London Lease

 My friend Ben has moved to London, where he's rented a house for his family.  It seems their landlady could not take two pet hens to her retirement residence, and of course Ben's boys clamored for him to keep them.  But, he asked,  would he be responsible if a hawk got one of them? So the Land Agent or whatever they call it there wrote a 49th provision into the lease:
Chickens
49.1 The Landlord gives consent to the Tenant to keep the Landlord’s two chickens and coup in the garden. In consideration of this the Tenant must ensure that these chickens do not cause any difficulty or damage or nuisance either to the Premises and or the fixtures or fittings or to any neighbour. If that should occur the Landlord and/or the Landlords Agent reserves the right to terminate this consent and to require that these pets leave the Premises immediately.
 49.2 The Tenant agrees to remove all mess from the garden or other outside areas of the Premises both during the Tenancy, particularly prior to any visit from the gardener, and prior
to the end or earlier termination of the Tenancy.
 49.3 For the avoidance of doubt the chickens and their eggs will belong to the Tenant and the Tenant will be responsible for any costs associated with the keeping of the chickens.
 49.4 The Tenant agrees to return the land at the end of the Tenancy in the same condition as stated in the inventory and schedule of condition at the commencement of the Tenancy unless the Landlord gives written confirmation he would like to retain any additions or
changes that the Tenant has made, with no compensation payable to the Tenant at the end or earlier termination of the tenancy.
 49.5 The Landlord shall have no responsibility or liability for any claims whatsoever (including 3rd party claims) arising from the condition of the fields or fences due to any chickens being
kept by the tenant.
 49.6 It is further agreed that in the event any of the chickens shall die then the landlord will not be responsible for replacing or compensating the tenant for such loss.
I'm not sure what 49.4 has to do with chickens, but it's pretty much  what I used to teach in those real estate courses.  Just the same, if I had been on the Premises I would have given Ben the usual advice: have your own solicitor look the lease over before you sign.
I don't know what the other 48 provisions of that lease were, but in the Chickens section I still don't see any answer to the original question:  Is Ben responsible if one of the hens dies?

The Rains Came

P. S. to yesterday's post -- a friend sends me pictures she took after dark in Mt. Hope Cemetery.

Restores Your Faith

     I've just spent  a wonderful afternoon. Three hours in Mt. Hope Cemetery here, never had to get out of the car, spoke to lots of people. 
     My opening gambit out the car window was  "I cast my first vote for Harry S Truman"* and everyone wanted to talk. When I told one man I had nearly voted, in 1948, for the third party candidate whose name I'd forgotten but he had been Secretary of Agriculture, the response was "Henry Wallace, I'm just reading a book about him."  That kind of afternoon, that kind of crowd.
     The older Victorian section of the cemetery is all glacial mounds and dips, big old trees, wonderful fall colors.  Wish I'd taken the camera.   And --
     an amazing spontaneous gathering, thousands of people in a two-hour waiting line carrying flowers, flags, little girls and "I VOTED" stickers to the modest gravestone of Susan B. Anthony, the suffragette leader who went on trial in 1872 because she had registered and voted. 
       I believe the web site Anna sent is a morning feed,

https://www.facebook.com/News8WROC/videos/10155360574159386/

but when I left the cemetery gates at 6pm, more cars were  pulling in.  The city? the cemetery? someone? was firing up floodlights at the grave site, and folks were getting flashlights out of their cars. 
       After all the stress of the past few months, I'd pretty much forgotten there could still exist so many patient smiling happy people. 
        It was wonderful.          

.*No period after the S, it was "S for nothing."

No cell phones, no tv, no portable radios, no computers, no results

      You had to be 21 to vote in those days, and I was already married, living in Penn Yan in our honeymoon cottage on North Main Street (rent $50 a month, but Norm would later risk going into business for himself and by the time Avi was born we had moved to an unheated still-after-the-war- rent-controlled-$18.75-a month apartment also on North Main Street)-- but I digress.

      So I cast my first vote at some polling place just where the hill starts on Liberty Street.  Had not registered as a Democrat -- that'd be as much as your life was worth in Yates County (smallest county in New York State, btw.)

     I went into that booth  with every intention of voting for Henry Wallace, third-party candidate who had been Secretary of Agriculture, and whose rallies back at college had featured country music with guitars.  I can still see my hand poised to pull the lever for him -- and then I moved my hand up and voted for Truman.

    But here's the interesting part -- I remember being at the wheel of a car the next day, and the car was stopped in the middle of the quad at Syracuse University.  I must have driven my Mother there and we must have been visiting my sister, who would have been a freshman.

    What I remember is that we put the car radio on loud, and students were cramming around and poking their heads in the windows to hear the noon news, because no one knew yet if Dewey or Truman had won. 

THAT'S A TRIUMPHANT TRUMAN
 

Advice, Please

So here's the box that appears in the southeast corner of my screen.  If I sign off and re-boot, it's still there.  There's no X to delete it. 

It's against my principles to click on any invitation -- but then again, it doesn't have any misspelling or grammatical errors ... maybe it's for real?




Your attention to this matter will be much appreciated.
Sincerely,
Edith