Beware of prepaid funerals

Dear Sir:

About 15 years ago I purchased a prepaid funeral through a funeral home for the sum of $6,000. Several years ago, to my amazement, I received notice that dividends were being paid for the investment of my money to a company affiliated with the funeral home, where they reported to the IRS on a 1099 approximately $126.

I never received the money and after paying the tax, I contacted the secretary of state who informed me under a recent law regulating insurance companies engaged in this business that they were allowed to keep my dividend and reinvest it in a trust fund.

I further find to my amazement that should I cash in the prepaid policy that it would only be worth $3,600. If a representative contacts you more than likely he will inform you that they will pay the increased cost of the funeral due to inflation which is a falsehood.

When they bury you, your family will only get the amount of money that you have paid in which they have used interest free for years.

Just a word of caution.

W.E. Gore Jr.

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Article disproves one shooter theory

Dear Editor:

For those of us who were adults in 1963 (I was a Marine corporal.), the assassination of JFK was a defining moment. Many of us in the Marine Corps then doubted that a mediocre marksman like Oswald, with an even worse bolt-action pre-WWI Italian carbine, could have gotten off three aimed shots and hit his target all three times in the span of time measured for the shooting.

Donaldson's remarks from "there and then" crystallize that doubt into certainty. From her own words, as reported in the insert and in your story, the first shot missed and then the two remaining shots (at least the two that were heard) did not. I assume you understand that the sheer number and type of wounds sustained by JFK and John Connally totally (as in 100 percent certainty) preclude their being inflicted by only two bullets from one shooter? And this is not political assertion, simply a matter of ballistics.

Do I also assume you understand the implications of what she wrote?

Alan Sabrosky, Ph.D.