This article is my first attempt at writing for publication in the local newspaper as a guest columnist. It was published in the October 15, 2011 Mansfield News Journal, Mansfield, OH as an Opinion Shaper article. The Opinion Shaper team consisted of 13 volunteers who each submitted an article for publication every three months for one year.
It's not often you get a phone call saying you have won a large sum of money, but for many people it is all too often, with regrettable results.
Recently I got: such a call, and a female voice congratulated me for winning $3 million. I asked what I should do next, and the reply was to send $750 for the cost of expediting the delivery. I told her to just deduct the $750 and send me the rest. She said, "OK," and hung up. I didn't hear from her again.
During the next two weeks, I received several similar calls from different people. One was from a David Foster who informed me that he was from (a well-known company) and that I won $1.5 million and a Mercedes Benz.
"How do you like that?" he added. I told him it would be OK if I had the check in my hand or, better yet, the money in the bank, He agreed, but told me that all I had to do was send him $100 to defray expenses of the delivery.
I had already researched some of the scam methods and I told him that we should not have to pay anything for a sweepstakes win. He replied that the rules have changed and explained a few points.
"Will you cooperate?"
"No," I replied, and hung up.
I called security at that company and they informed me that they do not contact a winner by phone.
But there was one call I was curious enough to follow through. The call came from a John Anderson, and he informed me that I won $5 million and congratulated me, saying that I definitely did win and that I would receive the money. All I would have to do was send them $385 to cover expenses. This time I played along, but I told him I didn't have that kind of money. He then asked me if I had any bank credit cards and, since it was not exactly personal information, I replied that I had MasterCard and Visa. He asked what the credit limit was on the cards and I replied, "$12,000 on one of them." He said he would send me a check for $12,000 and I could pay the $385 out of that, and he admonished me to "spend the money wisely."
The next day I got a phone call from another man with a heavy accent who asked me if I got the check yet. I told him it was only a day later—mail doesn't travel that fast. He said he would call the next day.
The next day or so he called again, still no check. He suggested I could pay the $385 out of my credit card, or take a loan out using my car as collateral. I told him I don't do things that way. Another call asked what bank I used. To maintain the sense of innocent participation I told him the name of a bank - but not my bank.
A few days later I got a call again, and again I told him I did not receive a check. He then told me he would send it, what is my address? This time I waived the admonition to not give out personal information. I gave him my address; I wanted the evidence.
Meanwhile, I called the Mansfield Police Department and talked to one of the detectives who gave me the 411 on the numerous scam attempts and successes that pervade our society.
A couple days later I got the check, dated and signed by the name printed on the check, made out to my name, but the rest was blank.
When the caller called again I informed him that the amount on the check was blank. He told me that they did not yet know how much the government would charge for the transaction so they left it blank - he would let me know the amount. He told me to deposit the check for $9,500. That was where it became really confusing and I don't remember what he said next, except he did end with, "Are you going to the bank now?" I told him I was working on it.
I was not going to cash or deposit any check of that sort. The lesson I got from the police department was that the check may be cashable, but the check funds can get shanghaied to who knows where, and the money you received will have to be given back to the bank, which will not have sympathy for your situation.
I took the check to the police, along with pertinent information. In this case, the check was proved to be a fraud early on. The checking account had been closed, the owner of the account had died and his wife was in a nursing home. I got a phone call a couple weeks later that was apparently from the same source. I replied that the check was a fraud and hung up.
It was a hassle to follow through with what I knew was a fraud, and it gave me a few headaches. I got my evidence, but it was filed with the police department among thousands of other similar attempted, or successful fraud cases.
Incidentally, my phone number is on the National Do Not Call Registry. Why am I still getting unwanted calls?
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
Food for thought . . .
This article was the second volunteer article, published in the January 15, 2012 Mansfield News Journal, Mansfield, OH as an Opinion Shaper article.
FOOD CAN BE FRESH OFF THE FARM . . . OR NOT
Although I lived on a farm, I still had a job—at the time working for the USDA as a poultry inspector. I came home from work one day and, on impulse, stopped by a grocery store and bought a nicely marbled steak which I prepared for dinner. I picked a vine-ripened tomato from the garden and a couple of ears of corn and anticipated a nice little feast.
The steak would be tender because of the marbling of fat and the tomato would taste sweet because it was vine ripened, and the corn would taste fresh because I had just pulled the ears off the stalks.
I slathered a thin layer of mustard on the steak for added flavor and put it under the oven broiler for a few minutes each side. The tomatoes were sliced and seasoned a little, and the corn was husked and boiled to doneness and coated with butter and a sprinkling of salt.
I could easily cut the steak with a fork. The tomatoes tasted good on a slice of bread that was spread with a thin layer of salad dressing (my preference). The corn had been picked at the right time, so it was tender and flavorful. It all tasted like heaven.
There is a value to living on a farm where everything is fresh. I happened to live on a chicken farm at the time where fresh eggs were in abundance.
Living on a farm means working daily at the chores of feeding the livestock, gathering eggs, milking cows, fixing up anything broken, plowing up the ground in the spring and buying seed for crops, weeding the garden every few days for so, watering the plants during a dry spell, and making sure animals like rabbits, groundhogs or birds, don’t raid the garden or the fields.
There is a sense of freshness in the air, much of the time. Other scents may pervade the atmosphere when the animal pens are cleaned out. There are pros and cons all over the place, but one gets used to it when one is addicted to country living.
