The Cab Ride

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I walked to the door and knocked. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me.. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, Like somebody out of a 1940's movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware. 'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.. She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her.. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated'. 'Oh, you're such a good boy', she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?' 'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly.. 'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice'. I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued in a soft voice.. 'The doctor says I don't have very long. 'I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. 'What route would you like me to take?' I asked. For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived When they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once Been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner And would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.. As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now'. We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, With a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up.. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her. I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair. 'How much do I owe you?' She asked, reaching into her purse. 'Nothing,' I said 'You have to make a living,' she answered. 'There are other passengers,' I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. 'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said. 'Thank you.' I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life. I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, Or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, Then driven away? On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life. We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware - beautifully Wrapped in what others may consider a small one. PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID  ~BUT~ THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER  HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.

On being a Salesmun............

February 23, 2013

Anyone out there remember the old cartoon that went something like this, minus the toon? “ A week ago I could not even spell salesmun, now I are one.” I Blog today about the world of being a salesman. Are you aware that there are no universities, anywhere, that can grant you a major in salesmanship? You can get a major in marketing. You can get a major in communication. But getting that sheep skin in salesmanship? Forget it.

Growing up in a small community I remember my first gig as a salesman. It was along about the third grade at Union Elementary school. The school fundraiser was sponsored by the American Seed Company. Yes, the product was seed, mostly vegetables for that spring garden. I remember walking around my community knocking on the doors of my neighbors and pitching the product. Most likely a simple pitch: “ How ‘bout buy some of my seeds for your garden.” I was 8 years old. I looked like a waif member of the play Oliver and heck if it took pity to close the sale , so be it. I was successful in my own right. I sold enough seeds to earn a wristwatch with a genuine pigskin band.

As I moved on in life I made it to high school and worked for Kwik Chek, a Winn Dixie, type of store. It was then that I learned the art of schmooze. I was a bag boy and I was paid .75 an hour. I learned to bag the groceries proficiently. If I worked 20 hours a week I made $15.00. I soon learned that if I engaged the customer with a little razamataz on the way out to put their groceries in their station wagon that I earned a tip. A good tip was .25. Many people would toss a dime your way and if you got someone who was just on their way home from a cocktail party sometimes you were handed a dollar bill. There were many times when my tips outpaced my minimum wage. Add $20.00 in tips to the $15.00 paycheck and now you were talking some serious spending money.

On to college and earning a degree in Business Administration. I was fortunate enough to land a job in college working for a milk distributor, Farmbest dairies, formerly Foremost dairies. I was engaged as a numbers cruncher working in the office. After graduation I stayed at Farmbest because they wanted me. A job in management. I was the office manager eventually and placed in charge of payroll with a lot of other responsibilities. I was 24 and fairly smart. Smart enough to figure out that the guys who got up and went out on a milk route selling and delivering milk door to door were making considerably more money than I. Of course I had a title, Office Manager. I had a dozen post menopausal women reporting to me. They all hated my guts and made my life miserable.

Along about that time I decided to seek part time employment. There was an ad in the local newspaper concerning going to work for Alcoa aluminum. I showed up at a dank and dark hotel along with 5 other people. We all got hired to sell Cutco knives. We followed up on leads that were produced by people in malls with clip boards signing up young ladies, primarily, to receive a gift and a presentation about our fabulous knives. These were perfect for hope chests. By this time I was dressing better. I was 24 about 5’11” tall and weighed about 160. Put a tie on me and some pressed slacks I made a decent appearance. The very first weekend on my own in this job I put $300 dollars in my pocket. This was part time work. The office manager side of me was rapidly getting an ulcer from the PMS crowd and I was making $200 a week.

It was all about the schmooze. I found that I could do it as well as anyone. I tendered my resignation and soon found a job selling educational courses for Bell and Howell schools for their Devry Institute of Technology. I worked all of the leads sent my way and as the dust settled on my first month I had earned $1600. That was eight weeks of Farmbest pay earned in 4 weeks. I learned that this was my career pathway and I never looked back.

I went to work in the pharmaceuticals business in 1972. I received a paycheck of $900 a month, a company car, benefits and all expenses paid. I loved being a salesman and it showed with the raises and the bonuses I earned. I respected my products and I took care of my customers and I was promoted to the guy who taught other people to sell the products. Eventually I was in charge of sales training for 13 southern states and Puerto Rico. I made 1000’s of presentations to small and large groups as well as one on one training sessions. I trained people who were all smart and had degrees. I noticed one common theme among those who succeeded and those who failed. What was it? Simply stated, it was the schmooze.

