Chapter Three

Something kept me from posting Chapter Three. I tried a couple of times and it didn't work so I stopped.
It was a sign, perhaps.
I knew I did not want to post all bazillion emails I sent to the town, the town's lawyer, the newspapers, secretary of state, politicians, governor, and myself. I wanted to post the 2 responses I got, one promising to send me proof I was contacted (never received) and an apology from the lawyer who had a conflict of interest but still made $1,000 while we did not have Christmas that year. But I cannot.
Suffice it to say these things happened. And if you do not believe me, seeing the letters won't convince you anyway.
The data I wanted to post were all mysteriously hijacked by adobe and un-paste-able in these posts.
No, it is not like the dog ate my homework.
It is indeed more of the mystery of the stranger than fiction reality of property tax lien sales.
Hard to define, explain, track down.
Impossible, it seems, to reform, call attention to and correct.
The German ancestors crying in their sleep about the dollars wasted here being mined or milked by taxmen, lawyers and carpetbaggers.
Can someone wake and see the tide of incivility where a quaint little town like this sleepy camelot might threaten a girl's property and not see fit to talk to her, know who she is, what she is fighting?
It all sounds so unreal that I know I risk losing more readers to games, shopping, or baking cookies.
So Chapter Three will be short and sweet. A promise of more data as I can collate it,
and other experiences to demonstrate my demands for reform every day that I live on this travelogue of life.
mary gerdt, monkton, vermont

The reporter in me

I read Dick Tracy with the watch phone and watched countless movies about reporting, news. I did radio announcing competitively in high school but ranted twice too fast and did not breathe for a precise amount of time (got the time limit right). So blogs can overload too, but some things must be said. It is the reporter in me. This is a woman's issue, a landowner's issue, a person with MS's issue, a citizen with constitutional rights, etc.
I said it in a poem but it is not fiction. I'll never stop trying to stop towns from selling poor white nurse with MS's property without even a whisper to her. My choices involvce painful roads but I must take my time evaluating the facts of which only become obscured with time.
I have plenty of time.
What a difference a day makes.




One day I owe taxes, the next day a check bounces and I owe 8 percent more.



One day the town decides to sell my property without telling me



The day before they sell my property a check is paid and no sale.







One day later, I am glad the bank did not foreclose on my mortgage



Even though I knew about none of it.



It was in the pay version of the paper that I don’t read



It was posted in the places I don’t go in town,







Did people who despise me snicker when they saw my name in the town report I never received.



Is it my fault for feeling safe finally in our home we have made, sinking our roots



Which are entwined with the roots of Fred’s ancestors?



You know, the ones I talk to.







I slept in fits after receiving a letter of condescension reminiscent of feudal England.

I edited this after my rage subsided...: the following is my version of a letter that did not address any of my questions regarding my not being notified of tax sale of my property. It only said here is a list of delinquent properties (many many) and the policy that says we can sell at any time we want (even though they only picked 4). Also that this would answer all my questions (it did not answer any of them)

My interpretation:

You deserve shame, being singled out, you don’t deserve to own this or live here or question this or that.



Pay all you have to the tax ogre.



He won’t talk to you, you are a female.







I kept waking up, do I go to a lawyer? State’s attorney? Elected officials? Public? No where?



Then I saw the angel, I was half asleep, twilight of consciousness.



Not a she nor he angel,



Just an angel.



I slept.

