The Little Thread Which Grew - the Apollo '73 to Everything But
- Thread starter lkwdblds
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Ogsonofgroo
Crusader
Happy belated B-day Lakey! 
lkwdblds
Crusader
More Photos from my Birthday plus my thoughts on Platonic Friendships
Gary and Edey - She and I started this whole group of friends. I wanted romance with her and it was not to be. Amazingly, she has her boyfriend now but our friendship continues to grow, expand and get deeper. We have more love than ever for one another, its just not the romantic type of love but a Platonic love which is very, very deep mutually and she has no withhold from her boyfriend. She told him that right when they started dating and he bought it.
I had no idea the depths of which a Platonic love could go This is the greatest lesson which I have learned here on the board. I was raised in an environment where a man was not a man until he "scored", conquered his woman concubine and took her to bed. If a man could not do this, he was "wasting his time" and needed to move on quickly. I had bought into this totally. With Edey, in August, September and into October, I never wanted romance so badly with anyone in my life than I wanted it with her.
When it became obvious that nothing I could do would bring that result to occur, I wanted to bail out and not have her in my life anymore, except maybe do a little business together. It took me 6 or 7 weeks to get through this dilemma. Never have I had to unload such a big chunk of false data as I was living with, i.e. I had to "score" sexually or else I was not a man and was just wasting my time. That attitude is just totally crapola!! I mean it very literally. At least in my case, and at my age, nothing could be further from the truth. The only possible valid exception I might grant a man is a younger guy who wants to marry someone and start a family. Even he would benefit from a Platonic friendship but with the hormones raging in his body, he might make better use of his time, finding a woman who wants him romantically so they can start their family rather than pursuing a Platonic friendship. Ideally, he should do both, but if he did not pursue the Platonic, I could see his point.
Now, I have LH on my lines who appeals to me and I am getting reacquainted with my singer friend from the past. If Edey were to break up with Mike, I would not be interested in being her 2D at this time. I am surrounded by attractive women, Candy, Julie the Ghostbuster, my singer friend, LH, Edey, my daughter is extremely beautiful as is my ex wife. I just love all this feminine contact in my life now. I am just taking things, one day at a time, as far as romance. I don't need it, it is a "nice to have" as they say, very nice to have but not an absoute necessity to be happy.
One last picture of me giving a massage to my cousin MH. I started learning to do massages using him as my guienea pig over 20 years ago. I don't know how to rotate the picture so I am posting it sideways
Gary and Edey - She and I started this whole group of friends. I wanted romance with her and it was not to be. Amazingly, she has her boyfriend now but our friendship continues to grow, expand and get deeper. We have more love than ever for one another, its just not the romantic type of love but a Platonic love which is very, very deep mutually and she has no withhold from her boyfriend. She told him that right when they started dating and he bought it.
I had no idea the depths of which a Platonic love could go This is the greatest lesson which I have learned here on the board. I was raised in an environment where a man was not a man until he "scored", conquered his woman concubine and took her to bed. If a man could not do this, he was "wasting his time" and needed to move on quickly. I had bought into this totally. With Edey, in August, September and into October, I never wanted romance so badly with anyone in my life than I wanted it with her.
When it became obvious that nothing I could do would bring that result to occur, I wanted to bail out and not have her in my life anymore, except maybe do a little business together. It took me 6 or 7 weeks to get through this dilemma. Never have I had to unload such a big chunk of false data as I was living with, i.e. I had to "score" sexually or else I was not a man and was just wasting my time. That attitude is just totally crapola!! I mean it very literally. At least in my case, and at my age, nothing could be further from the truth. The only possible valid exception I might grant a man is a younger guy who wants to marry someone and start a family. Even he would benefit from a Platonic friendship but with the hormones raging in his body, he might make better use of his time, finding a woman who wants him romantically so they can start their family rather than pursuing a Platonic friendship. Ideally, he should do both, but if he did not pursue the Platonic, I could see his point.
Now, I have LH on my lines who appeals to me and I am getting reacquainted with my singer friend from the past. If Edey were to break up with Mike, I would not be interested in being her 2D at this time. I am surrounded by attractive women, Candy, Julie the Ghostbuster, my singer friend, LH, Edey, my daughter is extremely beautiful as is my ex wife. I just love all this feminine contact in my life now. I am just taking things, one day at a time, as far as romance. I don't need it, it is a "nice to have" as they say, very nice to have but not an absoute necessity to be happy.
One last picture of me giving a massage to my cousin MH. I started learning to do massages using him as my guienea pig over 20 years ago. I don't know how to rotate the picture so I am posting it sideways
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CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
I just came face to face with the strangest and yet most common place ambiguity.
I used to listen to Jim Lange on the radio. He was on TV as the host of the Dating Game. What I like about him is that he is everybody's personal friend. He doesn't come across as better that anyone else. Yet, he is a better game show host, "the" morning man on radio in competitive markets (LA and Bay Area). On K Earth 101, I now listen to Gary Bryan, who is a common man. So he's on a high profile morning man slot in one of the biggest radio markets in the world.
the Beatles communicated to all of us.
common sense is very rare.
