Boo Bear

Perhaps it’s just my generation. Or maybe, it’s just getting older…

Every now and then, I will see something or hear a song that brings me back to a specific moment in my past that feels so real, so… as if it happened yesterday, kind of feeling that I either find myself smiling or frowning in the memory.

As many of you folks know, I am of late consumed with this court date I have in regards to Bank of America. A horrible company who in my opinion and in conjunction with brokerage companies are ripping off, reselling, and ruining the lives of many hard working folks not understanding what they are signing when either buying a house, doing a loan modification or refi. And, as I was one of those sad saps who didn’t read, didn’t know, didn’t understand the mechanics of what and how a bank, mortgage companies or in general what purchasing a house meant at the level of a financial commitment — as I was just fell in love with the wide open spaces, the wild horses that would roam onto my property and eat my newly planted tulips as if they were common to the landscape.

I fell in love with watching the occasional black bear run down the dirt road chased by some stupid kid on a suped-up ATV thinking he had the power to seriously chase a 400 pound, fully grown, large black bear out of the neighborhood for good. Then watch with satisfaction when the bear would finally halt this game of “chase me if you can” and stop; slowly turn, positioning himself in all his blackness and let out a sound that sounded like a primal scream timed by a million of his ancestors and directed to where the youth coming around the corner, in his brash cockiness, gunning his ATV as if the sound of the Quad would somehow match that of any truly large and now pissed animal. There is something so special when watching a cocky kid skid to a halt and even through the slits in his helmet — one could see the life of this kid pass before him and his bowels release in fear.

There is joy in that. Trust me. Perhaps, not for the teenager but from my position of just watching a bunch of wild mustangs eat my beloved tulips at the same time of watching a sassy kid shit his pants? There was so much joy to owning a house…

The joy of yesterday, finding one more paper to nail Bank of America on and the pain of trying to figure out in a non-passionate way to make it work in the brief I will be delivering for the judge this Tuesday. The pain of finally knowing how Bank of America and let’s be honest here, how most big banks do business — The pain of seeing how owning a home is never about just one pain or one pleasure but a journey, a family member made not of flesh but of plenty of blood and in my case — grief.

As I packed up all my bags of legal mumbo-jumbo carefully placing the items in my car at the ready for today —

I spied a black cat who came running at me, first with a vengeance, and then upon hopping in the back with all my paperwork began to rub against me and my mountain of bags and boxes dedicated to my destruction of Bank of America.

I stood there for the longest moment lost in the thought of friend or foe, or was this some sign? Some cosmic sign — was I on the right path? The wrong path? Or just in the way of a black cat who just wanted his head scratched?

Just thinking out loud…