So I went over to put back up the "Don't flip..." sign that had blown over in last week's wind storm...got to the intersection and it was gone? Started down the road to talk to the M-Go-Blue barn owners about what had happened to the sign when I see the sign's feet, pull into the left turn lane to park in the Ice Cube parking lot and almost run head on with a small blue pickup making the left turn into S Maple.

The driver, who was looking up at me with stunned apprehension, I didn't recognize, but the truck I knew had been parked in front of the barn while his owner, presumably, worked inside for Mike Thompson, the realtor.

 I went on down Oak Valley and he went down Maple Rd.

Later, as I worked on the sign, I saw him come back, cross the road and go over behind my truck and write down it's license plate number. I went over and he ignored me and walked away, back across towards Maple Rd, talking on his cel phone.

Two can play that game so I followed, staying off 1960's property and took down his plate number. Games.

Back to the sign, back to putting it up and cobbling it back together with some added stakes to keep it from blowing over again. Back to the parking lot for some tools and there is an Ann Arbor police cruiser behind my truck. "The contractor", as Officer McGuire, #071 of the K-9 unit described him, had called in a "traffic altercation" and Officer McGuire wanted to know what was going on.

I identified myself, gave him my version of what happened, correcting him for making the common mistake of thinking 1960 was in the city of Ann Arbor  -  I-94 is the west boundary - and hence, not in the Ann Arbor jurisdiction,  as neither was the intersection where the "altercation" had occurred...there was nothing to be done.

I finished the sign work and left, another cruiser having stayed and then following me, just to be sure.

I decided I must be a very dangerous and desperate man that I lie concealed, waiting for the opportunity to run down Destiny-98's agents on the road.

The Wolfman strikes again...

They burned the chicken house yesterday. There was no good reason for doing so...

I just don't know what to say about this.

I'm reminded of the Theoden's line from the film of The Two Towers, "What can men do against such wreckless hate?"

But it's not hate so much as stupidity and no imagination. Or just a careless perspective...I often reminded people who worked out at 1960 to remember not to treat it as a place on it's way down, but to treat it like a place that was down and now on it's way back up. 

It shows what a bad son I am that only now am I sure I won't ever forget the date of my mother's birthday...

So I'm going down the highway, on my way to teach class and see a large truck in the drive at 1960. I know I have to go back and see what's happening or it'll be on my mind all through class. The truck is gone, I look in the windows and see more of the way they have been ripping apart the insides, but now the doors are missing, the cabinetry, too. Makes sense, more of the scavenging they have been doing. Next will come the plumbing fixtures and then the copper piping and wiring…

Back home this e-mail:

peter,

did you know that there was a Habitat ReStore truck at

1960 today? i drove by at about 3:30 and it was backed

up to the garage area. didn't see anyone but they

could

have been inside and i had to watch traffic.

laura

I went to the ReStore to confirm that it had indeed been them, going about the store taking pictures of things removed from 1960. Ran into the father of one of my daughter’s classmates: “Here, come here, I want to show you something,” taking him over to a door on display and locking the latch. I pulled my keyring out, put the master key in the lock and opened it. “I’d say that’s my door.”

I talked to the saleswoman when she asked why I was taking so many pictures.

 “Just for inventory,” I said, “But what I’d really like is a picture of that sign, it’s funny.”

Sure. And where did it come from? Oh, it was this place they went over and got some stuff from the other day, that place the guy lost for taxes, and they called it the Wolfman’s home cause it was so weird. Really? The Wolfman, I like that.

To see what it looked like before Destiny-98 made it weird, go to :

http://www.supportbeal.com/Good_Things/Good_things.htm

This ISN'T acceptable so I write letters to Habitat pointing out how "utterly inappropriate" it is for them to be working with people who went to great efforts to drive someone out of their home without any attempt at a good faith settlement. My point was that "Habitat cannot choose to NOT question the sources of donations from real-estate closings... "

None of my letters, either to former President Carter, Jonathan Reckford (the CEO of Habitat for Humanity ), the Detroit director, or the Ann Arbor director have gotten any response.

Sarah Stanton, the local director, at least e-mailed an apology when confronted with a third party  informing  her "I heard a rumor that your folks were stripping out Peter Beal's old place, if true that's so sad", an e-mail that concluded with "For an organization that is chartered to help people get homes this seems so contrary to your mission."

So, I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to start a blog since I am not like my sister who HAS/HAD the discipline and drive to make more or less daily entries and comments to her diary, something I was never able to do...

But also, I quickly discovered that there was more that I had to keep to myself than I had expected as issues over 1960 S Maple developed. Although there have been MANY things I would have wanted to share, doing so might have alienated Destiny-98 while I was trying to deal with them, or reveal the strategy of my approach to them. It was like any other campaign...

Now, though, the time for subtlety is almost over and that is kind of a relief...

Here's the real story of this post:

Shortly before Christmas, since there have been many people whom I've never informed I had to move from 1960, I decided to go down to the local UPS depot and ask the shippers to hold for pick-up any packages addressed to 1960...

I opened the exchange by telling the dispacher that I had had to move un-expectedly and that I'd want them to hold etc, etc, and the reply was:

"You're that weird address across the highway, aren't you? The cut off extension of Maple Road? Are you in the city?"

"Yep, that's me...the road used to connect before the highway. It's a county road now. The new drivers can never find it."

"I know...every time we started someone out on that route, they'd always bring back the first package."

"Well, can you hold my stuff?"

"Oh sure...I read all about what's happened to you in the paper...really sucks...actually, don't worry, we'll make sure everything gets sent on to Stein road."

UPS corporate headquarters certainly has never heard about that exchange, but for me it was a VERY rare actual instance when an anonymous corporate entity reached out and touched me on a real and meaningful, personal level, something that couldn't have happened without the people on the ground, that dispacher and those drivers, being aware and actually caring.

It kept me above many disappointments for many weeks...

05-20

Driving Dad's Bus, which has the "Don't flip..." bumper sticker on it, was stopped at a light when a very respectable SUV, with two matching women in it, pulled aside.

The window went down and she asked, "What's this 'don't flip 1960' all about?"

"It's that piece of property that the company in Florida is trying to take over..." And she completed the sentence, "You mean the one on South Maple?"

"Yep."