Posts Tagged → community
Avoiding payment scams is easy
Last year, some local person took a picture of a check I had written to a local business, and they used that picture to create several fake checks written against my bank account. Because I bank locally with a relatively small bank owned by local people I know and trust, and because I have personal relationships with the bank staff, the forged/fake scam checks were caught right away.
“I looked at that check, and then the next one, and the next one, and just I knew that there was no way that Josh First was writing them. They are ridiculous on their face. I mean…flowers and gourmet cat food? No! No way. I knew that is not Josh. Chainsaws, yes, could be, I could be fooled by that if someone tried it, but gourmet cat food, no, flowers hell no“, said the local bank branch manager with a big smile.
Because the bank manager knows me and my business personally, he was easily able to discern the fake checks from real ones. He saved me a lot of heartache. And so I recommend to you that you use your local banks, that are owned and run by local people. Unlike the big banks like Chase, these local people get to know you, know your face, and are accountable and connected to the community around them.
A month later I got a call from a sweet and very distressed woman in Arizona, who had shipped off five thousand dollars worth of product from her small business based on a check written in my name. No, I assured her, I had nothing to do with it. I had no need for marketing products, and certainly not her particular products. This nice lady and I had a long conversation about how much America has changed in our adulthood, and not for the better. She said the scam had really hurt her financially.
Fast forward almost a year and I recently got a call from a nice young man in Alaska. A check bearing my business name had been used to purchase thirty-five hundred dollars of beauty salon hair and nail products from his friend in Florida, and the proceeds had been sent to Alaska to help him purchase a home there. Only days after he had deposited the check in his account was he informed that the check was bad, and that in fact he did not have the money. His friend in Florida was cheated out of her salon products.
I would say the common thread I have seen across all of these check scams is that the person getting scammed does not really look into the check they have received. For example, why would a buyer of beauty salon products in Florida pay with a check from a business in Pennsylvania that does land and timber work? This obviously makes no sense, and the young man admitted it.
And when I spoke with the nice lady in Arizona last summer, she too admitted that this same issue had given her pause. To which I asked her “Why didn’t you call us with your question before taking the check? We could have easily protected you from committing this mistake.”
Scams are everywhere: Email scams asking for money, phone calls asking for money, malware and phishing scams by email and text (DO NOT CLICK ON THEIR CONTENTS and links), phone calls about getting a low cost mortgage on your penis enlargement, updating your nonexistent home warranty/ extended car warranty/ computer warranty etc etc etc. We are inundated in this garbage.
You have to care about yourself enough to stay on guard and defend your interests. One little mistake can cause you a lot of grief and cost you a lot of money.
The best ways to protect yourself from being victimized are: 1) Ask yourself if this is a service or product I really have? 2) Is this phone call or email a normal way for a real bona fide service provider to communicate? 3) Why is there a company name from far away on this check? And you can always call that company whose name is on the check and ask them if they wrote the check.
Had that happened in the most recent scam, I would have said “I have nothing against dudes who use girl makeup, but I will also say that I am the last man on Planet Earth who would do so, and so there, you have your answer: The check is bad.”
You just gotta ask a question or two if you want to stay out of scam trouble.
I wouldn’t hire a Harvard grad to tie my shoes
Like a bazillion other Americans, I run a small business. Mine is in the land and natural resource management sector. Every week I interface with men and machines, dirt, danger, hard work, and serious situations. Little margin for error, feewings, or personal tantrums.
And when I watched the whole Harvard University debacle unfold over last week, culminating on Friday in students, administrators, and faculty alike all rallying around the racist failure university president, Claudine Gay, I realized something profound: I would rather hire a young, hard-working rural person born to a serious work ethic and with a willingness to take reasonable risks to achieve the work goal, who maybe got tenth grade under his belt before going to work for a living, than to try to train a Harvard University mis-educated fragile weenie with no work ethic, an unreasonable expectation of life, and an obsession with unrealistic nonsense.
Said another way: For many years my experience has been that the attorneys I have worked with, whose law degrees were from “East Succotash University,” as opposed to, say, Harvard Law School, were the very best lawyers I have worked with. To a man and a woman, these so-called “no-name” law school grads are gritty, tough, take no prisoners, hard working fighters who zealously represent the interests of their clients. They always get me results. On the other hand, if I had a dollar for every big name lawyer who only wrote letters to my defendants, and who was afraid to actually file a legal complaint and follow it up with court room litigation, I would be a wealthy man.
