Double secret hiding place
Paul J. Sumberg, Sr.
I’m slowly dismantling an old barn/shed/chicken coop at a friend’s place. I’ll use the lumber to build a woodshed at my house. After all, I’ve learned that heating with firewood makes much more fiscal sense than heating with propane. I hope to store 2 seasons of wood in the new shed.
I just looked at the weather radar on my iPhone. Yet another huge winter storm is moving east. Tennessee already had ugly looking weather and it was heading my way fast. This prompted me to go downstairs and light the wood furnace. It’s going to be cold tonight.
It’s been gloomy and windy most of the day and now the rain has begun. I hear thunder too.
Something about today’s weather reminded me of a gale that blew for several days late in 1993. I was on the Southern Star (my 33′ Irwin sloop). Having the convenience of a weather radio to augment the forecast from my barometer, I suspected what was coming and headed toward the coast and safe harbor. I ducked behind a crescent shaped island on the Florida coast and anchored in its bight. I set the big anchor, paid out an extra 10 fathoms of anchor rode, lashed everything down and went below. I knew we were in for a blow.
I put on a pot of coffee, lit the oil lamp and retired to the stateroom to read a book. I liked being able to heat a boat in Florida waters with only an oil lamp or two. The boat was warm and cozy. Every hour or two I went topside to check on the anchor and see that all was secure. Other than that I stayed below deck and read or thought about life and what tomorrow might bring. Heck, I had enough food, coffee and spirits to hold out for several weeks. I was good.
It blew a gale for the better part of 3 days. When the sun finally shined and the wind laid down a bit I set about getting under way again. Ha! That was easier said than done. The anchor must have been buried half way to China. There was no way I could pull it up by hand. The wind was still fresh, strong, probably 20 knots or so.
I reeved the anchor rode through a couple snatch blocks and led it aft along the gunnel to the cockpit and the primary winch for the mainsail. Then I hoisted the main and loosely sheeted it. Next I started the engine and eased the boat ahead a bit, hauling the anchor rode in with the winch. I proceeded this way, alternating between engine and winch until I was lying directly above the anchor. The seas were still rolling and I knew the rise and fall of the boat would lift the anchor. All I had to do was man the winch and crank in the slack in the rode as the anchor eased. Yippee! As the sand gave up my anchor I turned the helm leeward, sheeted in the mainsail enough to gather way and off we went. I locked down the helm, went forward and hauled in and secured the anchor. Then I hoisted the jib, returned to the helm and was on my way.
Here we are nearly 20 years later and we carry the world in the palm of our hands. Who would have imagined back then that one could watch a storm approach on the telephone?
Well, the storm here is blowing. Rain is falling sideways. The dog and I are warm and comfortable at home. I think I’ll read a book. According to the weather information on the iPad it’s going to be a long night.
Ciao
While chopping firewood the other day I had this thought:
For many years I sailed. My last sailboat was the U.S. documented vessel “38 Special”, a vintage 1960’s 38 foot sloop designed and built by Ted Irwin. She was well found, fast and beautiful.
My dog and I enjoyed many days of extended cruising. I found that shortly after loosing the sight of land, life became simple! I enjoyed the silence, the gentle motion of the ocean and the independence of being able to navigate the world’s oceans using just the power that nature herself provides – the wind. The satisfaction and pride of being able to go where I pleased using absolutely no engine at all was fantastic.
Now here I am living in the mountains on the edge of the National Forest surrounded by a different mother nature. Beauty is everywhere. Other than the rustle of wind in the trees or occasional sound of wildlife, the silence ever present (bar the mail delivery vehicle once a day). I walk into the forest and loose myself for hours and enjoy a peacefulness not entirely unlike that of sailing upon an ocean with nothing but water in sight.
It’s winter. We usually don’t have extreme cold here where I am but I still have to heat the house for a couple months in the winter. These days I’m heating with firewood in a furnace located in the basement. I find the exercise of chopping and splitting firewood to be healthy and invigorating. More than this I find the whole process to be rewarding. I feel the independence and satisfaction of being less dependent upon being “on the grid” to be similar to sailing.
Each time I chop wood (yes, I use a chainsaw and log splitter most of the time) I think about NOT buying propane for the “other” furnace. It makes me smile and feel a bit more independent . . . not unlike being miles from the world in the middle of an ocean.
Life is good here in the mountains.
For a year and a half I’ve lived full time at my home in the North Georgia mountains. We’re getting more modern all the time here. We now have a Super Walmart close by as well as Home Depot. We have cell phones and pay TV. Beginning a couple years ago we can even have a drink with a meal in some restaurants. We can buy beer and wine in our grocery stores now as well.
Buying a good cigar or package liquor is a different story however. I have to drive 50 miles (one way) to get a fair deal on liquor and there are no cigar stores near by that know how to keep a cigar fresh. I have to order my cigars from Tampa. And if I have a road trip planed to a metropolitan area I am sure to check my liquor inventory before leaving so I can take advantage of good prices.
