The Indians asked their Chief in autumn if the winter was going to be cold or not. Not really knowing an answer, the chief replies that the winter was going to be cold and that the members of the village were to collect wood to be prepared.
Being a good leader, he then went to the next phone booth and called the National Weather Service and asked, "Is this winter to be cold?"
The man on the phone responded, "This winter is going to be quite cold indeed."
So the Chief went back to speed up his people to collect even more wood to be prepared. A week later he called the National Weather Service again, "Is it going to be a very cold winter?"
"Yes", the man replied, "it's going to be a very cold winter."
So the Chief goes back to his people and orders them to go and find every scrap of wood they can find. Two weeks later he calls the National Weather Service again: "Are you absolutely sure that the
winter is going to be very cold?"
"Absolutely," the man replies, "the Indians are collecting wood like crazy!"
Winters are fierce where the old estate owner lives, so he felt he was doing a good deed when he bought earmuffs for his foreman.
Noticing, however, that the foreman wasn't wearing the earmuffs even on the bitterest day, the landlord asked, "Didn't you like the muffs?"
The Foreman said, "They're a thing of beauty."
"Why don't you wear them?"
The Foreman explained, "I was wearing them the first day, and somebody offered to buy me lunch, but I didn't hear him! . . . Never again, never again!"
. . .
We purchased an old home in Northern New York State from two elderly sisters. Winter was fast approaching and I was concerned about the house's lack of insulation. "If they could live here all those years, so can we!" my husband confidently declared.
One November night the temperature plunged to below zero, and we woke up to find interior walls covered with frost. My husband called the sisters to ask how they had kept the house warm. After a rather brief conversation, he hung up.
"For the past 30 years," he muttered, "they've gone to Florida for the winter."
. . . .
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