Perhaps this comes down to rural character versus urban, because graduates from the small schools, the community colleges, the trade schools, almost all come from rural working backgrounds. These are kids who don’t come from money, don’t really know what having money is like, but they do have a strong work ethic and pride in accomplishment. Because in the communities they grew up in, tangible results are the name of the game. Their families got by with a roof over their heads and food on the table because they daily delivered actual hands-on results that America is willing to pay for, and got paid, as opposed to the spoiled, whiny, entitled urban kids populating Harvard University and the other purportedly high quality Ivy League schools. These kids come from the world of manicured lawns, expensive clothes, and fancy cars from young ages whose parents engage in vague numbers work and white collar make-work paper-pushing administrative exercises whose value-added to America is, well….vague.
Forget the poor technical training, the mis-education and Stalinist/ Maoist/ fascist indoctrination that Harvard University inflicts on its students, just on family and cultural background alone, I would be very unlikely to hire a kid from Harvard University, in the off-chance that such an opportunity presented itself. Unless it’s in the hard/ physical sciences, computer science, or math, a person with a Harvard University degree today would not interest me either as a conversationalist, a lunch partner, a book club member, or an employee/ contractor.
I don’t think Harvard University produces high quality graduates any longer. Probably not for the past ten or fifteen years, and maybe even longer. I think the opposite is true, that this school produces societal and workplace misfits who can’t think their way out of a wet paper bag. They have had little to no critical thinking and analytical skills training. If you are foolish enough to hire a recent Harvard University graduate these days, you are going to learn quickly just how failed that school is and how useless these human beings are who are graduating from it.
Yes, all my life I have known Harvard grads, as well as other Ivy League grads, and today’s Ivy League grads are not that old caliber, not anywhere close. The old reputation has been lost because of people like Claudine Gay, who have traded it for short term power over foolish young people.
Most Harvard University graduates today are not fit to tie your shoe. Not for money or for free.
Remembering US Army veteran Paul Marino
Today is Memorial Day, devoted to remembering the US military service personnel who devote their lives and safety so that the rest of us civilians can sit back and crack a cold beer and marvel at how life in America is oh, so good. So easy.
Out of the many hundreds of thousands of US military veterans who have contributed to my own daily sense of settled well-being, one recently caught my attention. Not because he was a super warrior who killed many enemies, nor because he was a battlefield hero who risked his own life to save many of our own wounded. What actually struck me was the clean, all-America way that Paul Marino lived his life, raised his wholesome family based on time-tested simple values, worked for a living, contributed to his community and neighbors.
Not that military veterans hold these kinds of qualities exclusively, but we all know many veterans, if not the vast majority, who are exemplary citizens and neighbors. Real stand-outs in terms of their public service, their charitable giving, their easy way with strangers and neighbors. US Army veteran Paul Marino exemplified all of this.
Here is the thing: I did not know or meet Paul Marino. He only came to my attention because he was recently executed with his wife, Lidia, while visiting the grave of their son Anthony in the Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Bear, Delaware. For years they visited Anthony’s grave there almost daily.
Paul and Lidia were shot in their heads execution-style, from behind, by a 29-year-old man named Sheldon Francis. He used a handgun, up close and personal. By all appearances this was a classic hate crime, Paul and Lidia targeted because of their skin color by a hateful man amped up on a constant barrage of racial hate and jealousy messaging from American campuses, activist groups, American media people, and even from some religious institutions.
Some people have surmised that Paul and Lidia were murdered by Francis in retaliation for the racially motivated murder of Ahmad Aubrey in Georgia earlier this year. I suppose to some people this might make sense, or even be justified. It is not justified, and I have no question that Paul and Lidia would disagree, also, were they alive today to have an opinion on it. After all, they believed in hard work, simple family values, church attendance, community, home, and service. Blind retribution was not in their lexicon.
As a little girl, Lidia remembered the German soldiers marching through her town in Italy, and she also remembered the American GIs marching through from the other direction as the Germans skedaddled in retreat. Lidia knew the value of family, community, and practicing good deeds.
Whatever the reason for Francis gunning down two people in their eighties in a cemetery, the fact remains America is much the poorer for their loss. We lost a solid veteran and his life partner in an unexpected, avoidable, unnecessary, evil way. Paul and Lidia represented the very best of America. The murder represents a culture clash that must be resolved, peacefully and with love, and firmly.
Modern America was built by people like Paul and Lidia Marino. In fact, it is impossible to think of an America without them and their important small, humble, daily positive gifts and services back to all of us. The solid communities they built, the sense of reliable neighborliness they brought to any community they lived in. And the US Army that Paul Marino served in did not so much build Paul up, as people like Paul built up that institution and made it the effective fighting force and great equalizer for Americans of all skin colors and religions that it remains today.
Rest easy, Soldier, and thank you for your many different services you provided to all of us Americans.