It has to be mentioned that this is where all your food comes from, whether it be a small farm or a huge conglomerate which is in dairy, meat and crop production. Those packages of beef, pork, veal, lamb, chicken, turkey, fresh sausage, smoked sausage, and the delicious rotisserie chicken that some grocery stores prepare—they all come from a farm.
Then you have apples, pears, peaches, cherries—and in warmer climates oranges, lemons, bananas; the list goes on.
My Dad was a great gardener. We moved from farm to farm over the years, and at each farm he laid out a garden to grow lettuce, peas, sweet corn, tomatoes, carrots, celery, lima beans, string beans, bush beans, pole beans, cabbage, red beets, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cucumbers, cantaloupe, squash, muskmelon, watermelon, and ground cherries. He was careful to properly enrich the soil, and spent time hoeing out the weeds—and we kids were involved in that too.
But when the agricultural industry gets larger to feed millions of people, and to deliver to the far corners of the worldwide marketplace, there are other factors that weigh in with the growing, processing, and marketing of food.
For sales appeal, food has to be kept fresh and safe, and look good to the discriminating eye and appetite. In addition, there is canned, frozen and dried food which maintains longevity.
Trying to keep it fresh can be tricky when food is handled by the ton and truckload. There are ways to maintain quality, but it may include inventiveness on the part of the mega businesses, especially when food has to travel thousands of miles.
There are a lot of people involved in getting food to your table who plow the soil, put down fertilizer, plant seed, cultivate, irrigate, harvest (which may include migrant workers), prepare the food for transport to factories or markets, package, determine the price and advertise. And when food goes to a factory for canning, freezing, and processing, there is a whole new dynamic involved in the process.
Processing food involves the use of additional ingredients to give it the proper color, proper consistency, proper taste and nutrition. When food is heated, for example, it can lose a lot of its nutritional value, so that the lost nutrition has to be replaced by added ingredients.
There is a whole barrage of science and technology in use when handling food in order to deliver it to its intended destination in close proximity to the nutritional value it started out with. The duty of the food shopper is to be educated in what that value is.
Maybe this article is a little early to talk about growing food, but food is growing somewhere in the world during all the seasons of the year, and being delivered to a myriad of destinations worldwide 24/7. Bon appétit!
FOOD CAN BE FRESH OFF THE FARM . . . OR NOT
Although I lived on a farm, I still had a job—at the time working for the USDA as a poultry inspector. I came home from work one day and, on impulse, stopped by a grocery store and bought a nicely marbled steak which I prepared for dinner. I picked a vine-ripened tomato from the garden and a couple of ears of corn and anticipated a nice little feast.
The steak would be tender because of the marbling of fat and the tomato would taste sweet because it was vine ripened, and the corn would taste fresh because I had just pulled the ears off the stalks.
I slathered a thin layer of mustard on the steak for added flavor and put it under the oven broiler for a few minutes each side. The tomatoes were sliced and seasoned a little, and the corn was husked and boiled to doneness and coated with butter and a sprinkling of salt.
I could easily cut the steak with a fork. The tomatoes tasted good on a slice of bread that was spread with a thin layer of salad dressing (my preference). The corn had been picked at the right time, so it was tender and flavorful. It all tasted like heaven.
There is a value to living on a farm where everything is fresh. I happened to live on a chicken farm at the time where fresh eggs were in abundance.
Living on a farm means working daily at the chores of feeding the livestock, gathering eggs, milking cows, fixing up anything broken, plowing up the ground in the spring and buying seed for crops, weeding the garden every few days for so, watering the plants during a dry spell, and making sure animals like rabbits, groundhogs or birds, don’t raid the garden or the fields.
There is a sense of freshness in the air, much of the time. Other scents may pervade the atmosphere when the animal pens are cleaned out. There are pros and cons all over the place, but one gets used to it when one is addicted to country living.
It has to be mentioned that this is where all your food comes from, whether it be a small farm or a huge conglomerate which is in dairy, meat and crop production. Those packages of beef, pork, veal, lamb, chicken, turkey, fresh sausage, smoked sausage, and the delicious rotisserie chicken that some grocery stores prepare—they all come from a farm.
Then you have apples, pears, peaches, cherries—and in warmer climates oranges, lemons, bananas; the list goes on.
My Dad was a great gardener. We moved from farm to farm over the years, and at each farm he laid out a garden to grow lettuce, peas, sweet corn, tomatoes, carrots, celery, lima beans, string beans, bush beans, pole beans, cabbage, red beets, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cucumbers, cantaloupe, squash, muskmelon, watermelon, and ground cherries. He was careful to properly enrich the soil, and spent time hoeing out the weeds—and we kids were involved in that too.
But when the agricultural industry gets larger to feed millions of people, and to deliver to the far corners of the worldwide marketplace, there are other factors that weigh in with the growing, processing, and marketing of food.
For sales appeal, food has to be kept fresh and safe, and look good to the discriminating eye and appetite. In addition, there is canned, frozen and dried food which maintains longevity.
Trying to keep it fresh can be tricky when food is handled by the ton and truckload. There are ways to maintain quality, but it may include inventiveness on the part of the mega businesses, especially when food has to travel thousands of miles.
