I don't know about Illinois but in NJ the mechanic is required to post his or her hourly rate in the customer area of the shop. Then they have to go by the flat rate manual which says how long the job should take. If their hourly rate is $120 and the manual says the job takes 45 minutes they would charge the customer $90 for the labor. If the mechanic is good and everything goes well maybe they get it done in 35 minutes and make a little better rate. If there are frozen bolts that break off and need to be drilled and tapped, the mechanic eats the extra time it takes. I don't know if there are rules about how much they can mark up parts. The final bill should break down the time and parts by line item. Of course by then you've already agreed to have them do the work. You could ask them to break down the bill ahead of time.

I appreciate your concern, but this was not a scam.

I look at my CC accounts every day just to make sure everything is okay. When I signed on yesterday, there was a notice. "There is an issue with your account. Please call this number." When I called the number, the man had to verify my identity - name, address, phone. Then he had to send a code to my cell phone. I had to find it and turn it on. But that was just the beginning.

I had to go through verification using the cell phone - shooting a five-minute video of myself, taking a picture of my driver's license, etc. This was not a speedy process. My phone would not cooperate with their system to shoot video or stills, so I gave up.

A few hours later, I saw an email asking me if the last three transactions were legitimate. I said they were, and that solved the problem. Synchrony Bank has cards for Amazon, Sam's, eBay, Lowe's, and Guitar Center. When I check on one account, I can see all five.

Synchrony does that occasionally - asking me if certain charges were legitimate. They have also closed my account and issued new cards when they think there is suspicious activity. I guess, "Better safe than sorry."

"If you want to know how old a woman is, ask her sister-in-law." (Eva Gabor)


- "Old age comes at a bad time." (Ed Sullivan)

- "Inside every Older person is a younger person wondering what happened." (Stevie Wonder)

- "Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard, there is nothing you can do about it." (Golda Meir)

- "The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened. (Mark Twain)

- "I’m at that age where my back goes out more than I do." (Phyllis Diller)

- "Nice to be here? At my age, it’s nice to be anywhere." (George Burns)

-"First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up; then, you forget to pull your zipper down." (Rob Reiner)

-“You spend 90 percent of your adult life hoping for a long rest and the last 10 percent trying to convince the Lord that you’re actually not THAT tired.” (Princess Grace)

-“Old people shouldn’t eat Health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.” (Bob Hope)

-"At my age, flowers scare me." (George Burns)

-“It’s like you trade the virility of the body for the agility of the spirit.” (Ed Sullivan)

-"The years between 55 and 75 are the hardest. You are always being asked to do things, and yet you are not decrepit enough to turn them down." (T.S Elliot)

-"At age 20, we worry about what others think of us… at age 40, we don’t care what they think of us… at age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all." (Ann Landers)

-"When I was young, I was called a rugged individualist. When I was in my fifties, I was considered eccentric. Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then, and I’m labeled senile." (Milton Berle)

-"The important thing to remember is that I’m probably going to forget." (Martin Scorsese)

-"We don’t grow older, we grow riper." (Pablo Picasso)

-“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.” - (Andy Rooney)

-“The older I get, the better I used to be.” (Lee Trevino)

-"I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me — they’re cramming for their final exam." (George Carlin)

-"Everything seems to slow down with age, except the time it takes cake and ice cream to reach your hips." (Elizabeth Taylor)

-"Grandchildren don’t make a man feel old, it’s the knowledge that he’s married to a grandmother that does." (Norman Vincent Peale)

-"When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old." (Mark Twain)

-"You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks." (Dennis Quaid)

-"There’s one advantage to being 102, there’s no peer pressure." (Adam & Eve)

-"There are three stages in man’s Life: he believes in Santa Claus, he does not believe in Santa Claus, he is Santa Claus." (Leon Phillips)

-"Looking fifty is great — if you’re sixty." - (Joan Rivers)

-"Time may be a great Healer, but it's a lousy Beautician." (Zsa Zsa Gabor)

Going th e-mail rounds.

Remember making an apron in Home Ec? Remember Home Ec? If we have to explain "Home Ec" you may delete this. I just don't have the energy anymore. Read on.

The History of 'APRONS'

I don't think our kids know what an apron is.

The principal use of Grandma's apron was to protect the dress underneath because she only had a few and because it was easier to wash aprons than dresses and aprons required less material. But along with that, it served as a potholder for removing hot pans from the oven.

It was wonderful for drying children's tears, and on occasion was even used for cleaning out dirty ears.

From the chicken coop, the apron was used for carrying eggs, fussy chicks, and sometimes half-hatched eggs to be finished in the warming oven.

When company came, those aprons were ideal hiding places for shy kids.

And when the weather was cold, Grandma wrapped it around her arms.

Those big old aprons wiped many a perspiring brow, bent over the hot wood stove.
Chips and kindling wood were brought into the kitchen in that apron.
From the garden, it carried all sorts of vegetables.
After the peas had been shelled, it carried out the hulls.

In the autumn, the apron was used to bring in apples that had fallen from the trees.
When unexpected company drove up the road, it was surprising how much furniture that old apron could dust in a matter of seconds.

When dinner was ready, Grandma walked out onto the porch, waved her apron, and the men folk knew it was time to come in from the fields to dinner.

It will be a long time before someone invents something that will replace that 'old-time apron' that served so many purposes.


REMEMBER:
Grandma used to set her hot baked apple pies on the window sill to cool. Her granddaughters set theirs on the window sill to thaw.

The Government would go crazy now trying to figure out how many germs were on that apron.

I don't think I ever caught anything from an apron - but love...

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/headwaters-of-the-mississippi-river

At this Minnesota state park you can easily wade across the source of the mighty Mississippi.



The Mississippi River, one of the largest rivers in the world, flows approximately 2,350 miles before it empties into the Gulf of Mexico, stretching 11 miles at its widest point. The watershed that flows into this massive river covers 31 states, two Canadian provinces, and measures about 1.2 million square miles.

Everything has to start somewhere, and the Mississippi River starts in Itasca State Park in Minnesota.

The official beginning of the mighty river is on one side of a small rock dam where water from Lake Itasca begins to flow, soon to be joined by water from many other tributaries on its journey to the gulf. At the watershed, the river is tranquil and shallow; it’s a great spot for wading.

A large post has been installed next to the headwaters since the 1930s, officially proclaiming the park’s status as the source of the great river and listing its distance to the gulf as 2,552 miles. (The U.S. Geological Survey puts the number at 2,300 miles and the EPA at 2,320 miles.)

Also in the park, just a short walk from the dam, is the first of many bridges over the Mississippi River. The park service has installed steps to the water near the bridge, providing not only access to a little current for more adventurous waders but also a prime photo opportunity.