Month: September 2017

Bank of America

That charming little organization, BofA — which could almost be BFF, because they’re, like, best friends with their customers — is celebrating one hundred years of proudly serving America’s veterans.

That touched my cynicism rail. I bet, if one were to check, they would discover that BofA has been making money off America’s veterans for one hundred years. I’ll bet, if you check, they’ll have a number of happy stories about their efforts to hire and retain vets. I’ll be once a year, probably on Veteran’s Day, a senior exec sends out a thank you to all the vets who work for Bank of America. And then others in the company electronically chirp in, “Yes, thank you!”

I’ll bet all of this is just like the other corporations I worked for who so supported vets, like me. I wonder, though, if back in the meltdown, when BofA was evicting homeowners and taking possessions of people’s homes, how often the bank stopped and said, “Wait. This is a vet. We support America’s veterans. We can’t evict them.”

Yeah, I don’t think so. Not when there’s stories out there like this:

Service Members to Receive Over $123 Million for Unlawful Foreclosures Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act

The Justice Department announced today that under its settlements with five of the nation’s largest mortgage servicers, 952 service members and their co-borrowers are eligible to receive over $123 million for non-judicial foreclosures that violated the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA).  The five mortgage servicers are JP Morgan Chase Bank N.A. (JP Morgan Chase); Wells Fargo Bank N.A. and Wells Fargo & Co. (Wells Fargo); Citi Residential Lending Inc., Citibank, NA and CitiMortgage Inc. (Citi); GMAC Mortgage, LLC, Ally Financial Inc. and Residential Capital LLC (GMAC Mortgage); and BAC Home Loans Servicing LP formerly known as Countrywide Home Loans Servicing LP (Bank of America).

 

Amount of Money to be Distributed Number of Service Members Eligible for Compensation
Bank of America $35,369,756 286
Citi $14,880,578 126
GMAC Mortgage $13,720,588 113
JP Morgan Chase $31,068,523 188
Wells Fargo $28,358,179 239
TOTALS $123,397,624 952

Maybe BofA should amend their ad to, “Proudly serving America’s veterans for one hundred years, except for those times we cheated and fucked them over to increase our profits.”

I imagine BofA made all kinds of nice noises and saccharin pubic apologies, while shrugging it off with the rationalization, “We’re a big business. Shit happens.”

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Inspirational Quote # 772

I certainly don’t feel like there’s a choice. I feel, though, like I might be feeding a dragon, and it’s growing.

Today, You Will Write's avatarToday, You Will Write

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The Clean Out

It was the final clean out; they would no longer live there.

They’d been three generations of readers. He, the grandfather, no longer there, had led them into that society. He was always buying, reading, borrowing, and lending books, but his apex moments came when he talked about them with others. By talking, he enjoyed a significant amount of listening, to hear what others thought about the books, to calibrate, validate, and counter his personal findings. These predilections for books led to a ginormous collection. Shelves of books filled several family room walls. More cases of books were in the hallways and living room. Other collections guarded the bedrooms. Stacks of books decorated tables. Other books had to sit on the floor.

With him gone, and the house being cleaned, they went through the books and kept a few they considered the crown jewels. The rest had, lamentably, to go. Friends were told, “Come and get books. Take whatever you want.” Her concern was not to get rid of the books, but to find others who loved them as much as he had.

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Tuesday’s Theme Music

I thought, “Tuesday,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ballad, “Tuesday’s Gone,” streamed in from their first album, released in nineteen seventy-three.

It’s a relaxing, reflective song. I was in my last year of high school when I first heard it. It feels like a song that’s right for going into your final year. After a final year of anything, everything is changed, which is the sentiment I infer from “Tuesday’s Gone.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvWADo6KPzA

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Furboten

Furboten (catfinition): Areas of a resident or office where cats are not permitted to enter.

In Use: “Once she cleaned the guest room, she closed the door on the cats and declared, “This room is furboten.”” They immediately began clawing and meowing to get in.

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Monday’s Theme Music

A crazy dream finished my night. I’d been driving in a borrowed vehicle. It was in good shape, nothing special. Rain was falling. Traffic was dense. I was going a long distance.

We entered a wide tunnel lit with diffused dull yellow lights. More lanes were available. Veering into one, I accelerated, and caught a glimpse of a Chevy pick-up behind me. He’d apparently wanted into the space I’d taken. Now, filled with rage, he was coming up on my bumper.

Still in the tunnel, the road curved. We were going up a hill. I floored the accelerator pedal, keeping it down as engine, road noise, and speed built. Terrified by the speed, and barely in control, I was pulling away from him, and everyone else, when I rounded a corner and almost hit a van crashed on its side. There wasn’t time to stop but I managed to swerve around it. As I thought about stopping for the van and warning the other traffic, I discovered that boulders and rocks were strewn across the tunnel road past teh van. I drove around them, trying to grasp what was happening, and left the tunnel.

Rain was pouring. The day was fading. I reached my destination and pulled in, weary to the bone. It was Monday. I knew I needed to be somewhere else by Tuesday. More travel was ahead. I was with my father’s wife, and her family. Talking to others, she was planning a get-together, and I was there for it. But in flashbacks, I remembered that I’d left some things at my previous location that I needed. I grew conflicted over going back to get them – it had been such a long distance, and an exhausting drive – staying for the event being planned, or foregoing continuing on to my next location. Regarding the last point, I was attempting to understand, where was I going, and was there a need for me to go?

I awoke with this part of the song, “The World I Know,” by Collective Soul, playing in my mind:

So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below.
And I laugh at myself
While the tears roll down.
‘Cause it’s the world I know.
It’s the world I know.

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The Age of Talking With Your Body

I seemed to have reached an age where my body and I talk a lot. They’re meandering, lackluster exchanges. Like, my back will be hurting after doing something. That’s the point where we begin the conversation. I don’t know where I was when I hurt it, so I’m skeptical. Am I really hurt? A general query is made to myself, and my body. “Is my back hurting?”

I turn, and flex…feeling…confirming, there is pain and stiffness. I then become a pain detective, interrogating myself about when I hurt my back, where it hurts, and how I hurt it. Most of the time, my client – me – answers, “I don’t recall.” I ask my back, “Does it hurt when I do this?” Then I bend and stretch.

I try recalling everything I did that day, and the day before. My back never made any protests during the day. I thought, if I’m hurting it, it would probably speak up. “Hey, you better stop that. You’re hurting me.”

When I was younger, I never had this problem of confusion. I knew when I hurt my body. I remember exactly when I did it. But it now all sneaks up on me, like a very delayed reaction. Hours pass, and then my body announces, “I’m hurt.”

I never know why I’m hurt. It becomes a mystery, subject to monitoring. I find myself limping and ask, why is my heel hurting? What happened to my back? Aw, my elbow hurts. What’d I do to it? 

The conversation never ends, like a plot without a resolution.

 

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