There are a lot of people involved in getting food to your table who plow the soil, put down fertilizer, plant seed, cultivate, irrigate, harvest (which may include migrant workers), prepare the food for transport to factories or markets, package, determine the price and advertise. And when food goes to a factory for canning, freezing, and processing, there is a whole new dynamic involved in the process.
Processing food involves the use of additional ingredients to give it the proper color, proper consistency, proper taste and nutrition. When food is heated, for example, it can lose a lot of its nutritional value, so that the lost nutrition has to be replaced by added ingredients.
There is a whole barrage of science and technology in use when handling food in order to deliver it to its intended destination in close proximity to the nutritional value it started out with. The duty of the food shopper is to be educated in what that value is.
Maybe this article is a little early to talk about growing food, but food is growing somewhere in the world during all the seasons of the year, and being delivered to a myriad of destinations worldwide 24/7. Bon appétit!
Saturday, October 22, 2011
As you get older . . .
What’s a good remedy for mental confusion, or whatever you call it when you lose track of what you’re doing? It happens too often to suit me.
I went to a seminar last week and took my digital 
recorder along; a nifty little gadget that can record hundreds of hours of music and speeches in reasonable quality. I recorded the meeting. I always put it into my shirt pocket, along with my small cell phone.
This week I wanted to do the same thing but I couldn’t find the recorder. It’s a tiny thing, about 4 inches high and an inch wide. The last time I remember seeing it was on the stand beside my bed.
It was Trash Day at our place and I dragged the kitchen trash bag around to the various waste baskets and dumped trash into it, including some from the waste basket right by the bed stand. I tightly knotted the trash bag closed and carried it outside by the lane—in the wind and rain. Then I checked all over for the recorder.
My wife Lucy helpfully suggested that it could have fallen into the waste basket. It gave me pause. The trash bag was already outside, ready to be picked up but I went out into the wind and rain again and retrieved it, brought it back to the kitchen and systematically emptied the contents of the trash bag into another, checking thoroughly through all the dust, hair, cardboard, papers, wires, a broken flower pot, wrappings, egg shells, plastic, and other nondescript flotsam, ad nauseam. It took some time. There was no sign of what I was looking for.
I went back down to the basement to look around my computer to see if I missed any spot it could be. As I thoughtfully went back upstairs, I reached into my trouser pocket . . .
The meeting went well. I recorded the whole thing in an effort to refresh my ailing memory ... if I don't lose it again—my mind or the machine.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Don't believe anything they say!
The caller, "Dave Foster" stated that I won $1,500,000 and a 2011 Mercedes. He asked if I was an American citizen and he noted that I had no criminal record. Married or widowed? I told him married. (He didn't ask if I was single.) I stayed with him and he helpfully described that I go to a Western Union payment center, like at Walmart, and send $1,850.00 to Rosalind Hawthorne at Carencro, LA 70520. I checked on the internet while he was talking. Then I hung up. I would have liked to follow through with getting as much information as I could but I guess I should let well enough alone. He tried to call back twice and I didn't answer. He may try to call again. He spoke careful English but sometimes his accent momentarily indicated possibly Chinese or Japanese.
This is about the fifth or sixth call from supposed sweepstakes companies in two weeks. I believe the total winnings was up to $15,000,000 and three Mercedes Benz.--and all the signs pointed to Scam Central Unlimited!
This is about the fifth or sixth call from supposed sweepstakes companies in two weeks. I believe the total winnings was up to $15,000,000 and three Mercedes Benz.--and all the signs pointed to Scam Central Unlimited!
I followed up on one call, however. It was from a John Anderson who said that I won $2,000,000 and it was a legitimate win. I definitely would receive the money. I listened to what he had to say, and then he said that all I had to do was send them $385 to defray the cost of sending it through customs, etc. I played along just to see how much information I could get from them without me supplying any personal information.
He asked me if I had any credit cards. Yes, Mastercard and Visa. When I told him I didn't have any money he asked what my credit limit was on the cards. I knew one was $12,000 so I told him. He said he would send me a check for $12,000 and I could pay the money out of that and keep the rest, "just spend the money wisely," he said.
The next day a man with an accent called and asked if I received the check yet. I told him it was only a day later, the mail doesn't normally travel that fast. He called again a couple days later and when I told him I hadn't received the check yet he suggested I could use my credit card, or take a loan out with my car as collateral. I told him I don't work that way.
A day or so later he called again and, again, I had not received the check. He then said he would send it to me himself. What is my address? Well, parting from the caution to not give out information I gave him my home address anyway. That would be the only way I could get solid evidence. At one point he had asked where I banked and I gave him a fictitious name.
It was at that point that I called the local police and got more information about how scam artists operate. The detective told me if I received a check it may be legitimate but somewhere along the line the money would disappear to some secret account somewhere and the bank would not get the money and would hold me liable for the loss.
Finally a check came. It was in a small handwritten envelope, and the check was filled out with my name and signed by one of the parties listed on the check, but there was no amount. When the caller called again and asked, I told him I got the check but there is no dollar amount on it! He informed me that they did not know how much the government would charge for the distribution of funds and he would check now. In a few seconds he told me to make the check out for $9,500.00 and then I can put the money in the bank. He didn't say anything about paying the $385 that was mentioned earlier but he asked me if I was going to go to the bank NOW. I told him I'm working on it. I then gave the check with the envelope to the detective after making a copy of it in case the caller would call again.
