Property taxes have been paid on the LaGrange House, painful, but necessary. What makes it a pain in the neck, besides coughing up the chunk of money, is the fact that this one smallish piece of property is cut up into seven parcels. It’s not a big deal, but if I miss one, I don’t want it to be the one that the house is on . . . but, then I would probably notice the much lower cash outflow.

I was afraid there would be a long line, but it appears few are as tight-fisted with tax money as I am. A couple of Amish fellows ambled in, along with about three other people but I didn’t have to wait a bit. They had three windows: Checks, Checks and Cash, and Checks and Credit Cards. They were picky about it – one Amishman was told he couldn’t pay “here”. The staff has been beefed up for the past week and while I watched the clerk tally up my bill, I also looked over her shoulder to a lady cha-chinging one check after another into the county’s account.

There’s nothing noteworthy about that and I don’t know why I mentioned it, unless I was just fascinated to see tax dollars going off to work – and they weren’t whistling.