The more roots one has in everyone, the more unique they are.
can someone 'splain this to me.
I used to listen to Jim Lange on the radio. He was on TV as the host of the Dating Game. What I like about him is that he is everybody's personal friend. He doesn't come across as better that anyone else. Yet, he is a better game show host, "the" morning man on radio in competitive markets (LA and Bay Area). On K Earth 101, I now listen to Gary Bryan, who is a common man. So he's on a high profile morning man slot in one of the biggest radio markets in the world.
the Beatles communicated to all of us.
common sense is very rare.
The more roots one has in everyone, the more unique they are.
can someone 'splain this to me.
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CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
My Birthday party took place on Saturday evening, December 4th. We ate at Mimi's Cafe and later walked the Art district in downtown Santa Ana California and met up with our friend Julie. Julie was born in Spain, is an accomplished artist and writer and has a business clearing disembodied spirits out of houses before a new buyer will move in. So in the 80's, It was "Who are you going to call, GHOSTBUSTERS!" 15 or so years later, it is "Who are you going to call, Julie!"
I was so thrilled that my beautiful daughter drove all the way from Santa Barbara to join me. Also, my very good friend, LH, was under the weather with a root canal problem and she came anyway. The whole party was a total blow out! There were some key people missing including Johnny. Lo and behold, Johnny showed up on Sunday, last night, which is my actual birthday. He was one day late. Also, my singing lady friend could not make it, nor could my high school buddy Ken and then 2 hours before, ex wife told me she wanted to go very badly but she came down with the flue and also has had an intestinal problem for the last two weeks. Finally my first cousin Francine called an hour before the party and said she could not come but her brother, my first cousin MH with his wife did show up as did Edey and Mike and Candy. Mike's landlady and close friend also came as did Edey's friends Freddie, Dave and Havy plus Havy brought a friend. Her birthday is Dec 7 and she celebrated with me.
We had myself plus 12 others for a count of 13. There were 7 no shows, including Johnny who showed up one day late. The good news is that my ex wife and her boyfriend wanted to come so badly that they are going to put on a house warming party in January at my new condo in Seal Beach. I am going to invite Johnny and all the same people and most of them should show and get the count up to about 20.
Here are some of the photos:
Candy and Gary
Gary and his Daughter
Gary and LH - 24 year age difference. Do we look Father - Daughter or dates. You be the judge?
Lakey
the girls are HOT!
RogerB
Crusader
Yes, they are all lovely looking and alive . . .
When I first acked Lakey and Candy, there was only one pic up; and by the time I got it posted it acquired the second one, and now I see the post of Lakey's I began with has three pics onstead of one . . . . are the Gods of the Geeks angry at me?
R
When I first acked Lakey and Candy, there was only one pic up; and by the time I got it posted it acquired the second one, and now I see the post of Lakey's I began with has three pics onstead of one . . . . are the Gods of the Geeks angry at me?
R
Mark A. Baker
Sponsor
Good pic . . . . Candy really looks ALIVE there
R
Actually she's a lot livelier in person, although since she is just back from Toronto I suspect she was enjoying the opportunity to warm up.
I remember that you missed seeing Candy at the 2009 Freezone Convention. The Friday night you went up to your room to recover after the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to Pasadena, Candy was downstairs at the Pre-Convention party. She even spoke for a bit. She was headed out to the Islands and couldn't stay for the rest of the convention. But she came to the party and we all had a nice visit downstairs while you were upstairs catching up on beauty sleep.
Mark A. Baker
RogerB
Crusader
Actually she's a lot livelier in person, although since she is just back from Toronto I suspect she was enjoying the opportunity to warm up.
I remember that you missed seeing Candy at the 2009 Freezone Convention. The Friday night you went up to your room to recover after the Mr. Toad's Wild Ride to Pasadena, Candy was downstairs at the Pre-Convention party. She even spoke for a bit. She was headed out to the Islands and couldn't stay for the rest of the convention. But she came to the party and we all had a nice visit downstairs while you were upstairs catching up on beauty sleep.
Mark A. Baker
Now you tell me! For that beautiful presence of Being I would gladly have foregone my beauty sleep and let my presentation go as it may . . .
R
Terril park
Sponsor
Gary and Edey - She and I started this whole group of friends. I wanted romance with her and it was not to be. Amazingly, she has her boyfriend now but our friendship continues to grow, expand and get deeper. We have more love than ever for one another, its just not the romantic type of love but a Platonic love which is very, very deep mutually and she has no withhold from her boyfriend. She told him that right when they started dating and he bought it.
I had no idea the depths of which a Platonic love could go This is the greatest lesson which I have learned here on the board. I was raised in an environment where a man was not a man until he "scored", conquered his woman concubine and took her to bed. If a man could not do this, he was "wasting his time" and needed to move on quickly. I had bought into this totally. With Edey, in August, September and into October, I never wanted romance so badly with anyone in my life than I wanted it with her.
