Wagons, Whoa!

On our first vacation as a married couple Marsha and I headed out to see Yellowstone.  We also made a side trip to stop by my grand-aunt's place in Wyoming were I'd spent two summers as a child.  We arrived the day before her brother Jack, a grand uncle I'd never met, was to leave after having spent a week with his sister.  They were both in their mid-seventies but still spry and mentally acute. They also were into a pretty heavy discussion about the disposition of my great-grandmother's quilts which were in the sole possession of my grand aunt.

When Jack found out we'd been toYellowstone, he proudly announced that prior to World War One he'd driven a stagecoach from the train depot to the lodge in Yellowstone.  He recalled many of the various geysers and hot springs and could recite facts that he'd learned as part of his job some fifty plus years earlier. Marsha and I were duly impressed. However, as soon as he left the room, a bit of uncharacteristic sibling rivalry burst forth from my grand aunt. "Jack is stretching the truth a bit," she harrumped, "he didn't drive a stagecoach!  It was a wagon with benches nailed to the flatbed, and it was pulled by two mules twice as stubborn as he."