I eventually went on to be in public affairs. I was in charge of lobbying and association work and worked issues all over the country. Lobbying is no different than selling. There are just more seeds in the package and more outcomes at risk. That is where I retired after 30 years of getting up every day and not being able to wait to get in front of a client or customer.

The bottom line to being a successful sales person goes beyond the schmooze. You have to like people. You absolutely must have people skills. People have to like you back. Some never will. Most will eventually accept you and who you represent.

Is it possible to learn to be a successful sales person? I don’t care what you do for a living. Physician, politician, teacher, police officer, and so on, you must have people skills to be successful. There is a very good reason why universities do not offer degrees in salesmanship. It is a very simple conclusion that successful sales people are born to the role. You can be oriented and made to improve but if you don’t like people and they don’t like you back a PhD in anything you want will never make you successful. The people skills must follow at some point.

Snakes !!!

OK, I am going to admit that I have ophidiophobia, or fear of snakes. I am not so sure that I am unique in that regard. Heck even Indiana Jones had a fear of snakes. Let’s face it, he wasn’t afraid of much of anything even the ark of the covenant. The ark floated around at the end of that movie making all sorts of eerie sounds, spewing forth ghosts and spirits and melting Nazi’s faces. He was more afraid of snakes than he was that.

Word comes in this morning’s paper that the open season on Burmese pythons has ended. I think the sanctioned hunt went 45 days or so and paid some prize money for most snakes caught and the biggest python. Out of 1600 hunters there were 68 pythons harvested. One was over 14 feet long. That extrapolates to a 4.25% capture rate. Process that for a moment. These 1600 bravest of the brave men and women spent many days camped out in one of the spookiest places on earth, the Everglades, and only 4.25% of them caught a snake. That does not seem to be an effective expenditure of time and resources.

I have the impression that there are millions of these snakes in the glades. Every female lays 100 eggs per year. The story goes that hurricane Andrew, circa 1990, caused the release of a cache of these pythons from a serpetarium and they have been making whoopee and baby snakes for over 20 years. Just one snake could have produced 2000 in that time. Imagine if you would the geometric progression of the index population that slithered off into the Everglades those 23 years ago.

Now I have never been all that crazy about visiting south Florida. This is mostly because you have to be able to speak Spanish to order anything from a restaurant down there. Now you add in the fact that you could be eaten by a python whilst you are sitting at Joe’s crab shack trying to eat a blue crab. That is just more of an external stimulus than my 66 year old central nervous system can stand. I live in Tallahassee, 700 miles north, and I am going to have trouble sleeping tonight because the python hunt was a flop.

I am not rational on this subject. There used to be a black snake that lived in our grainery back on the little farm I grew up on back in southern West Virginia. It was my duty to place our two dogs Rex, the beagle, and King, the border collie in that grainery, every night. This was to keep them from roaming the country side and eating the neighbor’s chickens and their eggs or worse. I remember with perfect clarity, now 60 years later, the first time I ever encountered this reptilian monster. He was blacker than black, thicker than a strong man’s arm and made a creepy hissing noise. My brother and I plotted the detestable creature’s demise using missiles of stove wood or a hoe. However our father pronounced an edict that we were never to interfere with the coming and going of that snake. You see this snake ate his weight, many times over, of rats and mice that were set on eating our corn, wheat and rye in that grainery. I still get goose bumps worrying about encountering that snake.

After I was a full grown man my son, Drew, moved a water snake INTO MY HOME !!!! His grandparents had taken him to a pet store and promised to buy him anything he wanted. He came home with a 6 inch Florida water snake, an aquarium and a supposedly escape proof latched top. The first night that miserable snake was in my house I hardly slept. I felt him crawling into bed with me all night long. The snake lived with us for a year or more. And over time I came to accept him and his reptilian little habits, like eating live gold fish. After what seemed an eternity my son turned Patrick the water snake loose in Little river. My life began anew free from my fear of the little snake.

Now I come face to face with the invasion of Florida by millions of pythons. I strongly believe that the use of nuclear weapons must be meticulously calculated. For my money, however, it is quite acceptable to me for them to drop whatever megaton nuclear device in the glades necessary to send those pythons to a vaporized form of snake chromosomes.

