Lee was one of 19 children born to couple of sharecroppers in the Deep South. Twice as a young man he ran away. Twice the landowner had the sheriff bring him back in chains. Lee told me this story, informing me that into the 1960’s slavery still effectively existed in this country, but it had a different name – debt. The sharecroppers were tied to the land they worked by debts owed to the landowners for the shelter, food and seed they were forced to purchase from them.
Lee’s third attempt to escape was successful. He made his way to In the 1980’s he received a lump sum settlement for injuries he sustained in an accident. He used part of the proceeds for a down payment on a house on the street where I live. His house was the second on our 2-block street to be owned by a black family. I first became aware of Lee during my walks. I frequently came across him doing yard work for my neighbors and we started to exchange polite hellos in passing.
One day, I asked him if he was interested in caring for my yard. I wanted to give my husband of a summer free from yard chores as an anniversary gift. From that time, until the winter before he died, he took charge of our yard. Lee loved tending gardens and soon convinced me to plant a couple of trees and put in more flowers. Sometimes he hired someone to work with him. Lee and another (white) neighbor divided the care of about 80 percent of the houses on my block. Since I worked from home in those days, Lee and I gradually became friends through our chats on the days he did my lawn.
I can still hear his voice calling “Hey, Mare…” as he came around the back of the house (where I had my office) to remind me of some task that required doing or to ask if I had any extra jobs. Lee worked constantly at a multitude of different jobs. In the winter he did snow removal, in the spring, summer and fall, yard work, basement and attic cleanup, air conditioner installation and removal. He also regularly worked out at the local gym, where he was something of a legend for his prowess at weight lifting.
In May 2002 he and his crew moved my office from my house to downtown office space. He would sometimes drop by the new office to chat with me and my assistant.
When Lee bought his house, he took out a mortgage with a local bank. The bank sold his mortgage. During the 1990’s after property values in our neighborhood rose sharply, the mortgage company raised his interest rates and began charging heavy fees and penalties. It was only through the help of a good lawyer and the woman who loved him that Lee was able to pay off the mortgage and have the excess charges dropped. He came very close to losing his home. If the strange investment vehicles that have been developed since that time had been in existence, he probably would have lost his home, because the vehicles (like credit default swaps) are virtually impossible to unravel.
To this day I believe (1) the bank sold his mortgage because he was an uneducated black man; (2) the new mortgage company deliberately tried to foreclose on him and thought he was an easy target. My mortgage was with the same bank and until the day I paid it off, I was able to make my payments directly to the bank. Once Lee’s mortgage was sold, the place where he was supposed to send payments was changed several times and he confided to me that he received notice of the changes late and was given very little time in which to get his payments to them. Since credit card companies frequently use the tactic of shortening the grace period in order to collect exorbitant late fees and higher interest rates, I believed him. Additionally, time and again I saw evidence of his honesty.
When I hear of the obstacles people face trying to get their mortgages refinanced; paying escalating interest rates; balloon payments on loans they did not understand; inability to locate the current holder of the mortgage note, I think of what happened to Lee. This is part of the reason what has transpired in the financial industry over the past several years angers me. Money does not buy happiness. I know that. But I have yet to figure a way that folks can put a roof over their heads, food on their table, light and heat in their houses and clothes on their backs without it. And for the unwary, indebtedness is a form of involuntary servitude.
Every spring when the hyacinth and tulips bloom in my front yard, I see his face and believe that somewhere he is tending a beautiful flower garden under a bright but gentle sun. Lee was a friend of mine.
July 30, 2009