This brings me to an observation. I have friends who come up this way from time to time. One such friend is on the road now and should arrive later today. Not once has anyone called me and asked me if I need anything from their area. I promise liquor is 13 bucks a bottle cheaper in Tampa and good fresh cigars are plentiful as well.
Just sayin.
It’s the second week of February, 2013 and winter is pressing on. I went to Florida for a couple weeks in December. It was good to visit friends and spend the holidays with them.
Now I understand the snowbird mind set. Close up your home leaving it operating under minimal utility use, head south and stay with friends or relatives. Ha! Like I said I enjoyed visiting many friends over the couple weeks I was there. But, there’s no place like home.
It has been another fairly mild winter. No blizzards so far. The locals talk about one happening every 10 years or so. We have had one snow so far. It was pretty and only lasted a day. While it has been mild, it still has been cold enough to have to heat the house most days since the first of the year. This winter I am heating with firewood instead of using the gas furnace. I have a wood burning furnace downstairs and it is connected to the existing ducts so I get a nice warm home using natural resources (other than the small amount of electricity for the fan that circulates the air to and from the furnace (forced air heat). It feels good to be partially off the grid.
I’m trying to learn how to use Photoshop. It’s beginning to make sense. I am not interested in dramatically altering my photographs (yet) but any tool I can use to make them better I am willing to explore.
Oh, I just dropped off two framed pieces at the gallery in the Art Center in Blue Ridge. Maybe I’ll get discovered, ha ha.
Spring is around the corner. My apple tree is in bloom and I fear a cold snap will kill the blossoms as happened last year. Daffodils are blooming and in the heat of the afternoons bees are beginning to explore. The dog and I are looking forward to hiking in the forest this spring. It is such a marvelous place to see nature renew itself.
Ciao for now.
Just so there is at least one additional entry, here’s an update.
I’m going to thanksgiving dinner at a neighbor’s. yeah, I know it’s December 7th.
Hey, they invited me and who am I to turn down a free meal.
I hope it’s turkey.
So, I was soaking in the bathtub a little while ago (something I do regularly during the cooler months) and it occurred to me that I should start keeping a journal. You see, a close friend had a heart attack this week. He was fortunate to be somewhere an ambulance could get to him quickly enough to minimize the damage. Also, he was able to call his wife and talk about what was going on which helped him to make the decision to dial 911. He’s going to be ok.
I thought about this in the context of my life. I have a great life. I live alone with my dog and can sleep in or not, go hiking, go for a motorcycle ride or just sit and read a book pretty much whenever I wish. I don’t have to work and I don’t even have to leave the house if I don’t want to. Life is good. I mean really good!
But, sooner or later Scratch is gonna come collect that debt I owe him and thats ok. What worries me is just where I might be when that happens. What will my dog do? I mean, some days we hike miles into the forest. There isn’t any cellphone service in much of the forest. The same goes for the motorcycle rides we go on. Cell coverage is sparse in the mountains. Who is going to know? What will become of the dog?
So maybe I should write a journal or at least a note from time to time about where I am and what I’m doing. Bread crumbs tend to disappear.
I have this website. I might as well use it. It’s easy enough to write a post from a smart phone or tablet. I should post my journal here!
Now, you who know me really well are thinking “we won’t see another post in months if not years” and you are probably right. At least you know I’m alive and well now.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
Peace out Y’all.
So, it’s been a little over a year since I moved to my mountain home. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t make it my full time residence years ago. I love living here in the mountains. An added benefit is not worrying all summer long about the next hurricane. For too many years I had to worry about, prepare for and endure hurricanes that affected my homes and my boats. Ahhhhh.
I’ve enjoyed showing my photographs in some of the area art shows. In a few weeks I will have 2 pieces in a national exhibit. I’m delighted to be pursuing photography again.
I did hang my Georgia Real Estate Broker’s license in a very successful office and am carefully selecting those folks I work with. As always, I enjoy real estate and the challenges it offers. My customers are great and we are successful in acheiving their goals. there, no more commercial breaks.
Summer has been bearable. We did have extreme temperatures during that heat wave that nailed most of the east. I found it was better to stay inside in the afternoon that week. Here it is, almost autumn and the weather is great (well, other than the clouds hurricane Isaac has brought).
That’s it for now.
Peace out.
If you are curious about the family fortune, I saw very little of it. Over the last few years my mother was alive, my brother methodically took possession of every asset except her automobile and a small trust account she started for me when I was quite young. I drove the car for years and the trust acount became a small part of a down payment on a property here in the North Georgia Mountains. I did have the joy of spending a lot of time with Mom through her last few years. I got to enjoy her smile and laughter regularly during that time. We had fun and that’s what I remember and cherish. That is my inheritance. I got the better deal!
I understand my brother is currently “seeking fullfillment”. I guess money can’t buy happiness after all.
After having several bank accounts with Bank Atlantic for 10 years or so, I abruptly found myself banking with PNC. Why? Bank Atlantic (being a South Florida company) sold their Tampa operations to PNC.