Otherwise, I am going to have give up sleeping.   

Jury duty always eye opening

I was tapped to serve on a jury here very recently. The case was a result of the task force ICAC ( Internet Crimes Against Children ). This task force operated very close to my home in October of 2011. This was a multi agency cooperation to snare pedophiles and other deviants who prey on minor children through the internet.

The set up was done through chat rooms. The perp would engage a supposed minor via a chat room and then drive to their home to engage in sexual activity with them. Meeting them at the door was a big, burly cop. They would be arrested and charges brought against them on two or three counts. One was using a computer to solicit sex from an underage minor child. Two was traveling to meet a minor for the purpose of sexual activity. Three was conveying images via a computer to a minor child.

That is absolutely unbelievable that someone would be mentally challenged enough to not sniff out a sting like this. Yet almost 40 people in our home town were snared and arrested. I think that speaks to the extent that these kinds of people are strung out in their prurious addiction. It is like asking the junkie why he sticks that needle into his arm. They are just hopelessly lost in this world of sickness and evil.

The fellow who was the subject of my particular case was a teaching assistant, grad student at one of the universities here in our town. He is in his mid thirties, unmarried but into a continuous relationship with a very pretty woman. She sat in the back and cried along with his Mother when the verdict was read that he was guilty on all three counts that the state of Florida was bringing against him. He even cried when the verdict was read.

His life is forevermore changed. He will go to prison for 4-5 years. He will remain on probation for that same period of time and he will be listed in the FDLE database that maintains a location of and a qualification as habitual, sexual offenders for the rest of his life.

Some of my peers on the jury felt compassion for him and wanted to soften our verdict. Unfortunately for him there was just no way to discount the weight of evidence brought against him.

You question me as to whether I felt that we were too hard on this fellow my clear and concise response is absolutely not. I use as my barometer to that effect the 18^th Chapter of Matthew, verse six, “ But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

 Great work ICAC. Go haul in some more of them. Bad choices beget bad outcomes.

The Media Drinks its Own Poison

On the Manti Teo phenomenon. I am sure that you are like I am, tired of the obsession. I have been a Manti fan, while remaining a strong Crimson Tide supporter. I am not at all surprised that Manti was neutralized in the BCS Championship game by all Americans Warmack, Fluker and Barrett. His performance was a result of just flat being out manned by top level talent.

The media side show was an entirely different matter however. The media’s fawning over Johnny “ football “ Manziel ( gag !) up to the awarding of the Heisman was enough to deal with. Then they interject the whole scenario with the schmaltzy saga of Manti’s almost simultaneous loss of his grandmother and his girlfriend. This media driven Heisman circus is at its best nauseating. It seems to highlight America’s schizoid, delusional thinking that football players are Gods on Mt. Olympus. Surprise, they are not.

I know a little about Mormons since I have been one for 50 years. I also have had friends from the Hawaiian and Samoan cultures. Both cultures have a tendency, in my experience, to be driven to spiritual matters and romantic notions on many fronts in a natural fashion. I am not saying that is a bad thing, as I hope a 400 pound Samoan, NFL playing Mormon does not show up at my door. I am just saying that it is a natural sequence for many from that arena.

It is not at all shocking to me that Manti would have a strong affiliation to someone he met online. So much so that he would declare them to be his significant other. You throw in the time constraints and demands on top level division one athletes and you can relate to his limited ability in developing a face to face relationship. So I feel that this girl was as real to him as most other Facebook, Linked-In, My Space, Twitter friends are to the cyber-culture that many people live in. After all is that not the arena that breeds state and federal law related to cyber-bullying?

The matter that is fodder for observation to me is the media itself. In this scenario the media is currently drinking its own poison. The media created the obsession. It is apparent that someone along the way did not perform their due diligence. After the fact  that this girl was the playful, practical joker, dastardly deed of someone else’s creation comes to light, the media does an about face.  They report every nonsensical facet of this peculiar event to us, non stop, whether or not we want to hear it.

May we be spared the constant harangue of the ever present media. The only way to be saved is to save ourselves. Turn off the TV. Disconnect from Facebook. UnTwitterate yourself. Who knows, perhaps your blood pressure will go down a few measures. Choose to read a book, take a walk, call up someone you like and have a nice conversation with them. The only guideline I would suggest is to leave Manti, Johnny football, American Idol and Honey Boo Boo out of the discussion. Otherwise we are all doomed.   

