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Cindy Lange-Kubick Columnist Cindy Lange-Kubick has loved writing columns about life in her hometown since 1994. She had hoped to become a people person by now, nonetheless she would love to hear your tales of fascinating neighbors and interesting places. Follow Cindy Lange-Kubick Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

When his monthly pension check showed up in his account on March 1, Chuck Zellers was in Arizona.

And he was still in Arizona three weeks later, when he checked his account again and the check had disappeared, something that had never before happened.

Puzzled, the 73-year-old Lincoln man called his bank thinking maybe there’d been a computer glitch.

U.S. Bank told him to call Mellon Bank, who told him to call his pension administrator, who told him he was dead.

“And I said, ‘Oh?’ and I got a little concerned,” the retiree said late last week.

Chuck and his wife, Alice, spend their winters in Ajo, Arizona, and after that phone call, they drove 130 miles to the federal building in Phoenix.

It was ringed with people the day before Tax Day, and they went from door to door trying to figure out who to talk to.

Eventually, they found the Social Security office, took a number and waited three hours until a friendly woman called his name.

“I gave her my passport and my driver’s license and she goes clickety-clickety-click and she says, ‘Oh, by golly, you are dead,’ and she laughed about it.”