When it became obvious that nothing I could do would bring that result to occur, I wanted to bail out and not have her in my life anymore, except maybe do a little business together. It took me 6 or 7 weeks to get through this dilemma. Never have I had to unload such a big chunk of false data as I was living with, i.e. I had to "score" sexually or else I was not a man and was just wasting my time. That attitude is just totally crapola!! I mean it very literally. At least in my case, and at my age, nothing could be further from the truth. The only possible valid exception I might grant a man is a younger guy who wants to marry someone and start a family. Even he would benefit from a Platonic friendship but with the hormones raging in his body, he might make better use of his time, finding a woman who wants him romantically so they can start their family rather than pursuing a Platonic friendship. Ideally, he should do both, but if he did not pursue the Platonic, I could see his point.
Now, I have LH on my lines who appeals to me and I am getting reacquainted with my singer friend from the past. If Edey were to break up with Mike, I would not be interested in being her 2D at this time. I am surrounded by attractive women, Candy, Julie the Ghostbuster, my singer friend, LH, Edey, my daughter is extremely beautiful as is my ex wife. I just love all this feminine contact in my life now. I am just taking things, one day at a time, as far as romance. I don't need it, it is a "nice to have" as they say, very nice to have but not an absoute necessity to be happy.
One last picture of me giving a massage to my cousin MH. I started learning to do massages using him as my guienea pig over 20 years ago. I don't know how to rotate the picture so I am posting it sideways
Is Lakey Gary?
lkwdblds
Crusader
Gary aka Lakey
Yes, we are one and the same. Lkwdblds morphed into Lakey and refers to Gary Hart, former Director of Disbursement for CCLA, October, 1971 to October 1973. First, Carmelo came out with his actual name a couple of months ago and then Purple Haze followed with hers. I decided to reveal my name just a couple of days after Purple Haze did hers.
Lakey aka Gary
Yes, we are one and the same. Lkwdblds morphed into Lakey and refers to Gary Hart, former Director of Disbursement for CCLA, October, 1971 to October 1973. First, Carmelo came out with his actual name a couple of months ago and then Purple Haze followed with hers. I decided to reveal my name just a couple of days after Purple Haze did hers.
Lakey aka Gary
lkwdblds
Crusader
copy this, and then you'll have it configured correctly
Thank you very much Carmelo!
Lakey
lkwdblds
Crusader
Gary and Edey - She and I started this whole group of friends. I wanted romance with her and it was not to be. Amazingly, she has her boyfriend now but our friendship continues to grow, expand and get deeper. We have more love than ever for one another, its just not the romantic type of love but a Platonic love which is very, very deep mutually and she has no withhold from her boyfriend. She told him that right when they started dating and he bought it.
I had no idea the depths of which a Platonic love could go This is the greatest lesson which I have learned here on the board. I was raised in an environment where a man was not a man until he "scored", conquered his woman concubine and took her to bed. If a man could not do this, he was "wasting his time" and needed to move on quickly. I had bought into this totally. With Edey, in August, September and into October, I never wanted romance so badly with anyone in my life than I wanted it with her.
When it became obvious that nothing I could do would bring that result to occur, I wanted to bail out and not have her in my life anymore, except maybe do a little business together. It took me 6 or 7 weeks to get through this dilemma. Never have I had to unload such a big chunk of false data as I was living with, i.e. I had to "score" sexually or else I was not a man and was just wasting my time. That attitude is just totally crapola!! I mean it very literally. At least in my case, and at my age, nothing could be further from the truth. The only possible valid exception I might grant a man is a younger guy who wants to marry someone and start a family. Even he would benefit from a Platonic friendship but with the hormones raging in his body, he might make better use of his time, finding a woman who wants him romantically so they can start their family rather than pursuing a Platonic friendship. Ideally, he should do both, but if he did not pursue the Platonic, I could see his point.
Now, I have LH on my lines who appeals to me and I am getting reacquainted with my singer friend from the past. If Edey were to break up with Mike, I would not be interested in being her 2D at this time. I am surrounded by attractive women, Candy, Julie the Ghostbuster, my singer friend, LH, Edey, my daughter is extremely beautiful as is my ex wife. I just love all this feminine contact in my life now. I am just taking things, one day at a time, as far as romance. I don't need it, it is a "nice to have" as they say, very nice to have but not an absoute necessity to be happy.
One last picture of me giving a massage to my cousin MH. I started learning to do massages using him as my guienea pig over 20 years ago.
Thanks to Carmelo for rotating the picture for me.
Lakey
lkwdblds
Crusader
Yes, Rog, she is extremely alive
Yes Roger, Candy is EXTREMELY alive. She is a very high class spirit!!
I have a few more photos which Candy appears in although I believe the one I posted earlier is by far the best. I might as well show the others.
Candy behind me while I open my gifts.
Candy makes "rabbit ears or donkey ears"' sign behind me while I show a nice card I received.
Candy offers me support but I cover up part of her face by mistake.
Lakey
Good pic . . . . Candy really looks ALIVE there
R
Yes Roger, Candy is EXTREMELY alive. She is a very high class spirit!!
I have a few more photos which Candy appears in although I believe the one I posted earlier is by far the best. I might as well show the others.
Candy behind me while I open my gifts.
Candy makes "rabbit ears or donkey ears"' sign behind me while I show a nice card I received.
