Wilbur Yang

imagined elbow

From Sycamore. Known as ‘the man with the educated elbow'.  He could tell time with his elbow. As a young fella he fell off a hay-rack and broke his elbow.  After that happened his elbow was very sensitive. He could tell by his elbow whether it was gonna rain, whether it was gonna snow, whether it was gonna hail, or whether it was gonna sleet. And he could also tell the time.  His wife – he married a woman twenty-six years old – would wake him up in the middle of the night and say, ‘What time is it, Will?'  Wilbur would simply take hold of his elbow with his fingers, squeeze it good, and say, "It's three minutes and six seconds past one o'clock."  And he'd be right!  He married this woman twenty-six years old under very peculiar circumstances.  He was standing on the railroad station platform in East Pittston, Pennsylvania.  A stranger come up to him and tapped him on the shoulder and says, "Beg pardon, friend. Will you light my cigar for me?  I'm going to be married in half an hour and I'm so nervous I can't strike a match."  Wilbur lit the fella's cigar for him and then got to thinking. "I oughta be married myself," he said to himself. He noticed a young lady down the platform a piece and he strolled over to where she was standing and says, "I'm Wilbur Yang.  I'd like to get married."  The young lady never blinked an eye.  ‘I'd like to get married," she said.  So they went to a lunchroom and ate a hearty meal, got in touch with a preacher, underwent the wedding ceremony in the presence of six book agents that happened to be in the neighborhood, caught the evening train for Logwater, Missouri, and may still be in that community.