How a Rumor Spreads

On Saturday afternoon, my mother called me (in NYC) to ask if I had heard anything about my uncle dying. She had heard that he was killed in a car wreck. I confessed that I had not heard a thing about it. She said that she had heard the rumor but it was not on the local radio news. We must have talked 5 or 6 times over the weekend to compare notes.

Finally, I decided to call Trucker Dan (who excites the Good Nurse to no end), whose brother is a policeman, to ask them to chase down the rumor. Even the police dispatcher had heard the rumor. They called all the neighboring counties and could find no records of a fatal accident. Turns out that the rumor was just a rumor. This is the text of an email I received from Trucker Dan this morning:

Hey there! I never found anything to prove it true. I was went to Herrington's house for the Superbowl, and he overheard brandon and I talking about it and he was on the phone with Humpy, who had Henry on the other line, and he said nothing of Jerry being killed. Must have been a real crazy rumor!
Talk to you soon,
Daniel

So, the final accounting has my uncle still alive. Even though he lost a leg several years ago to a motorcycle accident, the rest of him remains alive. The moral of the story? Believe none of what you hear and only half of what you see.