Historic Harrisburg Home Tour another great success
Thank you to Historic Harrisburg.
Their annual home tour was once again a lot of fun. We get to walk around in the winter time’s crisp air, with a lot of interesting and friendly people. All of us care about our community, which is important. The homes are always interesting, and many are spectacular. The hosts are always gracious, sometimes with the aid of a glass of wine, or sometimes a bottle or two.
One thing that bears repeating from past posts about these tours is kudos to Alex Hartzler, who has invested in Harrisburg’s re-development for umpteen years. His effort has been as an investor expecting a return, yes, but let’s face it, his WCI Partners faces an uphill task. There is a lot of risk, and the possibility of very little ROI, if any. And yet they go house by house, block by obliterated, abandoned block, and breathe life into Pennsylvania’s capital city.
Another fact worth repeating from previous blog posts here is the important role of gay people, mostly gay men, in gentrification and the slow reclamation of abandoned neighborhoods everywhere, not the least of which are here in Harrisburg.
You have issues with gay people? OK, you are entitled to those feelings, as sexuality really is a private matter. And if your views are Biblical, as are mine, then again, you and I are entitled to our Biblical views on human activity. That said, in my practical observation gay men are an incredible force for economic development and neighborhood renewal, which are good things in my experience and in my view. And they make fantastic, fabulous neighbors. They tend to be neat, kind, friendly, law abiding, all of which are desirable qualities in a neighbor.
In fact, let’s face it, I am downright envious of gay men: They get to spend all their money and time on themselves.
And in that spending process they are helping rebuild Harrisburg into a prosperous and safe community. So I say Thank you, neighbors; I really do not care about your private lifestyle, and I really do appreciate your investment in my neighborhood and community. Everyone have a wonderful holiday season and a successful 2019.
Here are some photos from our tour.
A reclaimed row home in Mid-Town. 100 years ago, these homes were built of strong and attractive materials, with neat designs. These attributes are being re-discovered and appreciated by many Americans seeking close and walking communities.
My “Princess of Patience” in the Levine home in Uptown. What a woman. Until I returned from the mountains, she had been a hunting widow for many weeks.
This is why I will never have my home on the Historic Harrisburg tour: I would have to meticulously clean my lawn. Thank you to Ray Davis for making his home open.
Yay, it’s county fair season
No matter where you live, it is county fair season.
County fairs everywhere are celebrations of community, family, simple pleasures, and simple, easy fun. That fun usually includes eating really naughty, high-fat, high-carb, high sugar food you would never, ever eat any other time of the year, like funnel cakes.
Yum!
If you get the powdered sugar on your funnel cake, don’t take it on a ride until you’ve eaten it, or you will have a white powder imprint of the funnel cake on your face or shirt. Guarantee it. The small-town carnival machines populating county fairs everywhere specialize in jerky motions to entertain the riders, and those jerky motions always catch people unaware, shoving their food right back into their face or chest.
The fresh smell of farm animals there for show mingles with the smells of the fried food, and it is an acquired taste of a smell, I must say.
Last night I was at the Perry County Fair, which I have gone to for years, out near Newport.
Volunteering at the Duncannon Sportsmen booth is a lot of fun, because I get to interact with the happy public, as they good-naturedly try their hands at small games of chance for a non-profit, educational purpose (the club). Such as, when a little kid lines up the little plastic crossbow loaded with the plastic dart, getting them to shoot it at one of the club members’ hat, instead of the deer target that will win them a soft (“plush”) toy. Laughs all around, as the club members good-naturedly take the abuse. The kid gets the toy anyhow.
One thing we are missing is a dunking pool. I’ll work on that for next year, because there are several guys I just really want to see get wet, in public. And no doubt, we could raise a lot of money with a dunking pool. The Duncannon Sportsmen money goes right back into Perry County, like local 4-H, Boy Scouts troops, volunteer fire and ambulance crews, etc. As my folks would say, the money is just making the rounds, going from one hand to another to another and eventually it finds its way right back to where it started. That right there is the essence of community, ‘all in this together’.
And that is probably my biggest enjoyment of local county fairs, including the Gratz Fair in northern Dauphin County, where I live: The sense of community, the ties that bind us all together. In a time of really fractious political rancor, pushed by the establishment media more than anyone (I mean gosh, have you noticed how all the mainstream media outlets have the same exact message, which is 97% hyperventilating and aggressively negative about President Trump, all the time?), isn’t it nice to get a breath of fresh air and hang out with your fellow citizens in an environment of fun and relaxation, away from all that noise?
