cabinets were off to the side. Each had the word “Bingo” scrawled in black magic-marker onto the small paper insert in the file-name frame.
—2) The lawyer strode in from outside.
“Can I help you?” he said.
“We had a 2 p.m. appointment,” my wife said.
“You did?” the lawyer said. “I didn’t know that.”
Funny; he made the appointment.
—3) Into the inner sanctum, the actual lawyer office behind the reception area.
Be careful where you step. Don’t trip, and don’t knock anything over.
We’re talking about four things: -a) a will, -b) living wills, -c) healthcare proxies, and -d) power-of-attorneys.
The will-bit is only if we both die at the same time.
The house and our IRAs are set up to go to the surviving spouse.
Same with healthcare proxies.
Of maximum import is what happens to our dog should be both expire at the same time; for example, our airliner augurs into the Everglades.
The likelihood of that happening is slim, but should it, back to rescue goes our dog.

Photo by Linda Hughes. (Linda Hughes is my wife.)

Our dog.

Our dog is a rescue-dog from Ohio Irish-Setter Rescue.
A backyard breeder had given up.
Our dog was only three at that time, but had already had two litters of puppies.
(Now she’s approaching seven.)
I doubt there’s much demand for Irish-Setter puppies. You don’t see many Irish-Setters.
An Irish-Setter can be hyper; ours is.
Our dog learned the joy of hunting — we also had her spayed.
At least 10 rabbits have met their demise in her jaws, plus innumerable mice and moles. Once she got four chipmunks in a single strike.
I have to avoid the ponds at nearby Boughton Park (“BOW-tin;” as in “wow,” not “oh” or “who”). She’s snagged frogs, and can drag me into the pond.
—4) “I’ll send you a letter. It’ll just be fill-in-the-blanks, and then we can do a will” — that is, assemble a will from his saved computer forms.
“I’ll bill you after it’s done, maybe $150.
Everything is online now; those lawbooks out front are just for show.”
My wife used to work for Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company in Rochester, a publisher of law-books.
“I remember how much trouble we went through getting our company to online anything.
They wanted to keep printing law materials.
I remember accompanying a salesman on a call to a law office.
The lawyer didn’t want a law-book set; it would just collect dust.
But the salesman wasn’t listening.
‘You want these books,’ the salesman kept saying.”
“And things are much easier now that we have word-processing,” the lawyer said.
“Used to be if anything changed, that was a complete start-over retype.
Now you just change the file.”
“Yeah,” I added; “I had a stroke, so my keyboarding got sloppy.
Word-processors had spellcheck. It flagged all my mistypes. It was like finding my old self again.”
The lawyer then detailed how no one seems to be concerned about misspelling anymore.
“Did you spellcheck this?” he’d ask his receptionist.
“Yes.”
“No you didn’t! This word is misspelled.”
Does anyone from the Facebook generation care?
“We’re fighting a losing battle,” I observed.
“Yet if something is misspelled it can reverse the intent of a document,” the lawyer said.
—5) “Did you know Joseph?” I asked; “the hairdresser down the street.”
“Joseph Cotteleer,” the lawyer said; “one of my clients.”
“Does he still have that ’67 Corvette?” I asked.

Joseph’s ’67 Corvette.

“Nope, he had to sell it,” he said. “Probably for a loss too.
Seems he went sorta crazy after his wife died. Now he’s back in Thailand with his new bride.
And his old house here in Honeoye Falls is still on the market.”
“That Corvette was part craziness,” I observed; “but a really nice car.”
“Nothing I’d sneeze at, although I prefer the ’63 Split-Window coupe.”
“Four-on-the-floor too,” I commented.”
“All the right stuff,” he added. “Not fuel-injection, but good enough.”
“I considered making an offer, but didn’t. What would I do with a ’67 Corvette? Where do I put my dog? I don’t even have a garage for it. All it is is a show-car, for investment.
Plus it’s one more internal combustion engine to maintain. I already have eight!”
“Do you realize that in about 20 years no one will be left to drive performance cars? These whuppersnappers can’t drive stick-shift.
Getting a car with a stick-shift is near impossible.
In 20 years stick-shift will be but a memory.”

• RE: “Old folks......” —My wife is 68, and I soon will be.
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.