I’m going to do it at least this one time though because I attended the funeral of former Sheriff Jerry Hounshel’s wife, Linda, on Wednesday morning.

I knew Linda to some degree, but not near as well as I know Jerry.

One thing that was said during her funeral was that Linda often went out of her way to help women prisoners during her eight years as matron there.

I know that to be true because one time she told me about a poor woman in the jail whose mother had just died.

“She wanted to go to the funeral,” Linda related to me.

The problem was the woman, who was from Indianapolis had nothing to wear, but her orange prison garb.

“I wasn’t going to let her go to her mother’s funeral like that,” Linda told me.

So Linda told me about how she went about finding something for the woman to wear to her mother’s funeral and then talked about taking her to Indianapolis and waiting for her until the service was over.

I don’t think Linda was telling me that story because she wanted a pat on the back for her efforts. I think, that despite the fact that the woman was in jail on a cocaine charge, Linda thought enough of her to find something for her to wear that wasn’t going to be embarassing.

That’s just the way Linda was.  Like most matrons, she spent a lot of time at the jail and she also spent a lot of time taking female prisoners here and there.

She was always showing me artwork male prisoners had drawn for her or other staff members. She was proud of a lot of the work and loved showing it off.

You could tell Linda thought a lot of the artists and others in the jail and thought it was just a shame they were sitting there wasting their lives away.

I also had to talk to her on a couple of occasions about the meals she fed the prisoners. She was always quick to point out that a dietician had to approve every menu, and she wasn’t skimping just to save money for her and Jerry for their new house.

I believed her because I know she was one of those rare people whose lives cross your path every once in a while.

She meant what she said and didn’t pussy-foot around about it. I think she was one of the more honest people I know.

I think many people felt that way about Linda.

My family and I traveled to Greenwood to have dinner with my mother and father and some of my siblings on Mother’s Day. We had decided before hand to meet at 4 p.m. and thought we would have little trouble finding a place to eat at that time.

So imagine my surprise when I’m told by the hostess at one fine establishment that it would be a three to three and a half hour wait for a table of eight.

We quickly checked another restaurant and my wife was told it would be four hours before the could rustle up a table.

We were told it would be two to two and half hours at another restaurant.

I don’t know about you, but with the high gas prices dining out at the more expensive restaurants since last it would be the first thing to go. We finally settled on a cafeteria-style restaurant were the wait wasn’t near as bad.

For one thing, you have to buy gas no matter what else you do because if you can’t get to work you won’t be able to afford anything else - period.

If the economy is as bad as we’re being told, where is everybody finding the money to eat out.

As a side note, if those Indianapolis restaurants are that busy maybe they need to consider opening up restaurants out here in the sticks.

It will, however, be a long time before I visit any restaurant that tells me I’m going to have to wait more than a hour to be seated. It’s just not good service and the one thing people want and expect is good service. In an economy that is supposedly so bad, good service is often the only thing that sets one business above another.