Dear Abby: I teach business law at Western Nevada Community College in Fallon, Nev., and just read your response to "Apple Annie" in Tacoma, Wash., to post a sign on her apple tree saying, "Kids, you're welcome to my apples, but please ask first. I would enjoy helping you select the juiciest ones."
Annie is courting financial disaster by allowing the children to trespass. In my class on real property (real estate), I urge my students to absolutely prohibit any type of unnecessary access to their property, especially children, in order to avoid possible lawsuits should someone be injured.By posting a sign inviting students to help themselves, she increases her duty to warn them of known dangers, even if the dangers could be easily determined. If a condition is dangerous, she will have the obligation to repair the condition or physically protect the children (prevent them from climbing the tree or provide protective equipment).
Abby, please tell "Apple Annie": Stop allowing children onto her property. Keep apples picked. Give them to the food bank or to her adult friends. Replace her apple tree with a non-fruiting tree. Put up a fence and increase her liability on her homeowner's policy. She's going to need it.
- Mrs. Denise Koster, J.D.
Fallon, Nev.
Dear Mrs. Koster: Thank you for the legal advice. It didn't occur to me that the apple tree could be a liability to the owner.
Annie, I'm revising my answer: Barricade your property, harvest your apples, and don't share them with the kids. Also, call your insurance broker!
How do you like them apples?
Dear Abby: In a recent column, you quoted Letitia Baldrige, your authority on etiquette for the 1990s, who covered expressions of sympathy. However, there was no mention of those who signed the register on the occasion of a funeral.
I am more appreciative of a person's presence at the funeral service than I am of a sympathy card that has been sent by mail. Of course, a word with the bereaved person at the end of the funeral service is nice, but if the crowd is large, this may not be possible.
In the case of my wife's funeral recently, a woman signed the register, and after her name she wrote: "She was my friend and I loved her." I am not acquainted with that dear woman, but her kind and touching tribute pleased me immeasurably.
My feeling about a printed card is that if the sender does not add a few personal words in his or her own handwriting, there is not much point in sending it.
- W. Boyce White,
Siloam Springs, Ark.
Dear Mr. White: I disagree. Adding a few personal words on a store-bought card gives it added warmth, but a card bearing only the sender's signature is worth sending.
Dear Abby: Unzipped zippers on men, other than being tacky-looking, don't usually reveal much. Women's dresses are another thing.
Try this one: I walked into the lower level of a bank looking for the accounting department. I passed a "picture window" to an office where a young woman was typing. Apparently, when she sat down, her skirt had caught on the back of the chair.
There she was - with her entire lower right extremity exposed above her hip. I looked long and carefully to be sure of what I saw before I tapped on the window to alert her.
- R.H.B., Cincinnati
For Abby's favorite family recipes, send a long, self-addressed envelope, plus check or money order for $3.95 ($4.50 in Canada) to: Dear Abby, Cookbooklet No. 1, P.O. Box 447, Mount Morris, IL 61054-0447. (Postage is included.)