I was out of town on a business trip when I received a call from my wife. She had received a panicked call from a woman, at one of the oldest farms in Whitman County, who was concerned that her brother was throwing out things of value. The brother had recently lost his job and was “looking for something to do.”
My wife met with the brother at the farm and found that items emptied from all of the farm outbuildings and the home had been thrown into a pile in the barnyard. She assured him that indeed many of the items were of value and arranged an appointment for me to meet with him the next day, immediately upon returning from my trip.
What she described to me during the phone call was a pile the size of a single-car garage, and although most of the contents were buried in the pile and not visible, she saw a victrola, wicker baby buggy, postcard albums, wind-up toys, several pieces of antique furniture, boxes of old books, quilts, and several old trunks that she was told were locked and had not been opened.
I arrived at the farm promptly at the time of my appointment, to find only a pile of ashes and burned metal. The brother assured me that there had been nothing of value, and that he was just “cleaning up some old junk”…