The detective meanwhile checked it out. The check was drawn from a bank in Louisiana. The names printed on the check were legitimate, but the man had died, and his wife was now in a nursing home. The bank stated that there was trouble with that account and they closed it.
It was about this time that I was determined to have no more involvement with any more questionable phone calls. It was hassle enough to deal with this one in the attempt to garner evidence for the sake of diminishing the gene pool of telephone scammers. It was giving me a headache. The names of the persons involved were most likely to be fake too. And all this throughout the fact that we're on the DO NOT CALL LIST.
Sometime later I got a call which was evident to be a plea for a donation. I told him I was not interested, but he continued to ask so I asked where he was calling from. He told me an area which was over 50 miles away although the donation for within the county I live in. I then told him that I'm actually on the DO NOT CALL LIST. He replied that it did not apply to charities. I told him it did not seem to apply to anyone because I keep getting phone calls from everybody, foreign and domestic, and I then hung up.
With all the technology around, scamming is definitely out of control, and the ones most affected are the elderly who do not have the capacity to say NO, or just hang up.
With all the technology around, scamming is definitely out of control, and the ones most affected are the elderly who do not have the capacity to say NO, or just hang up.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Christmas 1996
This is an article I wrote years ago, and I realize it has been a long time since I contributed to this blog so I'll continue with this past history. Much of what I wrote has changed, my parents are deceased, the pastor of the church we joined has continued on to another pastorate, we no longer travel like we used to. Other than that, this is a piece of history in our life that bears remembering.
This year has been an interesting one. We started out with a cold, wet spring, and summer was relatively cool. Fall turned to winter weather pretty fast though but the cold snaps are interspersed with warm sunny weather, which is a little unusual for this time of year. Ohio usually starts seriously bedding down for the winter in November already. Personally, Lucy and I would like to fly south for the winter, or go into hibernation.
Early in the spring I had the idea to plant morning glories. Someone from work gave me a whole handful of morning glory seeds and we sprouted them and then planted them at every fence post along the driveway, and in back of the grape arbor, and by the telephone pole, and at the south end of the porch. Because we started late, they didn't take off right away but by July and August they were all blooming all over the place ... the ones our resident wild rabbit left alone.
We had a strawberry bed that was too old to bear much fruit so the plants were pulled and I started digging up the garden. The part I dug up was planted in tomatoes. We settled for pick-your-own strawberries at some nearby berry patches in the neighborhood.
This is corn and soybean country but they got a late start due to wet fields. In the spring you see a lot of plowing done with horses since there are quite a few Amish in the area. Plows pulled by five or six horses. The horse-and-buggy Mennonites just down the road use their steel-wheel tractors for plowing and planting.
In April, our Sunday School class gave a surprise 50th birthday party for Lucy. I kept the secret for two weeks or so and she was quite surprised because it was held at the church a week after her birthday. My 50th had gone by without fanfare a couple years before, but I do remember one thing--that was the day (in February) that I proposed to Lucy!
In June, Lucy and I became members of the Mennonite Christian Assembly congregation in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Scott Hochstetler is pastor there. The Hochstetler family got a newborn recently so Lucy and I catered a Fellowship Lunch to them on Nov. 24th. She spent all day in the kitchen on Saturday of that week baking bread, pecan pies, making candy, and preparing the main dish, Shepherd's Pie, letting me in the kitchen only to make the cranberry relish. On Sunday morning we transported it all to Fredericksburg and someone fired up the oven in the kitchen to warm up the food in time for lunch after church. We also invited a couple of widows and other friends to the lunch--15 in all.
Around August we attended the Jerry Yoder (Lucy's great-grandfather) reunion near Berne, Indiana on the Roman Schwartz farm. Lucy was the only one to represent Michael Yoder (her grandfather) at the reunion. Everyone brought a covered dish, and for the whole afternoon we feasted on casseroles and desserts of all kinds. It was a hot day but there was a nice breeze. I wore myself out pitching horseshoes for a couple hours. I didn't feel it until the next day; by then I could hardly walk. On the way home we visited with Lucy's cousin Eli Troyer's in Hicksville, Ohio.
Lucy and I took two week-long trips this year. In June we stayed in Medford Lakes, New Jersey at sister Jane's house while they were on vacation. My parents also live there. We took them for an overnight trip to the Souderton Retirement Community in Pennsylvania to visit with Mom's,sister Tilly Freed and dad's sister, Lydia Landis; and other friends and acquaintenances of years gone by. Dad is 86 this year and Mom is 75. They celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary on December 24. After we spent a few days with my parents we traveled to Myerstown, Pa. at the invitation of cousin Warren Hackman, Jr., who treated his employees to a chicken dinner at Kauffman's. We then stayed at his place and took him along to Wellsboro, Pa. where we attended his niece's wedding, Willard Hackman's daughter, Lorraine. On the way back to Ohio we traveled through the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania, stopping in Belleville, Saturday evening, to visit the John L. Zook family. Ten o'clock p.m. is almost too late for a surprise visit so we stayed at a nearby motel for the night. The next morning I called them and they were delighted to hear from us and invited us to church. It's the first time we ever attended a Beachy Amish church. We then stayed for the noon meal, and then left around 3 p.m. for Ohio.