County fairs are like a big family picnic, where long-lost cousins show up once a year. Friendly people you wouldn’t otherwise see or interact with, but now you do, and you enjoy it, because people are neat. And at county fairs, everyone just wants to have a fun time.
I like that.
Historic Harrisburg gets an A+
Annually, in mid-December, Historic Harrisburg arranges a tour of historic homes around the city.
In the interest of showcasing our wonderful city, participating private citizens open the doors to their homes to utter strangers, who, for the modest price of the ticket, can walk through at their leisure.
Yes, there are docents, volunteers who stand guard over privacy and valuables, but nevertheless, strangers in abundance are in your home. Homeowners exhibit grace and panache, some swilling their umpteenth glass of wine, yes, but they maintain decorum and patience through a six-hour tour that would put me over the edge within an hour. Maybe less. Well, for sure less.
It’s an impressive commitment to place and pride in community displayed by these homeowners. In fact, the tour is a big statement about the sense of close, shared community we all share here in Harrisburg. Although I have lived in a bunch of different places, I have never seen anything like this tour, or this shared sense of belonging. Again: Absolute strangers are in your home, hundreds of them, and it works really well. It is an unusual arrangement. I like it.
Today’s tour was of homes mostly in Bellevue Park, a grand island of landscaping, natural contours, natural areas, and spectacular homes. My grandparents built a beautiful home in Bellevue Park many many decades ago, and I grew up going there for holidays. Summer visits involved playing in the large in-ground pool with my cousins and eating huge amounts of delicious food prepared by our grandmother, Jane. Winter holidays involved eating huge amounts of delicious food prepared by our grandmother, Jane, and then walking it all off around the park, followed up with playing pool in the basement.
My memories of Bellevue Park are long, distant, and misty-eyed. My grandparents were loving people, and we kids felt their love. Oh, how one longs for the simpler days of youth, with innocence and guileless smiles, statements of affection truly meant. Being in Bellevue Park today was like taking a time machine trip back 40 years. In a way, today’s tour was an expression of the same guileless, innocent sharing that we had as kids, but today was between and among adults and families who have previously never met one another.
Trust is the by-word for today’s Historic Harrisburg tour.
As it turns out, many of the older residents whom I met today recalled my family, and recounted trips they had taken with them, pool parties they had enjoyed there, John Harris High School events and teams they had played in together, and political events where the pool evoked then-fresh images of “Mrs. Robinson” and her lifestyle. And I met quite a few former colleagues and acquaintances, themselves taking stock of these updated homes for their own renovation plans, or providing valuable assistance as volunteer docents.
Isn’t that something. Community may always be where you find it, but one place it never disappeared from is Bellevue Park, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. One other similar historic neighborhood I have seen is Squirrel Hill, in Pittsburgh.
It is also important to recognize the many gay men and couples who have ventured further out of the city’s center to bring revitalization to some of the park’s older homes. If there is a ‘down’ side to tolerance, it is that gays are moving ever farther from the urban cores where they have traditionally played a pivotal and leading role in the fight against urban blight by rehabilitating decayed neighborhoods. Now, gays are recognized as exemplary and desirable neighbors in traditional family areas; their colorful sense of style and personal flourishes are valuable, and are just not going to be replicated by anyone else. Surely not by me or my fellow knuckledraggers. Bellevue Park is now home to a large number of gay men. I won’t say it is a gay community, because it is not. It is simply a community with many gay people in it, and it is a great place as a result.
Thank you and an A+ to Historic Harrisburg for a fine afternoon well spent with my wife, who doted on every kitchen, every light fixture, every antique stained glass window, who relished meeting every single person today, and who left the going ga-ga over the omnipresent quartersawn oak all to me. Yes, there was tons of beautiful quartersawn oak in every home. That is pretty much all I remember. Oh, that and the old friends.
Burst pipes? You were in good company
Ten days ago, weather across the country was bitterly cold. Polar vortex, solar lull, regular winter weather…seems there’s a bunch of possible causes. One defining characteristic of that week-long deep freeze was the amount of burst pipes across the country, and around central Pennsylvania. Our home had burst pipes, and a property I manage had burst pipes, and the plumbers at both jobs told me they had spent days from six in the morning until late at night working on nothing but burst pipes. The big box stores were either short on or out of key plumbing components, which caused further delays in getting homes and businesses functioning again.
Which is all to say, I have never heard so many creative reports about where families washed their clothes and dishes. Many went to neighbors, friends, or nearby families. Some went to churches. Some used water from nearby creeks. As damaging as that freeze was, it only bolstered people’s spirit and resolve to carry on, and it cemented a feeling of community and caring among many people who normally just say “Hi” to each other coming home from work.
I found that refreshing.