“Did you guys hear . . .?” Molly Whiteside started to say as she delivered the menus at Mabel’s Grill the other morning but George MacKenzie stopped her mid-sentence.
“If you’re going to try out some of your April Fool’s Day jokes, we’re not there yet,” he growled. 
“I know when April Fool’s Day is,” Molly said, “and I was only trying to ask if you had heard there’s going to be a big Easter egg hunt in the park come Easter Sunday.”
“I’m glad my kids are teenagers now and I don’t have to keep up the whole Easter Bunny bringing eggs thing,” Cliff Murray said. “I mean country kids know that rabbits don’t have anything to do with eggs.”
“Oh you guys just can’t stand having any fun,” Molly scoffed. 
“What gets me is you warn your kids not to eat too much sweet stuff but then Easter comes and you give them all this candy to rot their teeth out,” sighed Dave Winston.
“I always sneak a few candies out of their Easter baskets to reduce the risk,” Molly chuckled. “But my son has taken to counting his Easter eggs and if I take one he catches me.”
“I could use him at my house,” chuckled Cliff. “I’ve got a little hen house in the yard and I try to save enough eggs to hatch but something sneaks in and eats the eggs.”
“Have you guys seen the new store downtown where the hardware store used to be?” Molly wondered.
“It’s got a nice big leaf on the sign,” Dave said. “Are they selling plants or something?”
“I suppose you could say that,” Molly laughed. “They’re selling dried marijuana leaves.”
“A pot store?” George said in surprise. “I’ve lived too long! The town couldn’t support a hardware store but apparently enough people smoke pot to support selling that.”
“Seems like there’s a pot store in every town these days,” Dave said. “They won’t get any business from me, though.”
“I tried it once back in college but a bunch of us almost jumped off the roof of the administration building,” Cliff said. “I figured it wasn’t something I wanted to repeat.”
Mabel let out a whistle  from the kitchen and Molly realized she hadn’t taken their orders yet, so she got their choices, wrote them on her pad and delvered then to Mabel.
“I see they’re tearing up land on the old Hamilton lot across the road from you,” George mentioned to Dave.
“Yeah, somebody from the city bought the farm and apparently they want to replace the old house with a new one,” Dave replied.
“They want to tear down that grand old stone house and replace it with some new bungalow?” George wondered.
“People just see these houses as old,” Dave said. “And I have to admit my house has some cold drafts in a winter like the one we just had.”
“What a difference a change of country makes,” said Cliff and shook his head. “Imagine if somebody came along and wanted to tear down the house where they shot Downton Abbey for television?” 
“We toured a couple of those old mansions when we were in England,” Dave said. “They’re so interesting that thousands of people line up and pay good money for a tour.”
“I can’t imagine many people would be interested in paying money to tour my old house,” George chuckled. “In fact I’m not sure I’d want them in even if they did. I’d have to make sure I put away my dirty socks before they arrived.”
“The thing about those houses in England is that they are so large that there’s plenty to see without ever getting close to the living area,” Dave said.
“Can you imagine the cleaning those places would need though?” asked Cliff. “I mean even now my wife asks me to help with the cleaning in our house that’s less than a tenth of the size of those mansions.”
“All this is making me rethink the whole idea of tearing down big old farm houses to build bungalows,” George chuckled.”◊