The second big trip we took was in September, going to Canada by way of Kentucky. We took a 6-hour drive south and stayed a couple nights at the Galilean Children's Home near Liberty, Kentucky. On Saturday afternoon we went with a group of the children and Jerry and Sandy Tucker on their bus where they put on a program near Guthrie, Kentucky, not far from the Tennessee border. Then we traveled toward Watertown, New York where we would attend the wedding of Maryann and Lloyd Martin's Loyal's wedding. We had a few days to travel and we stopped in Berea, Kentucky and had a pleasant visit with Levi and Miriam Yoder.
We stopped in Winchester, KY for the night and it was during that time that the tone of the trip changed drastically. I was saddled with a bad case of indigestion for a couple days. I drove 310 miles on an upset stomach all the way to Morgantown, WV where we stayed the night (Thursday night). If I didn't get better by morning, we'd execute Plan A, travel west to Ohio and home. Plan B, we'd continue on, taking I-68 east through Maryland to I-81 north through Pennsylvania to Watertown, New York. As it turned out, I nursed myself carefully sipping ice water every hour or so to alleviate nausea. At 4 a.m. I finally slept solid until 7:30, waking up hungry and in no pain whatsoever. We happily went with Plan B, arriving in Watertown in the evening. The next day was the wedding. We stayed overnight at Lloyd and Maryann's and then headed into Canada in heavy rainfall. We spent the next night at Niagara Falls and after some sightseeing the next day we headed for Ohio and home.
On a sad note, maybe most of you know, my dear sister Sally (Hackman) Lee passed away suddenly on November 23. leaving behind her husband, John, and her two daughters, Samra and Sharon.
We wish everyone a nice holiday season and a blessed New Year.
Wes and Lucy Hackman
This year has been an interesting one. We started out with a cold, wet spring, and summer was relatively cool. Fall turned to winter weather pretty fast though but the cold snaps are interspersed with warm sunny weather, which is a little unusual for this time of year. Ohio usually starts seriously bedding down for the winter in November already. Personally, Lucy and I would like to fly south for the winter, or go into hibernation.
Early in the spring I had the idea to plant morning glories. Someone from work gave me a whole handful of morning glory seeds and we sprouted them and then planted them at every fence post along the driveway, and in back of the grape arbor, and by the telephone pole, and at the south end of the porch. Because we started late, they didn't take off right away but by July and August they were all blooming all over the place ... the ones our resident wild rabbit left alone.
We had a strawberry bed that was too old to bear much fruit so the plants were pulled and I started digging up the garden. The part I dug up was planted in tomatoes. We settled for pick-your-own strawberries at some nearby berry patches in the neighborhood.
This is corn and soybean country but they got a late start due to wet fields. In the spring you see a lot of plowing done with horses since there are quite a few Amish in the area. Plows pulled by five or six horses. The horse-and-buggy Mennonites just down the road use their steel-wheel tractors for plowing and planting.
In April, our Sunday School class gave a surprise 50th birthday party for Lucy. I kept the secret for two weeks or so and she was quite surprised because it was held at the church a week after her birthday. My 50th had gone by without fanfare a couple years before, but I do remember one thing--that was the day (in February) that I proposed to Lucy!
In June, Lucy and I became members of the Mennonite Christian Assembly congregation in Fredericksburg, Ohio. Scott Hochstetler is pastor there. The Hochstetler family got a newborn recently so Lucy and I catered a Fellowship Lunch to them on Nov. 24th. She spent all day in the kitchen on Saturday of that week baking bread, pecan pies, making candy, and preparing the main dish, Shepherd's Pie, letting me in the kitchen only to make the cranberry relish. On Sunday morning we transported it all to Fredericksburg and someone fired up the oven in the kitchen to warm up the food in time for lunch after church. We also invited a couple of widows and other friends to the lunch--15 in all.
Around August we attended the Jerry Yoder (Lucy's great-grandfather) reunion near Berne, Indiana on the Roman Schwartz farm. Lucy was the only one to represent Michael Yoder (her grandfather) at the reunion. Everyone brought a covered dish, and for the whole afternoon we feasted on casseroles and desserts of all kinds. It was a hot day but there was a nice breeze. I wore myself out pitching horseshoes for a couple hours. I didn't feel it until the next day; by then I could hardly walk. On the way home we visited with Lucy's cousin Eli Troyer's in Hicksville, Ohio.
Lucy and I took two week-long trips this year. In June we stayed in Medford Lakes, New Jersey at sister Jane's house while they were on vacation. My parents also live there. We took them for an overnight trip to the Souderton Retirement Community in Pennsylvania to visit with Mom's,sister Tilly Freed and dad's sister, Lydia Landis; and other friends and acquaintenances of years gone by. Dad is 86 this year and Mom is 75. They celebrate their 54th wedding anniversary on December 24. After we spent a few days with my parents we traveled to Myerstown, Pa. at the invitation of cousin Warren Hackman, Jr., who treated his employees to a chicken dinner at Kauffman's. We then stayed at his place and took him along to Wellsboro, Pa. where we attended his niece's wedding, Willard Hackman's daughter, Lorraine. On the way back to Ohio we traveled through the beautiful mountains of Pennsylvania, stopping in Belleville, Saturday evening, to visit the John L. Zook family. Ten o'clock p.m. is almost too late for a surprise visit so we stayed at a nearby motel for the night. The next morning I called them and they were delighted to hear from us and invited us to church. It's the first time we ever attended a Beachy Amish church. We then stayed for the noon meal, and then left around 3 p.m. for Ohio.