Back in late April or May, I began receiving a lot of mail from bothBank Atlantic and PNC. I had 3 accounts with Bank Atlantic, 1 personal, 1 for my Real Estate and another for an LLC I am a member of. I was receiving whatever mail these banks were sending regarding this change of ownership times 3! Gosh, it was a whole lot of mail.
In addition to the 3 bank accounts, I also had an HELOC (home equity line of credit) for a small amount that I used to cushion my accounts in case of overdraft. You see, I spend a lot of time away from Tampa in places where internet access is not readily available so the HELOC sort of covered my butt in case any of my scheduled bill payments were made before I could transfer money.
Well I sifted through all the mail being sent to me (some of which collected at home while I was out of town) and concluded that my HELOC was no longer going to be associated with my accounts after June 5th(the cut-over date). There were lots of letters regarding policy, bank account choices, deadlines, etc. I totally missed the fact that PNC was going to continue to honor whatever automatic bill-pay I had instituted with Bank Atlantic. That was my mistake. I think that when I read that the HELOC was not going to transfer I jumped to the conclusion that the automated bill payment was not either. BIG MISTAKE!
The numerous letters also repeated a umber of times that I would NOT have access to online banking until the cut-over date of June 6th.
I also have bank accounts at SunTrust Because several years ago, Bank Atlantic ceased handling certain kinds of money transfers of which my LLC depended upon. So, I found another bank that did and moved that part of my banking there. Thinking that my bills were not going to be paid by PNC and that I would not have access to re-establish automatic bill payments with them until June 6th, I went ahead and set up with SunTrust my most urgent bills for automatic payment.
Bright and early on Monday June 6th I logged on to my new PNC online banking and to my horror saw that they had paid a bill automatically. And, from an account that did not have enough money to cover it. With no HELOC it was an overdraft.
I drove to the bank branch I had always done business with to resolve this in whatever way necessary. The payment had not yet been delivered to the payee so I assumed (wrongly) that PNC could cancel it. NO, not possible I was told. They said that they could not do it until the payment actually processed, probably tomorrow and assured me that it would be cancelled. The next day, the bank called me and told me that I should have signed a dispute form while I was there so they could un-do the payment. I drove to the bank and after being questioned repeatedly by one of their staff about how the payment was originally set up (communication problem I suppose since my answer was the same to the question each time), they gave me the form to fill out. By then PNC had charged me a $25.00 overdraft fee. I asked them if they would reverse that and was told that they would but they couldn’t do it until the errant payment was taken care of. OK, it appeared all would be resolved.
Having heard nothing from the bank (either in writing or otherwise) I went about my business for the remainder of the week. On Monday morning a week later, I checked my online banking to see if the smoke had settled. If it had, I was going to deposit some money in my PNC accounts and begin using them. To my dismay I saw that not only had the debit been reversed but that the overdraft fee had not been reversed and another overdraft fee had been added. I immediately called the bank. The lady I spoke with told me that they could do nothing. I then asked to speak with with the manager and was told that he was busy but that he would call me back. It was the following day when he returned my call. He was rude, interrupting me repeatedly as I explained to him my situation. To literally add insult to injury, he also said that he had been told that I frequently had overdrafts. I asked him to repeat that and explain his statement to me. He than modified his statement to say that I had had overdrafts before. At that moment I couldn’t recall when or why. The next day I remembered that initially the HELOC only provided overdraft to one account and not knowing this, I scheduled some bills paid from a different account. Once the reason was understood (and it took several occurrences for the bank (Bank Atlantic) to realize what was going on) we added the account to the HELOC and never again was there an over draft. This manage also very arrogantly told me when I asked him to reverse the overdraft fees that why should he since I planned to close my accounts anyway. ????? I was dumbstruck and asked him what he was talking about.
This pompous ass (manager 1) assumed form my earlier statement to him that I had set up some bill payments in my SunTrust account that I had recently moved my banking to SunTrust planning to leave PNC. I told him how long I’d banked with Suntrust and exactly why (BankAtlantic being accused of and paying a huge fine (millions) for inappropriately handling monies and subsequently ceasing those sort of money “moving” processes. He shut up and then told me that he couldn’t make that decision because that particular account had actually been opened at the other Bank Atlantic account in town and that manager had to make that decision. He went on to say that he would call the other manager and see what could be done but that it would have to wait until the next day as it was too late to get a hold of him.
The next day (yesterday) Manager 1 called me and explained that since it really was not a bank error they would not reverse their charges and that the automatic payment would not be reversed either. Not that I care that the payee had now been paid twice, once from PNC and once from SunTrust, it’s the overdraft fees that bother me.
Today I checked online to see how much money I needed to deposit to wipe the slate clean and saw that additional overdraft fees were being charged.
I’ll be driving into Brandon shortly to resolve this once and for all.
I’m sure that this arrogent, pompus piss ant of a PNC branch manager can tell a different story but this is my story and I’m sticking to it!