Saturday, December 13, 2008

Nuts.

December 12, Ft Myers.

To me the face of the U.S. financial meltdown is that of Sherri.
Sherri is probably in her forties, still beautiful. I answered her online ad for used furniture and walked into the living story of the real estate meltdown and the economic disaster it has created.
Sherri and her husband started out with nothing twenty years ago, and ended up building a successful business, a cabinet-making business that kicked ass, as she said, during the boom of the real estate market in Florida. Then the crisis hit and they lost everything: their business went bankrupt, their home is in foreclosure, they are selling pretty much all they own and moving to Georgia where her husband found a lesser-paying job.
When we started out we had nothing, I used to wonder how I would pay for formula, she said, and now here we are and I have to think of how to pay for milk.
Day after day as I call to find this and that for the house I run into the same story, people living in motels while their home is being foreclosed, Dave in room 154 at the Wonderland Motel selling a new fridge, selling their belongings before the bank gets them, Chris at another motel selling a stove, that's all I've left in there. Sherri said there was a story in the news this morning about southwest Florida having the highest unemployment rate in the country. She's trying to keep her two teenage sons in school, waiting to be reunited with her husband, and it's like we're dating again, she said, laughing. We need a drastic change, she said, and Obama has so much on his plate, but he'll do something good, this is nuts.
I had called about her ceiling fans, white with no lights.
They'll keep my home nice and cool.
My home was a foreclosure.

3 comments:

Kitty Bevis said...

Valerie,
I am a retired performer and enjoy your posts in the bloggsphere. You keep it real and I like that.
Count your blessings every day that you can afford a roof over your heads and food for your kids. The local office of the company I work for adopted 2 families this year from SallyAnn. We normally do one but felt the need this year to expand. We delivered the stuff to them yesterday and the staff at the site almost cried when they saw how much me had brought. The need this year is so great.
I have been in dire straights myself and someone always stepped up to help me so I like to pay it back and forward whenever I can. Good luck with the house. Keep the pictures coming! K

Valérie Berta Torales said...

Yes, the situation is indeed bleak and we are grateful for all we have every day, and most of all for our health. All the people I've met these past few days have also told me how terrible they think the health care system (or the lack of it) in this country is. People are desperate, or on the brink. There seems to be a consensus that something needs to be done, so I'm hopeful Obama will have the political weight to do it (from what they tell me I imagine they also all voted for him.)
Thank you for your note!

Patrizia said...

Terrible situation all over. And a huge disconnect between the bottom and the top even though things are slowly churning upwards.

I'm glad you got your house though.

Patrizia