In cahoots--Mr. Cooper and State Farm

This is a tale about Mr. Cooper, a mortgage company, and State Farm ("SF"), an insurance company, and my investment property in CO that I have held since the 1980s. It is an unbelievable story off corporate hubris, ridiculousness and overweening you-ain't-nothing corporate attitude because you, Mr. Property owner, are a little individual piece of nothingness and here, kiss my ring.

The house, which provides me with my retirement supplement beyond my tiny social security stipend, is worth maybe $300K. My mortgage on it is about $28K. There are no other liens on the property. The roof suffered hail damage last month, which is causing it to leak, and needs a new roof which is covered by my insurance policy from State Farm, which has been my insurer since the eighties.

The current loan was acquired by me from Capital One about six years ago. Last year, it sold the loan to Mr. Cooper, a transaction I had no say about whatsoever. If I could fire Mr. Cooper, a terrible mortgage company, I would. I might change my insurer because they are complicit in this be.

After filing a claim for the hail damage with SF, they inspected the property, issued an assessment report and sent me a check for $6103.97 so I could hire a contractor to get the property repaired. I deposited the check in my checking account at Capital One at its ATM, as I do with all checks I receive. It issued me a deposit slip and then, apparently, a minute later debited the same amount back out of my account. I discovered this 2 days later when I examined my account statement online.

The bank threw up its hands, told me my endorsed check was invalid because as issued, there was a co-endorsee on the check, Mr. Cooper. I would have to get the check re-issued by SF in CO, sent to me in VA, send it to OH to get it endorsed by Mr. Cooper, an effing corporate entity with a minuscule "vested interest" in my property ($28K vested interest concerning a $6K claim on property worth $300K), have it returned to me by them after this ridiculous and useless gratuitous act, and then I could deposit it and gain access to my insurance money so I could pay a contractor in CO to get the leaking roof repaired.

SF confirmed this ridiculous rigamarole on the phone, which will take at least a week if not a month to complete by mail, as did Mr. Cooper after I spent a long time on their phone menu listening to canned music and recorded statements about how they were engaged in debt collection and any information I tendered to them could be used against me for this purpose unless I was in bankruptcy in which case, never mind. They had the temerity to state that this byzantine procedure was necessary because of "fraud."

I have no idea how Mr. Cooper thinks this is the process I should use to get my insurance money from a claim I filed with SF, or why SF should issue such a useless, time-consuming check unless this is a giant check-kiting scheme so SF can can collect interest on the $6,103.97 for an extra three or four weeks and maybe, I imagine, kick some of that "profit" back to Mr. Cooper, while I jump through these hoops. Multiply my month-long delay in getting my money by 100,000 or a million claims and you're talking some serious money. Mr. Cooper and SF can go to blazes.

Along the C&O Canal Towpath

Although our scramble over the rough Billy Goat Trail during the weekend had been cut short by my friend's shoe falling apart, thus introducing unacceptable, albeit remote, risk on parts of the trail involving rock-face traverses along high points with drop-offs below in case the shoe caught or failed completely, we had a nice stroll along the C&O Canal towpath.  I enjoyed watching reflections cast upon the still canal water by clouds overhead, the rocky shoreline and foliage in the background.

There was also wildlife around us.  I snapped a picture of a crane perched upon a log by the far shore.

We walked over to Virginia from Maryland in achieving the river overlook point just off the towpath.  The river was flowing fast and frothy as seen from Olmstead Island, which is Virginia soil although separated from the Old Dominion by the rushing river.

Our three-hour traipse done, we noticed an interesting, working relic from the past along the way by the park entrance.  I haven't seen one in years, although they used to be common everywhere.

Billy Goat Trail 2018.

A friend and I went to the C&O Canal National Park recently to perambulate the Billy Goat Trail, a 3-mile rocky trail in Maryland alongside the Potomac River that involves scrambling over rocky promontories overlooking the river and traversing boulder-strewn granite outcrops that make up a large part of the trail.  While not considered a difficult trail, it does necessitate maintaining balance at high points and footing and hand grips along rock faces.

We went clockwise this year, traveling the most difficult part first, having went counterclockwise last year.  We went down the rocky valley, crossed over the first stream by going from rock to rock in the stream bed and crossed over the bridge spanning the second stream.  Thence started the climb up rock slopes to eventually arrive at high overlook points along the far-below river.

But disaster struck, as my friend's shoe came apart from the stress of rock climbing and the sole separated from the shoe.  It was unsafe at that point to go the entire distance with a floppy shoe which could catch in any rock crevice along the way and cause her to lose her balance, perhaps at a perilous point.

So we egressed the trail at the halfway point on a short exit trail to the canal towpath.  The mile and a half of rough trail we had gone had tired us anyway and we enjoyed a less stressful walk back to my vehicle, spotting some wildlife along the way including deer, cranes or pelicans, turtles and frogs.

To say goodbye

This past weekend I attended a service at the beautiful Trinity Episcopal Church in Ambler, PA, to say goodbye to a cousin of mine.  Andrea was an inspiration to everyone who met her, a selfless social worker who worked tirelessly on behalf of others, loved by her family of course but also beloved in her community and at her church.

