People die everywhere, even in front of homestead coôperatives

We're in the process of buying a farm about twenty miles away from where we live now.

I know. This is quite sudden. That's just how we are. We do things quite suddenly.

Our new-to-us farm (100+ year old farm) is about five miles outside of a little town where, apparently, everyone and her uncle must belong to some sort of coôperative.

We're getting our farm loan through the farm loan/ bank coôperative. (This will make us members of a coôp, immediately, so we can fit in.) Our loan officer told us that the best playground for Little Z was on the other side of town, "across from the coôp".

Today, in a spirit of exploration, we drove out to the little town we will soon be a part of, and looked for the park. We passed a giant coôp store and a coôp gas station.

"I don't understand," said Brian. "There's the coôp. Where's the park?"

Just then there were sirens everywhere. The sheriff went by and a small fire truck, then a police car. Brian rounded a corner and we found the park. As we were pulling in, a police car was actually driving through the park, not exactly on a road. Brian and I both had the same thought at the same time,

"Watch, there'll be a dead body."

It's a great park. We forgot temporarily about all of the hoopla of emergency vehicles, and played. They had the greatest teeter-totter there. It seated four. Some other kids came with their parents. They seemed nice. After about twenty minutes, Brian said,

"There is a dead body, after all!"

Sure enough, across the street, five guys were moving a stretcher with a big red tarp over it, loading it into a van. It was clearly the body of a large man.

"What is that, over there? Is that a nursing home?"

"The sign says, 'Homestead Coôp'."

"Huh."

"Huh."

"Poor guy must have just gone for a walk and had a heart attack or something."

"Huh."

____

"So, the park actually IS across from the coôp. Not the bank coôp, not the hardware store coôp, and not the gas station coôp, but the homestead coôp."

"Right."

I'd like to point out here that this is a really small town. It's probably even smaller than Joplin, Missouri.

____

"Well, it's a really nice park. I like it."

"Yeah, and at least we didn't meet any freaks here. That's good."

"Just a dead body."

"Well, people die everywhere. It's not his fault he died here."