Candy offers me support but I cover up part of her face by mistake.
Lakey
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CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
The 25-Year 'Foreclosure From Hell'
by Robbie Whelan
Monday, December 6, 2010
From the Wall Street Journal
Patsy Campbell could tell you a thing or two about fighting foreclosure. She's been fighting hers for 25 years.
The 71-year-old retired insurance saleswoman has been living in her house, a two-story on a half acre in a tidy middle-class neighborhood here in central Florida, since 1978. The last time she made a mortgage payment was October 1985.
And yet Ms. Campbell has been able to keep her house, protected by a 105-pound pit bull named Dodger and a locked, rusty gate advising visitors to beware of the dog.
"They're not going to take this house," says Ms. Campbell. "I intend to stay in this house and maintain it as my residence until I die."
Ms. Campbell's foreclosure case has outlasted two marriages, three recessions and four presidents. She has seen seven great-grandchildren born, plum real-estate markets come and go and the ownership of her mortgage change six times. Many Florida real-estate lawyers say it is the longest-lasting foreclosure case they have ever heard of.
The story of how Ms. Campbell has managed to avoid both paying her mortgage and losing her home, which is currently assessed at more than $203,000, is a cautionary tale for lenders that cut corners and followed sloppy practices when originating, processing and servicing mortgages. Lenders are especially vulnerable in the 23 states, including Florida, that require foreclosures to be approved by a judge.
Ms. Campbell has challenged her foreclosure on the grounds that her mortgage was improperly transferred between banks and federal agencies, that lawyers for the bank had waited too long to prosecute the case, that a Florida law shields her from all her creditors, and for dozens of other reasons. Once, she questioned whether there really was a debt at all, saying the lender improperly separated the note from the mortgage contract.
She has managed to stave off the banks partly because several courts have recognized that some of her legal arguments have some merit—however minor. Two foreclosure actions against her, for example, were thrown out because her lender sat on its hands too long after filing a case and lost its window to foreclose.
Ms. Campbell, who is handling her case these days without a lawyer, has learned how to work the ropes of the legal system so well that she has met every attempt by a lender to repossess her home with multiple appeals and counteractions, burying the plaintiffs facing her under piles of paperwork.
She offers no apologies for not paying her mortgage for 25 years, saying that when a foreclosure is in dispute, borrowers are entitled to stop making payments until the courts resolve the matter.
"This is every lender's nightmare," says Robert Summers, a Stuart, Fla., real-estate lawyer who represents Commercial Services of Perry, an Iowa-based buyer of distressed debt that currently owns Ms. Campbell's mortgage and has been trying to foreclose. "Someone defending a foreclosure action can raise defenses that are baseless, but are obstacles for the foreclosing lender," he says, calling the system "an unfair burden" for lenders.
While Ms. Campbell is an extreme case, more homeowners in trouble are starting to use similar tactics and are hiring defense lawyers to challenge their foreclosures, hoping to drag out the foreclosure process long enough to reach a settlement with the lender.
Nationwide, there were 2.1 million mortgages in some stage of foreclosure as of October, according to research firm LPS Applied Analytics. The average loan in foreclosure—the process typically starts when a loan becomes 90 days past due and a bank files a complaint—had been in default for 492 days as of October, up from 289 days at the end of 2005, according to LPS. In Florida, one of the states where foreclosures are handled by courts, the average loan in foreclosure has been delinquent 596 days.
Okeechobee County, a rural jurisdiction of 40,000 known for bass- and perch-fishing festivals, hasn't experienced a foreclosure problem as intense as in many coastal regions of the state. Ms. Campbell's house—which has vinyl siding, boards over the windows (to protect it from storm damage, she says), a crumbling backyard swimming pool and an old sedan rusting in the driveway—stands out among the manicured lawns, stucco ranch houses and cattle pastures interspersed among the houses.
In the town of Okeechobee, the county seat, signs of a local economy dependent on agriculture abound: stores selling pre-fab barns, animal feed and lumber line State Road 710 leading into town.
Brian Whitehall, Okeechobee's city administrator, says unemployment in the area is hovering around 14.5%, slightly higher than the statewide average of 12% in September. Foreclosure filings have nearly doubled each year since the state's housing market peaked in 2006, with 617 filed in 2009. But the national housing slump and the area's economic woes aren't immediately apparent in Okeechobee's quiet neighborhoods.
"We're not like the Port St. Lucies of the world, where entire subdivisions are empty and it's like a ghost town," Mr. Whitehall says.
Court records outline the rocky road Ms. Campbell's loan has taken over the past 32 years. In 1978, Paul Campbell purchased the house on SW 19th Lane, a few minutes' drive from the small pharmacy he owned, using a $68,000 mortgage from First Federal Savings and Loan of Martin County. He married Patsy in 1980, and died later that year from emphysema, leaving the property to his wife.
In 1985, Ms. Campbell stopped making mortgage payments because of an illness that caused her to lose income and get behind on her bills, she says.
By then, the savings-and-loan crisis had begun to take hold. First Federal merged with First Fidelity Savings and Loan, which assumed ownership of the Campbell loan. In 1987, First Fidelity sold the mortgage to American Pioneer Savings Bank, an Orlando-based lender that collapsed in the early 1990s.