The second big trip we took was in September, going to Canada by way of Kentucky. We took a 6-hour drive south and stayed a couple nights at the Galilean Children's Home near Liberty, Kentucky. On Saturday afternoon we went with a group of the children and Jerry and Sandy Tucker on their bus where they put on a program near Guthrie, Kentucky, not far from the Tennessee border. Then we traveled toward Watertown, New York where we would attend the wedding of Maryann and Lloyd Martin's Loyal's wedding. We had a few days to travel and we stopped in Berea, Kentucky and had a pleasant visit with Levi and Miriam Yoder.
We stopped in Winchester, KY for the night and it was during that time that the tone of the trip changed drastically. I was saddled with a bad case of indigestion for a couple days. I drove 310 miles on an upset stomach all the way to Morgantown, WV where we stayed the night (Thursday night). If I didn't get better by morning, we'd execute Plan A, travel west to Ohio and home. Plan B, we'd continue on, taking I-68 east through Maryland to I-81 north through Pennsylvania to Watertown, New York. As it turned out, I nursed myself carefully sipping ice water every hour or so to alleviate nausea. At 4 a.m. I finally slept solid until 7:30, waking up hungry and in no pain whatsoever. We happily went with Plan B, arriving in Watertown in the evening. The next day was the wedding. We stayed overnight at Lloyd and Maryann's and then headed into Canada in heavy rainfall. We spent the next night at Niagara Falls and after some sightseeing the next day we headed for Ohio and home.
On a sad note, maybe most of you know, my dear sister Sally (Hackman) Lee passed away suddenly on November 23. leaving behind her husband, John, and her two daughters, Samra and Sharon.
We wish everyone a nice holiday season and a blessed New Year.
Wes and Lucy Hackman
Friday, July 30, 2010
The long arm of the law
On the 10th of May, 2010 I made a deal with “Jeff Heinz” who wanted to buy my red 2000 Ford Focus. He agreed to $2000 for the car, and gave me $200 down, saying that he will give $500 in two weeks, and another $500 two weeks later, etc. Because I was so anxious to sell the car I didn't see any signs, or didn't care to see, larceny in the deal. Like a dummy I signed over the title (without it being notarized, and without full payment) and they took off. There were three people involved. Two weeks later I tried to call and found out all the information he gave was false.
I went to the police, taking along as much info as I could find; pictures of the car, the VIN number and the note that Jeff wrote. Detective Metcalf checked it out and found that, now two weeks later, the car was still in my name, but it was sold to someone named Steve. Shawn was also mentioned. He was one I had talked to but he never got out of his car during the incident. The whole deal was done by Jeff, not the Jeff Heinz that he indicated on the slip of paper with his information. I should have asked for his driver’s license.
After getting no follow-up after the initial interview, I tried to call Detective Metcalf and even left a message but I didn’t get an answer either way. I finally called the sheriff’s department and told the person there about it and she looked it up, but also said that Metcalf just retired. They assigned the case to Detective Mack who, after I left a phone message, called me back the next day and clarified some details about what was recorded.
He called me Thursday morning and indicated he found the car but it will have to be towed. I told him I have a spare key, could I go with him? He called back later and agreed for me to go with him to Perrysville to hopefully retrieve the car. He would pick me up. On the way he asked a unit from the Ashland Police Department for assistance. He came at a designated spot until the police unit arrived and we drove to each place where the perpetrators lived. At that hour of the day none of them were home but there was enough information gathered to ascertain where the car actually was. It was now owned by Steve who worked in Mansfield. Det. Mack took me home and asked me to go with him the next day to the work place in Mansfield, “and bring your key along”.
But a half hour later I got a phone call from him. Steve himself will be coming to the police station in 20 minutes, could I catch a ride to the police station, second floor? Someone took me to the police station just 3 miles down the road and I waited in Det. Mack’s office and when my car came in it did not have the original license plates, but I was told it was still officially in my name.
Steve was escorted into the office and Det. Mack asked for details about how he got the car, and introduced me as the rightful owner of the vehicle. He had a legitimate reason to not suspect any illegality in the deal and Det. Mack took a statement from him while I was there.
Then word came that Shawn was also arriving. Det. Mack told me to go into the room across the hall and then Shawn came in. He’s a young man around 20 years old, tall, blond hair. Det. Mack had a preliminary interview with him and then had me come into the office. Since he had a lengthy discussion with the detective, Shawn profusely apologized to me for his part in the whole deal, of which he really did not have active part. He was not aware that Jeff, whom I dealt with, did not pay the rest of the money. Then Det. Mack had me go back across the hall again while he took a statement from Shawn. Steve and I waited in the other room.
Det. Mack told Steve that the car would have to be confiscated. He was willing to comply. Shawn, whom he knew for years, would take him home. (It was found that Jeff bought the car, had the title put in Shawn’s name, and then Shawn sold the car to Steve to relieve some debt Shawn owed Steve—so apparently Shawn was victim to Jeff’s scheme too. There was no profit made because they paid me $200 and Steve paid Shawn $200. So there is still a puzzlement in the whole transaction. Maybe a deal that Jeff made with someone else fell through, I don’t know.) Det. Mack said he would find Jeff and charge him for several counts. One of which was taking advantage of the elderly (me) since I’m over 65. (whimper)
We finished in the office and we all went to the parking lot. Det. Mack gave Steve a box and he retrieved all his belongings in the car and I now have my car back. Steve said that the car had a tune-up just a couple weeks ago. When it disappeared it had a little over 100,000 miles on it. It now has 107,000 miles. Det. Mack told me how to handle getting a duplicate title and he would look for the license plates which I originally had. Meanwhile, I am to take off the existing plates and they will be given back to Steve.