Intro and a poem

Herrad gave me a wonderful award which I am grateful for.
Today, I was again trying to make sense of a process where the Town of Monkton tried to sell my property and I still have never seen the paperwork or the notes of why us?
I even asked the "Addy Indy" for a copy of whatever legal notice was allegedly posted in the pay version of the paper (I read the online) that some residents saw but I still have not received it or seen it.
So in the absence of real info, my imagination runs wild, knowing a few facts
Like the conservation committee minutes were talking about tax sales.
The town did not post minutes on the website (even if they don't have to),
The fact that there is a website leads me to think of that as a way to communicate.
When I saw "tax sale" in the minutes I had no idea it was me.
Apparently, I as the female co owner of a property must rely on my husband to tell me the bad news.
When friends have said they know of many couples who might fall victim to this fate.
That the Male landowner/husband is all the town needed to tell. Fair warning to all you "minor" AKA "Chattell" landowners.With gay marriage legal now, I wondered who the husband might be?
Apparently being 9 months late on property taxes can be soon enough for the town to sell your property, especially if it abuts some natural area.
So I thought I would get this out of my system well before my holiday of Christmas.
It is my way of processing what the 1st ammendment allows me to name "eco terrorism".

I am.

I am an endangered species,

A human seeking shelter, food, happiness.



Finding instead the hate of human beings as unpalatable as a deer finds a rotten acorn and spits it out.

I wish I could spit out all the hate that has come my way.



People are funny about wanting to save bobcats and ravens and bats

While ignoring the people who live on this property that our ancestors fought for

And paid for

Over and over again with taxes, blood, sweat and tears.



Yes the bobcat has an ally,

The bobcat I saw one morning a year or so ago,

Thinking maybe he was looking out for me, the

Endangered human. He took my breath away, this simple creature.

The ravens or crows or I call them Prussian eagles of my fantasy world

Call to me, click, crow and fly over with the whooshing sound of their wings, telling me perhaps,

"Welcome home", hoping I will stay because they like our leftover stale bread and bits of fat

And conversation as We greet Pa Crow in the morning, like my Celtic friend advised.



Could any of the screaming conservationists come and hug me,

Not my trees

And talk to the crows, not ravens, and call the

Mountain its first given name? *



I have felt like the people around me feel I have no right to something I work every day to hang onto,

Until some one finds a way to take it from me,

And perhaps that will be a good time for me to go extinct,

Knowing there will be no one to argue that

"She had a right to live here like the bobcat, crows, bats and the Prussian eagles."



God help the people who lurk about and cannot face my face and talk to me.

God help the people who want to take from me the only things I have ever owned.

God help the people who place animals above citizens,

Trees above the people who own and love them,

Bobcats over my grandchildren

Land over civility.

Fair warning to others in my situation.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Dean Mountain
  Dean's Cave

02/12/11. update.
I still have not received anything from the town explaining to me what the process was
whereby they decided to sell my property. I own 2 parcels.
I still have received nothing from the addy indy as I requested a copy of what was in their pay newspaper,
I feel is not public it is private when they charge money.
I still have not received more than a sorry so sad letter from all the entities I have written.
I consulted an attorney who advised me it costs a lot to go against city hall and that the
parties who orchestrated this will lie and never "break down on the stand like a Perry Mason show"
I know the court system now. It is a hostile environ. All I can do now is keep writing about Vermont's dirty secret. In fact, just google Vt property tax lien sales and find out how you too can cash in on the foreclosure of property by local municipalities to pay education and municipal taxes. mary gerdt, monkton, vt

Sprachlos

Sprachlos is one German word I use instead of the English "speechless".



In fact Speechless implies "less speech".


When in fact Sprachlos is the absence of speech.


No speech.


That slack jawed look when your chin drops and you breathe faster and your chest heaves up and down in agonizing sighs.


Your eyes fall to the floor, your posture slacks.


You are beaten down. You cannot even talk.


You are Sprachlos.


You do not believe what you just heard.


When you stop speaking it is in the spirit of denial.


Ego protective.


This couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn’t have happened.


Preposterous, outrageous, outlandish, sickening,


The feeling in the pit of your stomach.


Is sprachlos physical? Psychological?


Can more than one person be affected?


Does anyone react when they see the signs?


What do you say when you begin to speak again?






German proverb: Be Silent. Or say something better than silence.


I am sprachlos.






Mary Gerdt