The loan would change hands four more times, and four different lenders would try to foreclose on her. But every lender that held her loan either merged or collapsed. Each time ownership of the lender changed, the foreclosure case against Ms. Campbell would be dropped.
The loan eventually made its way to the Resolution Trust Corp., the federally owned asset manager that liquidated assets of insolvent S&Ls, and later, to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
In June 1998, the FDIC sold the mortgage to Commercial Services of Perry, which filed to foreclose in 2000. After another illness, Ms. Campbell deeded the house to her daughter, Deborah Pyper. Years later, after Ms. Campbell recovered, the house was deeded back to her. Ms. Pyper declined to comment.
Ms. Campbell's early briefs in the case were strongly worded and colorful, drafted with the help of a now-retired Okeechobee County lawyer.
The briefs presented dozens of reasons why Ms. Campbell thought the bank didn't have the right to her house: Paul Campbell's signature was forged on the original mortgage, she said, and the original sellers never received money from the bank. At other times, she said the mortgage was never properly conveyed between banks and federal agencies, and she demanded paperwork that they were unable to immediately produce.
Attorneys' fees and court costs from previous cases hadn't been paid, or the amounts were wrong, she argued. One brief said that "Defendant Campbell specifically denies the existence of any 'debt.'"
In 2007, a trial-court judge tossed out all but two of Ms. Campbell's defenses, calling the case an "unnecessary paper chase which has been an unproductive and unnecessary use of judicial resources."
Commercial Services paid a court-determined amount to settle court costs from previous cases, and moved to take the foreclosure to trial, with a date set for early October 2010.
In response, Ms. Campbell filed for bankruptcy, effectively blocking the foreclosure until a stay is lifted by a bankruptcy-court judge.
Her filing lists $225,000 in real-property assets, and lists a secured creditor's claim of $63,801, which is equal to the unpaid principal on her mortgage. In previous court arguments, she had maintained that no lender held a secured claim against her because the note was improperly assigned.
A stern, confident woman who can quote Florida civil-procedure statutes by reference number, and who adores cooking Southern food and listening to classic Grand Ole Opry-era country music, Ms. Campbell steadfastly believes she is right. Her most recent argument in the case is that under Florida homestead law, the bank can't seize her house because it is exempt from liens and forced sales.
"Commercial Services of Perry is in the business of doing this. They win some, they lose some," she says. "If they had a case, they would have already won it, years ago."
She maintains that at this point, no one owns her mortgage note, and that because of fraud and paperwork mistakes by the banks that transferred it over and over again in the 1990s, the debt has been made void.
Mr. Summers, the lawyer for the lender, calls the case "the foreclosure from hell." He says Ms. Campbell has appealed the case seven times since he took it on in 2000, and all of her arguments are just stalling tactics.
"It's almost like clockwork. You know you're going to get another three-inch stack of documents every month or so, and you have to take the time to read through it," Mr. Summers says. "That is a burden on the courts, a burden on lawyers to decipher it, and it has enough meat in it that it's not all void."
For example, according to Mr. Summers and to court filings, in 2007, when a judge remanded the case to the trial court, a court clerk failed to issue a mandate establishing the lower court's jurisdiction. Ms. Campbell appealed the case on those grounds.
The bankruptcy should take about four months to adjudicate, Mr. Summers says, at which point he intends to take the foreclosure to trial. According to Commercial Services of Perry's latest filings, Ms. Campbell owes the $63,801 in principal plus $148,000 in interest.
"All she's got to do is pay what she owes: the principal, the interest, plus court costs and attorneys' fees," Mr. Summers says. "But she doesn't get a free ride."
by Robbie Whelan
Monday, December 6, 2010
From the Wall Street Journal
Patsy Campbell could tell you a thing or two about fighting foreclosure. She's been fighting hers for 25 years.
The 71-year-old retired insurance saleswoman has been living in her house, a two-story on a half acre in a tidy middle-class neighborhood here in central Florida, since 1978. The last time she made a mortgage payment was October 1985.
And yet Ms. Campbell has been able to keep her house, protected by a 105-pound pit bull named Dodger and a locked, rusty gate advising visitors to beware of the dog.
"They're not going to take this house," says Ms. Campbell. "I intend to stay in this house and maintain it as my residence until I die."
Ms. Campbell's foreclosure case has outlasted two marriages, three recessions and four presidents. She has seen seven great-grandchildren born, plum real-estate markets come and go and the ownership of her mortgage change six times. Many Florida real-estate lawyers say it is the longest-lasting foreclosure case they have ever heard of.
The story of how Ms. Campbell has managed to avoid both paying her mortgage and losing her home, which is currently assessed at more than $203,000, is a cautionary tale for lenders that cut corners and followed sloppy practices when originating, processing and servicing mortgages. Lenders are especially vulnerable in the 23 states, including Florida, that require foreclosures to be approved by a judge.
Ms. Campbell has challenged her foreclosure on the grounds that her mortgage was improperly transferred between banks and federal agencies, that lawyers for the bank had waited too long to prosecute the case, that a Florida law shields her from all her creditors, and for dozens of other reasons. Once, she questioned whether there really was a debt at all, saying the lender improperly separated the note from the mortgage contract.
