"Along the banks of the river Phonda Lea"

 

You can find many things like, Old tires. Brush and fallen trees, Trash of almost any kind, car bodies. Pieces of destroyed homes, fences, every-thing except for a lost soul and broken hearts. What you see on them banks, could give you a full story of the life that was once flourishing up stream. 

Now, the population has diminished as no one wants to go through anything like this, again. No lives were lost this time, but no one in their right mind would want to experience this again.

If you are, or were in the salvage business, you might profit from what you can salvage along the banks. This reminds me of a story I read a long time ago. It was about an old beachcomber. He would walk up and down the beaches and make a fair living from the items he found.

 

Once that he had enough money, he bought himself a metal detector and he struck it rich. Within a short time on a beach, he could earn himself a thousand dollars or more in a short time. It was all free, as no one could claim it and he wasn’t breaking any laws.

He had been in business long enough to have a number of other shops that would buy his findings. He had an old beach hut, but he lived in a fabulous apartment building with beautiful grounds and he employed a maid and a cook. He was living like a king. People carry expensive thing to the beach as they really don’t want to leave them in their cars for someone to steal. Then they forget them or lose them.

One day, the old boy found a bottle on the beach that had washed up on shore. He took it to his hut. He put it in a corner and forgot about it. One day an intruder entered his hut and all he found was this bottle. He popped the cork and out came this mean but very beautiful girl. For setting her free, she would grant him one wish. Now you are thinking you have heard this story before, but you are wrong!  The girl was so beautiful, the guy had a heart attack and died right there. Since the girl didn’t grant the guys wish, she had to return to the bottle and the cork was put back in the bottle.

 

Well, a huge storm came up that night and water from a flood, washed the hut and the bottle back out to sea and the hut and the bottle sank to the bottom of the ocean floor and has been there since. But the old beachcomber found himself a girl, ever-bit as beautiful as the one in the bottle. They made mad love every night and the old guy just couldn’t handle it, he died of a heart problem and the beautiful girl inherited the, fortune he left behind.

 

But she never got to keep it. She bought a small yacht and went on a long cruse, when she came back to her home port, the IRS was waiting for her, it seems that she had not filed an income tax form, for the past six years and they wanted to know why. Come to find out, the old beachcomber never reported his income on or for his findings either. The IRS will even stick their noses into fairy tales also, so you just can’t win.

 

Take my advice and get yourself on Welfare, it is the only way to prosperity, and you can live like a king! As for myself, I am over the legal age and don’t have any taxable income and for that reason, I need not file again. The smartest thing I ever done was to grow old.

by; Ben R.

June 2014