Close only counts in horseshoes!!!

 Did you ever think that you might have a rich uncle (cousin) that could leave you a whole wagon load of money? 

Well over a year ago I got a letter from a company named Heir Search.  It listed a lot of people I know and said that I had a distant relative in Illinois who died without a valid will and that we were all heirs, 39 of us.  Turns out he was a pretty well off farmer and after his estate was settled there was over 5,000,000 to be distributed.  Boy we all got our calculators out and figured if the state and lawyers took half that's still a lot of money to divide.  Seems that dear old Ed had his parents as his beneficiaries  and they had died. He never updated his will.  Probably to busy running his farm. He never married, had no children.  So we all thought WOW  we are going to get a nice inheritance.  WRONG.  Came down to the wire there were 2 women related to him thru his grandmother, since he had no siblings either and no living relatives from his parents.  All the rest of us are descendants of his great grandfather. For myself, that would be my grandmothers brother.  Well Illinois law says that if there are relatives of that grandparents then the others won't count.  Well crapola.  It was fun while it lasted.  A nephew of mine was like " What a waste of time"  I thought oh yes, you are laying around not working and whining about wasting your time.  Shoot I think its rather exciting to think I had a rich relative.  I learned how to file a petition via e-file, and how to sit in on Zoom Hearings with the judge.  We were encouraged to do that so we could have our voices heard.  One good thing that came out of it was to find "cousins"  who are grandchildren of an aunt that I barely knew and they knew nothing about myself or my siblings.  I hope we try to keep in touch.  Would be fun to have an {Almost rich} reunion.  

Thought for today:  He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh about. 

This old gal is headed to the Texas beach.  Plan to spend lots of time there from now till end of next June and just come back up home every few weeks for a bit.  We call our place down there as "down home"  and up here as " up home"