She has managed to stave off the banks partly because several courts have recognized that some of her legal arguments have some merit—however minor. Two foreclosure actions against her, for example, were thrown out because her lender sat on its hands too long after filing a case and lost its window to foreclose.
Ms. Campbell, who is handling her case these days without a lawyer, has learned how to work the ropes of the legal system so well that she has met every attempt by a lender to repossess her home with multiple appeals and counteractions, burying the plaintiffs facing her under piles of paperwork.
She offers no apologies for not paying her mortgage for 25 years, saying that when a foreclosure is in dispute, borrowers are entitled to stop making payments until the courts resolve the matter.
"This is every lender's nightmare," says Robert Summers, a Stuart, Fla., real-estate lawyer who represents Commercial Services of Perry, an Iowa-based buyer of distressed debt that currently owns Ms. Campbell's mortgage and has been trying to foreclose. "Someone defending a foreclosure action can raise defenses that are baseless, but are obstacles for the foreclosing lender," he says, calling the system "an unfair burden" for lenders.
While Ms. Campbell is an extreme case, more homeowners in trouble are starting to use similar tactics and are hiring defense lawyers to challenge their foreclosures, hoping to drag out the foreclosure process long enough to reach a settlement with the lender.
Nationwide, there were 2.1 million mortgages in some stage of foreclosure as of October, according to research firm LPS Applied Analytics. The average loan in foreclosure—the process typically starts when a loan becomes 90 days past due and a bank files a complaint—had been in default for 492 days as of October, up from 289 days at the end of 2005, according to LPS. In Florida, one of the states where foreclosures are handled by courts, the average loan in foreclosure has been delinquent 596 days.
Okeechobee County, a rural jurisdiction of 40,000 known for bass- and perch-fishing festivals, hasn't experienced a foreclosure problem as intense as in many coastal regions of the state. Ms. Campbell's house—which has vinyl siding, boards over the windows (to protect it from storm damage, she says), a crumbling backyard swimming pool and an old sedan rusting in the driveway—stands out among the manicured lawns, stucco ranch houses and cattle pastures interspersed among the houses.
In the town of Okeechobee, the county seat, signs of a local economy dependent on agriculture abound: stores selling pre-fab barns, animal feed and lumber line State Road 710 leading into town.
Brian Whitehall, Okeechobee's city administrator, says unemployment in the area is hovering around 14.5%, slightly higher than the statewide average of 12% in September. Foreclosure filings have nearly doubled each year since the state's housing market peaked in 2006, with 617 filed in 2009. But the national housing slump and the area's economic woes aren't immediately apparent in Okeechobee's quiet neighborhoods.
"We're not like the Port St. Lucies of the world, where entire subdivisions are empty and it's like a ghost town," Mr. Whitehall says.
Court records outline the rocky road Ms. Campbell's loan has taken over the past 32 years. In 1978, Paul Campbell purchased the house on SW 19th Lane, a few minutes' drive from the small pharmacy he owned, using a $68,000 mortgage from First Federal Savings and Loan of Martin County. He married Patsy in 1980, and died later that year from emphysema, leaving the property to his wife.
In 1985, Ms. Campbell stopped making mortgage payments because of an illness that caused her to lose income and get behind on her bills, she says.
By then, the savings-and-loan crisis had begun to take hold. First Federal merged with First Fidelity Savings and Loan, which assumed ownership of the Campbell loan. In 1987, First Fidelity sold the mortgage to American Pioneer Savings Bank, an Orlando-based lender that collapsed in the early 1990s.
The loan would change hands four more times, and four different lenders would try to foreclose on her. But every lender that held her loan either merged or collapsed. Each time ownership of the lender changed, the foreclosure case against Ms. Campbell would be dropped.
The loan eventually made its way to the Resolution Trust Corp., the federally owned asset manager that liquidated assets of insolvent S&Ls, and later, to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
In June 1998, the FDIC sold the mortgage to Commercial Services of Perry, which filed to foreclose in 2000. After another illness, Ms. Campbell deeded the house to her daughter, Deborah Pyper. Years later, after Ms. Campbell recovered, the house was deeded back to her. Ms. Pyper declined to comment.
Ms. Campbell's early briefs in the case were strongly worded and colorful, drafted with the help of a now-retired Okeechobee County lawyer.
The briefs presented dozens of reasons why Ms. Campbell thought the bank didn't have the right to her house: Paul Campbell's signature was forged on the original mortgage, she said, and the original sellers never received money from the bank. At other times, she said the mortgage was never properly conveyed between banks and federal agencies, and she demanded paperwork that they were unable to immediately produce.
Attorneys' fees and court costs from previous cases hadn't been paid, or the amounts were wrong, she argued. One brief said that "Defendant Campbell specifically denies the existence of any 'debt.'"
In 2007, a trial-court judge tossed out all but two of Ms. Campbell's defenses, calling the case an "unnecessary paper chase which has been an unproductive and unnecessary use of judicial resources."