When I got home Lucy told me that Shawn had come to the house to ask where the police station was, and he had apologized to her for what happened, which was apparently out of his control.
There were a few God moments in the whole thing and it was marvelous seeing it all come together like it did.
Now, the job is to find the real culprit--Jeff. It may take some doing but Jeff had bragged to others about how he fleeced the owner of the vehicle. Loose lips will eventually sink a ship.
Another problem presented itself. I took the report of theft to Auto Title and it wasn't good enough. I would have to obtain the title of the car from the last owner, Steve. Since I was not really on close terms with him I would have to have Det. Mack work it out.
He had the title which Steve gave him and then he called Steve to come to police headquarters to sign the title over to me. I had an appointment for Tuesday and I called him up to alert him that I would not be available at the transfer. He thought it was OK, all he needed was the mileage on the car. It turned out to be 107,118 miles. As it turned out, I should have gone to the transfer meeting.
The next day I went to the police station to retrieve the title which was notarized but without my signature. Det. Mack witnessed my signature and then I was free to go to Auto Title to get a new title.
At Auto Title in downtown Mansfield, the agent noticed that the seller had put his name and address where the buyer's should be. Another bureaucratic fumble. She gave me a sheet of paper indicating that an error was made on the title and that the owner would have to have a notarized signature to indicate it. I was not a happy camper. I called the Records Department at the police station and complained about it. Bonnie suggested I call Det. Mack but I said he was probably not in his office. I called his number anyway. He was not in his office but he said I should take the title back and he would take care of it. I went to the police station again and gave the papers to Bonnie, and left. I was rather bewildered by the complications of it. I should have mentioned, why don't they just white out the address and put my address in its place.
Anyway, a few days later I called up Mack and he had it ready for me. I took the papers to Auto Title again and the agent made up another title. But she gave me two receipts. She had to do it over because of a mistake she made on the title. As I went out the door I looked it over and found F. as the middle initial. I don't use a middle initial in my name. I went back and showed it to her and she to out the offending letter and everything was back to normal. She charged me $16.00 for the title.
The car sat in the lawn for awhile again. Finally someone came along and offered to buy the car. I asked $1500 for it. Maybe it was too low, but I have a karmic conscience about selling cars with high mileage so I ended up selling it for $1200. With the $200 the first "buyer" gave me, plus the $1200, I received $1400 for it and felt happy that it was finally gone. Now, when my ship comes in I'll be sure to get a brand new vehicle. Meanwhile, I have a 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan which suits our traveling purposes. It is a RampVan. Lucy needs a wheelchair accessible vehicle and that's what we have.
I must admit, I learned my lesson in leaving the car go. I went to the bank to get the title notarized, filling out my part, and when the buyer came for the car, we sat down at my kitchen table and she started to fill out the title. I quickly said, "Would you first write out the check please." She obliged and I felt better that I didn't have to say to anyone that the car was hers before she paid for it.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Second Kidney Transplant 2010
At the end of March 2010 I took a trip East to Pennsylvania and New Jersey to visit with my brothers and sisters for a week. Lucy didn’t want to go on the 500-mile trip so I went by myself. It was a trip that had many God moments, as I call it. Visiting people and even having my dialysis time changed to make things easier for the rest of the trip.
My dialysis times were Saturday and Tuesday but on Monday I called early in the morning and they had a vacancy so I had dialysis that day which let me freely visit for the rest of the day and then go home on Wednesday. It was a worthwhile trip and I felt that God was with me many times throughout.
The trip home was at night so there was not much traffic. I got home around 8 o’clock Wednesday morning.
A week later, on Saturday, April 10, I got a phone call at 7:30 a.m. from Diane, a nurse at OSU Medical Center in Columbus. There was a kidney available and Dr. Rajab says it’s a perfect match, would I be interested?
I hesitated, and Diane noticed it. I told her I was still stinging from last year’s experience when I had a transplant which failed due to complications. I was in the hospital for four months. I don’t know if I’m ready for another go.
But by the end of the conversation I agreed to have them go through with it. She didn’t know all the particulars about it but would let us know when she got more information. She called later and gave us more info and then I gave her my cell phone number.
Later that evening, around 6:30, she called again and said that the surgery would be at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, and I was to come to OSU tonight. It just so happened that Minerva, Lucy’s niece, had some business in Columbus and she took me down to the hospital, a 75 mile trip.
I checked in and soon got a room. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and aides came to get my medical history, which is extensive, and get vials of blood.
I had a Permcath placed a couple months ago which was used for dialysis and they used it to take blood from my system. I did not have a needle stick throughout my stay at the hospital.
Lucy wanted to be with me before surgery but didn’t know if she would be able to be there before 8:00 a.m. but then I got word that there was a delay until 10:30 and I relayed the news to her. She was on her way and relieved that she could be here to be with me, and then there was another delay, until noon. We just waited.