Ten Lessons Learned in 2012

Lesson 1:

The difference between weird and crazy is that you can medicate crazy.

I had many run ins with people who weren't really practicing safe mental health during this past year. I live with me so I count myself as a barometer of normal/abnormal behavior. It is sort of like that old poem: "Yesterday upon the stair; I met a man who wasn't there; He wasn't there again today; Oh how I wish he would go away." That little poem depicts my unpredictable state of mind pretty well.

We had a visitor this past year who came into our home and actually spent the night with us. She was an add-on to relatives of my wife. She brought a little dog with her. This dog was a pug-terrier-chihuahua mix or something close. It was easily the ugliest mammal I've seen, ever. We provided a private room for the dog and its master. There was pronounced evidence that the dog slept in the bed with the freshly laundered sheets. I really did not meet the beast until breakfast the next morning after their late night arrival. The dog was 34 years old, diabetic, blind, incontinent and smelled like a necrotic meat ball. My first introduction took me back. You see the little meat ball was seated in a baby carriage at our dining room table being fed with a spoon by its master. This during our group breakfast that my wife had carefully prepared. It is my understanding that the owner has this creature with her constantly due to the need to constantly monitor its health. She administers vaccinations of insulin periodically with salves, potions and eye of newt. Picture in your mind this unusual caricature of an aged lady pushing a baby carriage with this goblin-like pet. Weird, weirder and weirdest of most life experiences I had this past year.

Lesson 2:

I experienced the loss of my Mother this past year. That is a watershed experience.

A mother is a single issue sort of relationship. Eleanor was 82 years of age, a double amputee and a stroke victim. I was born to her in 1946 when she was 16 years of age. So I spent a great deal of life being experimented upon by a child. I also spent a fair amount of time helping to raise her to adulthood. We had a pretty thin relationship by the time it was all over. Still I cared about her and did a lot for her over her lifetime as she did me. 

Our relationship was complicated over her course of life with 4 failed marriages and moving in and out of 113 jobs. In the end her care fell pretty much upon a younger brother in a far away place. I am grateful for that brother. He is resentful of me and my other brother. I don't blame him but she had burned all the bridges between myself and my other brother so he was her only option. 

I attended her funeral and watched the officiator pour her ashes into a little hole in the ground in a countryside church garden. And that was that. The person who had given me life ended up in a hole in the ground. At nearly 67 years of age the realization that I would soon follow her settled in on me and caused me to reflect. I don't find that unsettling but rather find it sort of fixating and relevant to the nature of this life we are given. Use it wisely because it all ends with your being laid or poured into a hole in the ground.

Lesson 3:

Accidents happen quickly and abruptly and can be quite painful.

No matter how careful you think you are accidents befall us. Mine occurred back in February. I was burning some old files in a chimnea. If you don't know what a chimnea is picture a 5 foot squash held upright with a hole at the top and all the innards removed and a window in the front lower portion. This is a poor man's fireplace. They are quite nice for burning yard trash or old files in .They are also useful for setting your house on fire. On this particular day I was burning not noticing that a thunder cloud was approaching. All of a sudden a brisk wind arose and rushed down through the chimnea blowing a piece of cardboard onto my unprotected shin. The cardboard adhered to my flesh for no more than 5 seconds. It left a burn about the size of a baseball. The pain for the first 24 hours was almost unbearable. Then a nice blister produced by my body formed a soothing cushion for it. That blister ultimately broke and there I was with a wound with skin slammed down on top of it. Consulting my Gynecologist ( My physician son-in-law, who is an Ob/Gyn) I was disturbed to learn that according to the Merck manual I was to get some scissors and a set of tweezers and remove the skin from the burn. I did so and the next 4-5 days this wound would keep me awake at night and hurt unbearably. I had to constantly clean it and dress it. It ultimately got better but it left a sizeable scar on my shin. Now I am in the midst of making up a plausible yet outlandish story about how I got it. Something involving napalm and a dark ops rescue mission of some sort.

My daughter-in-law fell down some steep stairs at our church and broke her foot. This was on Fathers Day. It has caused her some serious anguish. It happened quickly and involved some high fashion high heels. She is better now and does not have a neat, baseball sized scar that she can make up napalm stories about.

Lesson 4:

Things change whether or not you want them to.