Commercial Services paid a court-determined amount to settle court costs from previous cases, and moved to take the foreclosure to trial, with a date set for early October 2010.
In response, Ms. Campbell filed for bankruptcy, effectively blocking the foreclosure until a stay is lifted by a bankruptcy-court judge.
Her filing lists $225,000 in real-property assets, and lists a secured creditor's claim of $63,801, which is equal to the unpaid principal on her mortgage. In previous court arguments, she had maintained that no lender held a secured claim against her because the note was improperly assigned.
A stern, confident woman who can quote Florida civil-procedure statutes by reference number, and who adores cooking Southern food and listening to classic Grand Ole Opry-era country music, Ms. Campbell steadfastly believes she is right. Her most recent argument in the case is that under Florida homestead law, the bank can't seize her house because it is exempt from liens and forced sales.
"Commercial Services of Perry is in the business of doing this. They win some, they lose some," she says. "If they had a case, they would have already won it, years ago."
She maintains that at this point, no one owns her mortgage note, and that because of fraud and paperwork mistakes by the banks that transferred it over and over again in the 1990s, the debt has been made void.
Mr. Summers, the lawyer for the lender, calls the case "the foreclosure from hell." He says Ms. Campbell has appealed the case seven times since he took it on in 2000, and all of her arguments are just stalling tactics.
"It's almost like clockwork. You know you're going to get another three-inch stack of documents every month or so, and you have to take the time to read through it," Mr. Summers says. "That is a burden on the courts, a burden on lawyers to decipher it, and it has enough meat in it that it's not all void."
For example, according to Mr. Summers and to court filings, in 2007, when a judge remanded the case to the trial court, a court clerk failed to issue a mandate establishing the lower court's jurisdiction. Ms. Campbell appealed the case on those grounds.
The bankruptcy should take about four months to adjudicate, Mr. Summers says, at which point he intends to take the foreclosure to trial. According to Commercial Services of Perry's latest filings, Ms. Campbell owes the $63,801 in principal plus $148,000 in interest.
"All she's got to do is pay what she owes: the principal, the interest, plus court costs and attorneys' fees," Mr. Summers says. "But she doesn't get a free ride."
Ted
Gold Meritorious Patron
Dennis Prager Says...
Dennis Prager
"F--- You" From the Music Industry
The nominees to receive the most prestigious awards in the music industry, the Grammy Awards, were just announced. Among the five nominees for Record of the Year is a song titled "F--- You," with the F-word, of course, spelled out and pronounced.
Here are the song's opening lyrics:
"I see you driving 'round town
With the girl I love and I'm like,
F--- you!
Oo, oo, ooo
I guess the change in my pocket
Wasn't enough, I'm like,
F--- you!
And f--- her, too!"
The next lyrics add the S-word:
"I said, if I was richer, I'd still be with ya
Ha, now ain't that some s--t? (ain't that some s--t?)
And although there's pain in my chest
I still wish you the best with a
F--- you!
Oo, oo, ooo."
And shortly thereafter, the N-word:
"I pity the fool that falls in love with you
(oh, s--t, she's a gold digger)
Well
(just thought you should know, n----)
Ooooooh."
It is also worth noting that the video of this song includes children who appear to be under 12 years of age and all the performers are black -- a point I will address later.
I have long believed that MTV has done more damage to America's young people than any other single institution. I am referring to the music videos, in which most images or scenes are shown for less than two seconds and thereby numb kids' minds, and to the sexual imagery and sex talk that permeate the music videos and much of the rest of MTV programming.
But while MTV should be singled out for the damage it has done to America, the music industry in general has been equally guilty.
How does a song replete with expletives, whose very title is "F--- You," get nominated for a Grammy Award as Record of the Year?
The answer is that the music industry, from producers to artists, is largely populated by people who regard social and cultural norms as stifling. Their professional lives are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts, and to profaning that which is held sacred.
There is no better explanation for "F--- You" being nominated as Record of the Year. It has little, if any, redeeming moral, social or artistic (to the extent that this word retains its original meaning) value. The lyrics are as vapid as they are obscene; the video further degrades that part of black life that is already too lacking in elevation; and there is the participation of children in a profanity-filled video.
For most of American history, a child who used such words was punished by his parents, and society instinctively knew how important it was not to expose children to obscenities. Today, adults in the music industry reward children for participating in videos laced with obscenities.
Nor is the nomination of "F--- You" as Song of the Year an aberration. Two of the other four nominees are rap "songs" whose lyrics are also vile.
Here are typical lyrics from the Eminem's nominated "Love the Way You Lie:"
"And I love it the more that I suffer
I suffocate
And right before I'm about to drown
She resuscitates me
She f---ing hates me
And I love it."
And later on:
"If she ever tries to f---ing leave again
I'ma tie her to the bed
And set the house on fire."
The third nominee is an ode to New York City, "Empire State of Mind," performed by black rapper Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, and which also contains the N-word. It is worth recalling that when white radio-show host Laura Schlessinger used this word solely in order to condemn its use in inner-city black life, society's elite poured such wrath on her that it forced many of her sponsors to abandon her, and she decided to leave radio. But when Jay-Z uses it, he is rewarded with the nomination for the highest award in the music industry.