Dr. Rajab’s assistant came to tell me about the latest delay and I asked him about the kidney. He said he wasn’t at liberty to talk about it but he did say that it was from a young man about a third my age, and it was a perfect match. The kidney was coming from Florida and would be at the airport at 11:30 and a helicopter would bring it to the hospital.
Finally, I was taken down to the OR. Dr. Rajab was asked what the delay was and he commented about red tape. Where did that kidney come from? I never found out but later he did tell me it was imported. From where, he wouldn’t or couldn’t say.
I was wheeled into the OR and I don’t remember falling asleep but I woke up over three hours later and then was taken to the “Presidential Suite”, actually two rooms where one had the bed and the other had a cabinet with a large TV, a sofa and side table with a telephone. I was taken into the second room to the hospital bed. I don’t know if there are any other suites like that in the hospital.
The next step was administering the immuno suppressant medicine—intravenously. During the process my whole body contracted and I had almost excruciating pain, which they said is common during the first dose. There were three doses over the day and by that time there was no pain during the process. The next step would be to take pills for the rest of my life in order to keep the kidney from being rejected.
A nurse coordinator told me that, since the kidney is a perfect match, in a year I should be able to have the immuno suppressant medicine reduced quite a bit.
I met a number of nurses that I had seen the year before and they were glad to see me. To them, I am a model patient, their favorite, some said. They were quite pleased with the progress I was making and by Friday I was ready to go home. They took the Permcath out of my left shoulder, and then holding the site for a half hour to prevent bleeding, placed a bandage over where it had been.
On Friday they got a wheelchair to take me down to the lobby to go home and as I passed by the nurses’ station, they all—all 10 of them—stood up and wished me well. I almost cried.
Lucy was waiting with Minerva, her niece, who was driving, and I finally was home and starting a new life, as it were. Retired, no dialysis, and trying to find how to handle it all.
My dialysis times were Saturday and Tuesday but on Monday I called early in the morning and they had a vacancy so I had dialysis that day which let me freely visit for the rest of the day and then go home on Wednesday. It was a worthwhile trip and I felt that God was with me many times throughout.
The trip home was at night so there was not much traffic. I got home around 8 o’clock Wednesday morning.
A week later, on Saturday, April 10, I got a phone call at 7:30 a.m. from Diane, a nurse at OSU Medical Center in Columbus. There was a kidney available and Dr. Rajab says it’s a perfect match, would I be interested?
I hesitated, and Diane noticed it. I told her I was still stinging from last year’s experience when I had a transplant which failed due to complications. I was in the hospital for four months. I don’t know if I’m ready for another go.
But by the end of the conversation I agreed to have them go through with it. She didn’t know all the particulars about it but would let us know when she got more information. She called later and gave us more info and then I gave her my cell phone number.
Later that evening, around 6:30, she called again and said that the surgery would be at 8:00 a.m. Sunday, and I was to come to OSU tonight. It just so happened that Minerva, Lucy’s niece, had some business in Columbus and she took me down to the hospital, a 75 mile trip.
I checked in and soon got a room. Doctors, nurses, technicians, and aides came to get my medical history, which is extensive, and get vials of blood.
I had a Permcath placed a couple months ago which was used for dialysis and they used it to take blood from my system. I did not have a needle stick throughout my stay at the hospital.
Lucy wanted to be with me before surgery but didn’t know if she would be able to be there before 8:00 a.m. but then I got word that there was a delay until 10:30 and I relayed the news to her. She was on her way and relieved that she could be here to be with me, and then there was another delay, until noon. We just waited.
Dr. Rajab’s assistant came to tell me about the latest delay and I asked him about the kidney. He said he wasn’t at liberty to talk about it but he did say that it was from a young man about a third my age, and it was a perfect match. The kidney was coming from Florida and would be at the airport at 11:30 and a helicopter would bring it to the hospital.
Finally, I was taken down to the OR. Dr. Rajab was asked what the delay was and he commented about red tape. Where did that kidney come from? I never found out but later he did tell me it was imported. From where, he wouldn’t or couldn’t say.
I was wheeled into the OR and I don’t remember falling asleep but I woke up over three hours later and then was taken to the “Presidential Suite”, actually two rooms where one had the bed and the other had a cabinet with a large TV, a sofa and side table with a telephone. I was taken into the second room to the hospital bed. I don’t know if there are any other suites like that in the hospital.
The next step was administering the immuno suppressant medicine—intravenously. During the process my whole body contracted and I had almost excruciating pain, which they said is common during the first dose. There were three doses over the day and by that time there was no pain during the process. The next step would be to take pills for the rest of my life in order to keep the kidney from being rejected.
A nurse coordinator told me that, since the kidney is a perfect match, in a year I should be able to have the immuno suppressant medicine reduced quite a bit.
I met a number of nurses that I had seen the year before and they were glad to see me. To them, I am a model patient, their favorite, some said. They were quite pleased with the progress I was making and by Friday I was ready to go home. They took the Permcath out of my left shoulder, and then holding the site for a half hour to prevent bleeding, placed a bandage over where it had been.
On Friday they got a wheelchair to take me down to the lobby to go home and as I passed by the nurses’ station, they all—all 10 of them—stood up and wished me well. I almost cried.
Lucy was waiting with Minerva, her niece, who was driving, and I finally was home and starting a new life, as it were. Retired, no dialysis, and trying to find how to handle it all.
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