When I was a child it was very common to have your tonsils removed. When I became a grown up and had children of my own it became very uncommon to have your tonsils removed. Now that I have grand children it has once again become common to have your tonsils removed. Our little 3 year old grandson, Benjamin had to have his tonsils yanked. He was such a pitiful looking little waif before the procedure, now he has a gut and is on his way to being officially chubby. Soon little Samantha Abigail will follow him into the new/old world of tonsilectomies.

The easiest thing you have ever had to do over the course of my life is renew your drivers license. My license came up for renewal this past May. Whereas I used to simply go online and pay the fee and hit the send button and I was renewed, now it is rather like trying to become a citizen. I had to produce a birth certificate,  utility records showing my address, social security information, another form of photo ID, all of my childhood vaccine records, a current liver function test, two MRI's, finger prints, an EEG and an EKG. OK, I am exaggerating some of that, but not all of it. It is a new world post 9/11/01.

I have only flown one time since 9/11. I plan to fly this coming year and am very anxious about how all that has changed. Do you need a passport to go to Albequerque?

Lesson 5:

Developing new friends is a delightful experience.

I made some very good new friends this past year. One of them is a man who is an Egyptian Coptic. He is a practicing physician here in the area and I had the privilege of consulting with him in the purchase of property.
90% of Egyptians are Muslim. This fellow is a Christian and attends services where they perform mass in arabaic. He is a wonderful person with a dynamic personality and incredible work ethic and I count myself fortunate to have made his acquaintance.

I had other clients who came to town to purchase. I became aware of a house two doors down from me that was coming to market subsequent to the husband's death. I had sold them the house before it ever came to market. They are now my good friends and my neighbors.

I met a sweet lady from China who became my client. Her husband had charted most of Florida's coastline during his 43 years of working for University of Florida. She was such a lovely person and moved to Boston to live with her daughter.

The list is longer but I have made my point.

Lesson 6:

Golf is a stupid game.

I have played golf since I was 38 yoa. My wife bought me a set of golf clubs for a Christmas present and I became an addict almost immediately. I play an average of 35 rounds per year. The first time I played I shot a 116. This past week I played and shot an 88. My current handicap is 11. That is the lowest it has ever been.

I have played long years with the same people. Due to attrition such as moving, quitting the game, extensive psycho-therapy, etc. that mix of people has changed. I currently play with a group of guys with whom I do not even keep score ( except in my head ). Before I played with guys who meticulously kept score, enforced the rules and insisted on having some sort of wager going on. I am much happier playing the way I do now and I am scoring better.

Why do you suppose I am playing better? I think it is because of the approach. In that we do not wager nor keep score I play very relaxed and lackadaisical. I think I have learned that the harder you to try to score in golf the harder it is to do so. If you just don't give a rip, you will play much better.

Lesson 7:

Good guys don't always win.

I carefully make this statement so as not to offend my friends who are Democrats, one of them being my wife. It was my great pleasure to meet Mitt Romney at my church here in Tallahassee on Thomasville Rd. in 2007. I sat right beside him and asked him the question, " Can a Mormon become President of the United States? " His answer to me was, " That is entirely up to good men like you.". He owned me body and soul from that moment on. I became an official Mitt Head henceforth.

I know somewhat of the standards by which he leads his life. He and I share the Mormon faith. He has served as a Bishop and a Stake President. I know of the caliber of life a person who fills those jobs must align himself with. My wife graduated from Brigham Young University with him. I have a high school friend who served in the mission field of France with him.

Mitt Romney is one of the most moral and all around good people that has ever run for political office. We all know how far that carried him. To a resounding loss. Good guys don't always win.

Lesson 8:

Old friends are the very best friends.

This past year I renewed two relationships that have been very important to me. One is a friend with whom I worked at DuPont. I was going to Orlando for a training meeting at my church. I called to see if he wanted to get together to go to dinner. He insisted that I spend the night with him. It just so happened that he lived 10 minutes from where my meeting was being held. We went out to dinner and stayed up late and visited. It was just like discovering lost money.

The other relationship is with a friend that I used to call on during my sales career with DuPont. He and I play golf almost every week together now. He is one of the most grounded people I have ever known. I know his entire family and he knows mine.

Old freinds are very special.

Lesson 9:

Roles eventually get reversed,

My children are gradually morphing into looking out for me and my wife more than they used to. I hope to not ever become dependent on that role reversal. However, it is surely sweet and reassuring to have them there. They truly are my very best friends.