Two examples of the N-word use:
"Say what's up to Ty-Ty, still sippin' mai tais
sittin' courtside, Knicks and Nets give me high five
N----, I be Spike'd out, I could trip a referee
Tell by my attitude that I'm most definitely from. ...
You should know I bleed blue, but I ain't a Crip, though
but I got a gang of niggas walkin' with my clique though. . . ."
For the record, the fourth nominee, B.o.B's "Nothin' on You," is another rap song with something of a melody behind it. This song has a decent message of a young black man who, though tempted by other women, only wants his woman. And the fifth nominee was a lovely song, "Need You Now," by the country music group Lady Antebellum.
How deep is the decay in the music industry?
According to the Los Angeles Times, these Grammy nominees were "decided on by about 12,000 voting members of the Recording Academy."
Dennis Prager
"F--- You" From the Music Industry
The nominees to receive the most prestigious awards in the music industry, the Grammy Awards, were just announced. Among the five nominees for Record of the Year is a song titled "F--- You," with the F-word, of course, spelled out and pronounced.
Here are the song's opening lyrics:
"I see you driving 'round town
With the girl I love and I'm like,
F--- you!
Oo, oo, ooo
I guess the change in my pocket
Wasn't enough, I'm like,
F--- you!
And f--- her, too!"
The next lyrics add the S-word:
"I said, if I was richer, I'd still be with ya
Ha, now ain't that some s--t? (ain't that some s--t?)
And although there's pain in my chest
I still wish you the best with a
F--- you!
Oo, oo, ooo."
And shortly thereafter, the N-word:
"I pity the fool that falls in love with you
(oh, s--t, she's a gold digger)
Well
(just thought you should know, n----)
Ooooooh."
It is also worth noting that the video of this song includes children who appear to be under 12 years of age and all the performers are black -- a point I will address later.
I have long believed that MTV has done more damage to America's young people than any other single institution. I am referring to the music videos, in which most images or scenes are shown for less than two seconds and thereby numb kids' minds, and to the sexual imagery and sex talk that permeate the music videos and much of the rest of MTV programming.
But while MTV should be singled out for the damage it has done to America, the music industry in general has been equally guilty.
How does a song replete with expletives, whose very title is "F--- You," get nominated for a Grammy Award as Record of the Year?
The answer is that the music industry, from producers to artists, is largely populated by people who regard social and cultural norms as stifling. Their professional lives are dedicated to lowering that which is elevated, destroying that which uplifts, and to profaning that which is held sacred.
There is no better explanation for "F--- You" being nominated as Record of the Year. It has little, if any, redeeming moral, social or artistic (to the extent that this word retains its original meaning) value. The lyrics are as vapid as they are obscene; the video further degrades that part of black life that is already too lacking in elevation; and there is the participation of children in a profanity-filled video.
For most of American history, a child who used such words was punished by his parents, and society instinctively knew how important it was not to expose children to obscenities. Today, adults in the music industry reward children for participating in videos laced with obscenities.
Nor is the nomination of "F--- You" as Song of the Year an aberration. Two of the other four nominees are rap "songs" whose lyrics are also vile.
Here are typical lyrics from the Eminem's nominated "Love the Way You Lie:"
"And I love it the more that I suffer
I suffocate
And right before I'm about to drown
She resuscitates me
She f---ing hates me
And I love it."
And later on:
"If she ever tries to f---ing leave again
I'ma tie her to the bed
And set the house on fire."
The third nominee is an ode to New York City, "Empire State of Mind," performed by black rapper Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, and which also contains the N-word. It is worth recalling that when white radio-show host Laura Schlessinger used this word solely in order to condemn its use in inner-city black life, society's elite poured such wrath on her that it forced many of her sponsors to abandon her, and she decided to leave radio. But when Jay-Z uses it, he is rewarded with the nomination for the highest award in the music industry.
Two examples of the N-word use:
"Say what's up to Ty-Ty, still sippin' mai tais
sittin' courtside, Knicks and Nets give me high five
N----, I be Spike'd out, I could trip a referee
Tell by my attitude that I'm most definitely from. ...
You should know I bleed blue, but I ain't a Crip, though
but I got a gang of niggas walkin' with my clique though. . . ."
For the record, the fourth nominee, B.o.B's "Nothin' on You," is another rap song with something of a melody behind it. This song has a decent message of a young black man who, though tempted by other women, only wants his woman. And the fifth nominee was a lovely song, "Need You Now," by the country music group Lady Antebellum.
How deep is the decay in the music industry?
According to the Los Angeles Times, these Grammy nominees were "decided on by about 12,000 voting members of the Recording Academy."
CarmeloOrchards
Crusader
35 states file lawsuit
Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.
This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.
This is an idea that we should address.
For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that passed... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.
If each person that receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."
Governors of 35 states have filed suit against the Federal Government for imposing unlawful burdens upon them. It only takes 38 (of the 50) States to convene a Constitutional Convention.
This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.
This is an idea that we should address.
For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform that passed... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.
If each person that receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."
RogerB
Crusader
- Status