"There's a ghost in your attic."

That's what the air-conditioning repair guy told us..... "There's a ghost up there.... a poltergeist...... something weird is going on up there and that's why your upstairs air-conditioning isn't doing what it's supposed to do."

Our air-conditioning repairman sounds like Gomer Pyle, from the old Andy Griffith show.  And today, actually, we heard that Andy Griffith passed away at his home in North Carolina. But that's another story.

For now, 'Gomer' has repaired the upstairs unit to the point where it will give us cool air until he can get back here and install the new a/c system for the second and third floors of this big old house.  Ghost or no ghost, Gomer told us that he can hardly wait to get that old unit out from under the eaves of the attic. "And just when is that going to be?" I asked him......... He told me "Right after the 4th, plum near right after the 4th."

Knowing Gomer the way we do...... "right after the 4th" can mean either the 4th of July, or the 4th of November.  His air-conditioning company is a small one, and it's about the only one in town that has more than two people working full-time.  I wanted to ask the man why he doesn't hire more people during his busier summer months, but honestly, I didn't want to get into yet another discussion that could involve a conversation that could last another 40 minutes without getting to the gist of the matter.

Getting back to Andy Griffith...... I used to watch that show when I was a kid....... Opie with the fishing pole, his dad with the sheriff's job, and Aunt Bea cooking in the kitchen.  All the kids I knew wanted to live in Mayberry..... no traffic, freshly painted houses,  safe streets, apple pies cooling on windowsills, and a real Main Street with cute little stores.

And where do I live now?  In a small town with a Main Street filled with cute little mom-and-pop stores, safe streets, ponds on properties just begging for a kid with a fishing pole.  Apple pies may not be cooling on windowsills because the flies and the barn swallows would be all over them, but it's as close to Mayberry as I think I will see in this lifetime.

And if there's any doubt about that, I can always call up the air-conditioning guy and ask 'Gomer' to tell me again about that ghost up in our attic who's making the cooling system "go all haywire and backwards from this way till Sunday morning."