Blog #176

Unclaimed Property!  That’s what they call it in the State of Missouri.  The Office of the State Treasurer accumulates uncashed checks and unclaimed awards and who-knows-what-else through their right of escheat.  No, escheat is not what you did on your 9^th grade geometry test.  It is the right of the government to take unclaimed property.  The Treasurer’s Office periodically publishes a list of the “rightful owners” and waits in ambush for any naïve fool who thinks he or she can wheedle anything out of them.

I was one of those fools once.  My brother died some years ago.  My brother was the original Libertarian.  He had no doctor, no will, no health insurance and no desire to deposit the AT&T dividend checks.  You see, when my grandmother died in 1961, she left a few shares of AT&T stock to me, my sister and my brother. My sister, who was twice voted The Craziest Woman in North America, immediately sold hers and bought cat food.  My brother threw his in the trash.  But AT&T dutifully sent him dividend checks anyway.  The checks also wound up in the trash.  Soon, AT&T became Qwest, Southwestern Bell, Bell South, Verizon and probably Dunkin’ Donuts, and all of them sent him dividends – for 40 years. 

A few years after he died, a friend of mine was looking at the Unclaimed Property list and saw my brother’s name, hundreds of times.  All those uncashed dividend checks had piled up at the Treasurer’s office and were there for the taking.  Well, not so fast.  When my brother died without a will, his meager estate was divided among myself and the two people in the world he hated the most – his father and his sister.  If that news had reached him, wherever the Hell he went, he would have certainly turned over in his grave.  By the time I began this Quixotic quest for Holy Dividends, both my father and sister had died. 

To satisfy the state, I had to prove my brother was dead and died without a will. Then I had to prove my father had died and provide his will (he left everything to me); the same for my sister (she left everything to her cats).  This was an endeavor only slightly less complicated than obtaining a Top- Secret Security Clearance from the Kremlin.  Once I had all of that paperwork teed up, I thought I was home free.  But so did Dorothy when she landed in Munchkin Land.

You see, my brother lived in various places during his adult life and the uncashed checks had been mailed to many addresses.  I had to prove that my brother had lived in those places.  A simple utility bill would suffice, but he had lived in some of those places so long ago, I wasn’t sure utilities had been invented yet.

This whole procedure took me two years after which I received about a thousand dollars for my efforts.  Six months after that, I received an official letter from the Office of the State Treasurer informing me I needed to return all the money because they had, in their calculations, neglected to provide for my sister’s cats.  I am not making any of this up.  By this time, my brother was not only turning over in his grave, he was doing it Gangnam Style.  I threw the letter in the trash and never heard from them again.

Last week, my wife’s cousin noticed her grandfather’s name was on that unclaimed property list.  She asked me to help her locate four generations of legal paperwork, family trees and utility bills.  I sent a note that I had moved to Moscow and become a spy.

That whole story is true and was the subject of an article I recently wrote for a legal website called Probate Stars.com.  It is the place to go to answer all your questions about what to do with Aunt Frieda’s stuff when she dies.  I thought I’d share the article with you.  And yes, I do write for other people.  It sounds so sordid, doesn’t it?  But I never let them see my limerick.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to get all famous on you.  I don’t want to be famous.  I’m in a really good place -- my family loves me; you tolerate me and the IRS has lost my address.  But, as Ishmael said, I try all things. I achieve what I can.  And if you don’t know who Ishmael is, you’re in the wrong blog

Hi there and welcome back.  I hope you’re feeling healthy, wealthy and wise.  I know you’re doing your best to stay healthy in this pandemic.  And I know you’re being wise because you’re reading my blog.  But wealthy?  You know how you can recognize a wealthy person?  To a wealthy person, the word summer is a verb.

Message from Shakespeare:  Some glory in their birth, some in their skill, some in their wealth (Sonnet 91.)  My wealth is having two nice old folks who love me and a warm porch to sleep on.

I used to get my email on Outlook, but this week it crashed.  My daughter Abby set me up to get it on Gmail, so now I have to learn to navigate that.  Gmail places my mail into three categories.  Primary is all the correspondence from friends and loyal readers.  Promotions are things like messages from Kohl’s and Costco and all the nursing homes just slobbering to have me move in. The third category is called Social.  I clicked on it.

Your Social Tab is Empty.  That’s what it said.  I began to cry.  Well, I guess I deserve it.  After all, I’m not on Facebook or Twitter or anything else.  You see, I suffer from – here comes the Weekly Word -- neophobia, the fear of new things that disrupt my 74-year-old routines.  Things like books that you read on a device, flavored water, kale pesto and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez.  But I am the most neophobic about social media.

For Twitter I don’t give a damn

Don’t Facebook and won’t Instagram

Just a lonely old chap

Who does not know WhatsApp

What an old-fashioned loser I am.

I need a hug.  I’ll settle for your coming back next week.  Though I won’t be on Facebook or Twitter, I will be here.  So stay well and count your blessings and check out that Unclaimed Property list.

Michael                                    Send comments to:  mfox1746@gmail.com