Actually, I DO have a true story of folk. In 1994, I moved into the cottage I now live in with my husband. An elderly woman who lived behind me had a beau by the name of Danny Gordon. She told me (and I didn't believe her because she was loose with the truth) that Danny had once been married to Odetta. I got to know him over the years until her death from breast cancer. My husband helped him pack up her things and close her apartment. i was just too griefstricken to take part until after he left. She and I had our ups and downs as neighbors but I loved her even though she was quite the grifter and con woman.

Since she was such an accomplished grifter (albeit a likable one), I assumed she was making up the thing about Danny's marriage to Odetta. I never asked him about it because she told me it was a sore subject and I assumed it was just an untruth. Danny was a nice fellow but lived very far away and came into town for a few weeks at a time every now and then. His health wasn't good but when he was here, I enjoyed talking with him. The death of this owman, who he loved deeply, was a terrible blow. I never saw him again after that.

So, one day I'm working on the Odetta article for Wikipedia, and I came across four or five original references to her marriage to a "Dan Gordon" or "Don Gordon" in the late fifties. Damn if he wasn't really once her husband!! Oh the missed opportunity, eh?