The large sanctuary filled up with her friends and relatives mourning her passage, but sure she was in a peaceful place befitting her life's work.  Her son read a poem evocative of her life:

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die. 

Mary Elizabeth Frye

She was laid to rest in a quiet corner of the churchyard.  She will be greatly missed by all.

PeoplesBank Park

When I was in York last week, I took in a game at the PeoplesBank Park to see the York Revolution, an unaffiliated minor league baseball team take on the Sugar Land Skeeters.  The park was built in 2009 or thereabouts and is nestled in right between the river running through downtown and the railroad station.

I eschewed the "cheapest seat in the park," a so-called $10 "lawn seating" ticket out in the grass beyond the left field fence, for a $15 seat by third base under the shadow of the luxury boxes upstairs.  Combined with $3 for parking and a $2.50 hotdog (I brought my own water bottle in), it was a cheap outing to the ballpark.

After checking out my seat, I meandered around the park all game long and sat wherever I wanted.  It's a nice expansive ballpark, very underutilized as several food courts were shuttered, but it has a kids playground out by left field with a merry-go-round and its food offering are many and varied, from $11 hoagies to $5 jumbo dogs with funnel cakes, Italian ices, pizza, White Castle hamburgers and boardwalk fries in between.

The game was interesting, as minor league ballgames often are, with a 400 foot single smacked off the top of the tall wall in left field that caromed right back to the left fielder, many pitching changes, flamethrowers serving up 88 mph fastballs and best of all, the Revolution's costumed colonial mascot firing off a loud cannon in centerfield when a Rev player hit a homer run.  The decibel level inside the park, with its excellent speakers mounted everywhere, came to be annoying by the end of the game, with non-stop PA chatter, advertising ditties and between-innings breathlessly reported upon challenges on-field amongst randomly-selected spectators,  and I discovered that it was literally impossible to engage in a cell-phone conversation from anywhere inside the park.

Running into an old friend

I spent a little time in York, PA on the day after the Fourth of July, sightseeing.  York once was the capital of the United States; it is where the Articles of Incorporation were ratified.

Gettysburg is thirty miles to the west, and after the terrific, terrible battle there in 1863, 14,000 wounded Union soldiers were transported to York for their convalescence at a site now set aside as Penn Park.  The Soldiers and Sailors Monument commemorates this ground.

Further to the north is the Prospect Hill Cemetery where there is a ring of honor atop the hill, guarded by a Union sentinel, enclosing the heroes who died of their wounds suffered at the most famous battle in American history.  On this hill, along the main street which runs the entire length of this town, there is an honor station commemorating the several sons of York who have been lost in this century's wars, and here I came across an old friend of mine, Adam Dickmyer, a York native, with whom I used to run in the District occasionally.

Adam was lost to us in Afghanistan eight years ago, but he is honored still in his hometown.  He was an NCO in the honor guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and he resides there still, for eternity.

It's coming

I got up early yesterday on the Fourth and drove down to the Marine Corps Memorial as the sun was coming up.  The sky wasn't infused with colors as it sometimes is but the moon was still out and gave the valiant Marines and the Navy Corpsman something extraordinary to seem to be reaching for in their inspiring display of love, sacrifice and devotion for our country.

Our country is currently under dire threat from within, but it has faced prohibitive times before and prevailed, based upon the resilient American spirit exhibited so magnificently by these stalwart men permanently enshrined here.  The sun will break forth again following the dark night.

At Iwo Jima those seventy-three years ago, one of the most horrific battle in the annals of warfare, uncommon valor was a common virtue for these bold Americans.  Those young men, boys really, child-men, of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Marine Divisions never wavered in their commitment to our noble experiment nor shirked their duty to move forward inexorably despite the daunting odds stacked against them.

It might be hard to see now but a new dawn is coming.  Come November, you'll see, America will be great again.

Happy Fourth, yeah

It cut me to the quick.  An email message sent by me a couple of days ago detailing the sad particulars of a service for a member of the greater family was responded to by a closer member of my family with an unhinged rant about what an, ahem, ass I am and, by the way, he pointedly asked, How are my kids?

I ignored the threatening aspects of the screed, although I am no fool and have taken precautions already, but the reference to my three kids, who, because of the divorce, haven't communicated with me for years, really hurt.  I don't think about them every day and I have mostly moved on past them after all this time, but this roll-out by a family member of his best version of nuclear hurt in response to this humdrum familial contact has shocked and depressed me greatly.

Today being the July Fourth holiday, I went to my well-known, well-publicized favorite restaurant at noon for lunch on a holiday and hoped that one or more of my children would come to share the meal with me so we could get started on living out the first day of the rest of our lives in contact.  It didn't happen of course, because PAS is an insidious, invidious form of cruelty inflicted on the other parent by a parent who will use tender children in the advancement of her own preening, overweening ego despite the well-documented permanent harm it does to the minor children.

Reality is very precise.  Et tu, Brutus?