My son, Drew, had to go to a convention in Nashville this past year. His wife was unable to attend with him as planned because she broke her foot in an accident. He asked me if I would care to go with him. I decided why not. So I loaded up and accompanied him on a 3 day trip.

He and the rest of our family used to accompany me when I went on such trips. Now here I am sleeping late while he went to meetings. Taking off and playing golf all by myself on an unfamiliar course. Most importantly finding a good restaurant to eat at after hours. One such restaurant was Mortons steak house. The steaks there litterly melt in your mouth.

We stopped and ate at a fast food place across from a building where I worked in Montgomery before moving to Tallahassee. It was during my sojourn there at that building in that town where my world blew apart in 1971 precipitating my move to Tallahassee. Here we were in almost the exact spot that represented one of the extreme low points in my life. However, I was with my son who was born in 1974 after I came to grips with that personal crisis. He provides me with strength and assurance that the world is in good hands.

Lesson 10:

Trust your gut.

Nancy and I own a 2005 Mercury Mountaineer. It has 143,000 miles on it. Our daughter, Beth invited us to accompany her and her family over Thanksgiving to a condo in Helen, Ga. It is a 300 mile trip one way. Her husband had to work until after hours on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We therefore planned to leave around 10:00 AM with our three little grand-daughters.

Something in my gut told me to rent a car for the trip. I did so. We went up in a brand new Tahoe and the trip went well except for the traffic around Atlanta.

A week ago as we were out looking at Christmas lights our transmission practically fell out of the Mountaineer. Had we taken it to north Georgia we would have surely been sitting on the side of the road between Tallahassee and Helen with our little grand-daughters.

Always trust your gut.

The Mortgage Tax Deduction

I wrote to Senator Rubio re: the fiscal cliff and the possibility that Congress may take the mortgage interest tax deduction off the books. This is his response. I think it is classic pol-babble.




Dear Mr. Vass,

 Thank you for contacting me with regard to the housing market. This is an important issue for Floridians and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss it with you. As you know, misguided government policy fueled excesses in the housing and real estate markets throughout the 2000s, leading to a peak in the market in 2006 and a subsequent crash. The losses to American homeowners were enormous. Families across the country lost more than thirty percent of their home's value, in many cases leaving them underwater on their mortgages, and many have still not recovered to this day.

Nationally, the housing market is beginning to recover, albeit slowly. Though the worst may be passed, homeowners continue to struggle. Policymakers must learn the correct lessons from the recent crisis and not repeat mistakes. Past promises of assistance have only resulted in financial ruin for millions of Americans. Federal legislation passed during the downturn served only to make matters worse for Floridians by prolonging the negative impacts of government favoritism.

 The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, passed under a Democrat-led House and Senate and signed by the President in 2010, imposes stringent regulations on small and community banks, the most important lenders in a housing market recovery. One community bank president described the Dodd-Frank regulations as, "Costly, both in time and personnel to implement," and, "confusing to our [customers]." By placing burdens on the lenders and creditors most vital to recovery, this law will continue to hurt homeowners and families in Florida.

 Additionally, the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and the government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have served as short-term band-aids for the housing market and further distort the true value of Americans' homes. The FHA recently said it may need a federal bailout of as much as $93 billion. With more than 90 percent of all mortgage originations backed by the government, a larger government role in the market and more bailouts are exactly the wrong solutions for taxpayers.

 Floridians know that if the government created a mess of the housing market, it cannot be trusted alone to be the solution. We cannot ask our children and grandchildren to finance Washington's risky lending and irresponsible government policies by accumulating more debt. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must be wound down and reformed, allowing a fair market for housing to return in the private sector. The federal government must learn the lessons of the Great Recession and allow lenders and borrowers to make informed decisions without excessive government meddling.

 A healthy housing market is a goal shared by all Floridians. Restoring choice and an open marketplace in housing will revive economic growth for all Americans. I will keep your suggestions and thoughts in mind when considering issues that will impact the housing market in Florida and the nation as a whole. It is an honor and a pleasure to serve the people of Florida.

 Sincerely,

 Marco Rubio United States Senator

 I've heard so many stories from middle class Americans about their financial struggles and accomplishments. As the result of an empowered middle class, I want to continue to be your voice in the Senate and give you a seat at the table. I hope you take a minute to visit my website and tell me more about your story. Each week I provide a weekly update on issues in Washington and ways in which my office can assist the people of Florida. Sign up here for updates on my legislative efforts, schedule of events throughout Florida, constituent services and much more.