D-Day in my family is a day that has always commanded reverence. I have five family members buried at Arlington National Cemetery, and June 6th was the date that marked the major turning point for the Allies in World War II. Ed and Big Matt were best buddies at West Point during the late 1930s, although they ended up in different divisions in the U.S. Army in the invasion of France. Big Matt, my mother’s first husband, came ashore with the 1st Division in the weeks after D-Day. He was among those caught up in the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944. And when the Nazis surrounded Bastogne, Big Matt was killed on Christmas Eve during the American evacuation.
Ed landed in France with the 3rd Division shortly after his buddy, and he commanded a tank battalion under General George Patton. Ed’s tank was blown apart and he was critically wounded by a German bazooka in the town of Kaiserslautern, Germany.
After the war, while he was recovering from his monstrous head wounds, Ed ended up marrying Big Matt’s widow and I was born two years later. But throughout my life, the toughest two days of the year for my parents were D-Day and Christmas Eve. Christmas was always tough on us kids because Mom inevitably retreated to her room and endlessly cried as she re-read all the old love letters that had come through the Army’s V-mail system.
My father always told me, hate the evildoer and have a fire in your belly for rooting out injustice. He hated racial injustice. He hated injustice against the poor, the widows, the handicapped, the religious minorities.
I’ve never gone through the kind of pain and suffering that so badly damaged my family during those years. But it’s probably why I occasionally take up a crusade against the rank rotteness of those who try to abuse their power over others.
Las Vegas homeowners are lucky in one respect: They have Darcy Spears of KTNV-TV, who does frequent investigative reports under the “HOA Hall of Shame” moniker. Her latest report involves a dysfunctional HOA called the First Light Homeowners Association.
The board of First Light is apparently somewhat vicious to many individual homeowners. They hate the spying, the discrimination, the retaliation, the indiscriminate towing of cars. People are afraid to go home. They’re afraid to open their mailboxes because of the threats, the fines, the foreclosures.
I should also mention the massive decline of property values in Las Vegas Homeowners Associations.
Caveat emptor, buyer beware.
First Light is a neighborhood you might not enjoy living in.
Texas has legislation that prevents HOAs from harassing homeowners over their display of the American flag. But that hasn’t stopped the Forrest Lake Townhouse Association from suing homeowner Billy B. Martin over his flag. Martin says the HOA’s flag at the clubhouse was tattered. The board members wouldn’t do anything about it. So he put up his own. That’s when the HOA started fining him $200 a day.
The president of this Houston HOA, Jim Elswick, refuses to comment to reporters. Get used to it, folks. These guys are trained by their HOA lawyers to never respond. Still, as a lifetime investigative reporter I can tell that the phrase, “No comment,” most often means “liar, liar, pants on fire.” I used to love it when the bad guys turned to my TV camera and said, “No comment.” Just loved it.
In any event, this neighborhood is so torn up by nastiness right now, that Houston Police had to be called to preserve the peace at an HOA board meeting.
The board argues that Martin’s flag will lower property values in the Forrest Lake Townhouse Association.
Tell me this: Would you buy a home in the Forrest Lake Townhouse Association?
No army can operate without generals, officers and foot soldiers. It’s the foot soldiers who are thrown into battle and suffer the most injuries and fatalities.
My father, a Lt. Colonel who commanded a tank battalion in Europe in 1945, was massively wounded when a bazooka hit his tank in the German town of Kaiserslautern.
All his life we kids asked him questions about being an officer in the military and what the experience was like. He refused to answer those questions, always referring to the heroism of foot soldiers who paid the highest price in the war to defeat facism. His biggest love in life was the common soldier who fought on the front lines.
My reason for writing this: There are foot soldiers in the war for a return to Constitutional rights in HOA Amerika. They don’t have websites, they don’t get interviewed, they don’t write talked-about books. But their research into the ugly, systematic abuse of homeowners, along with their ongoing emails which inform us of abuses we’d never know about otherwise, are invaluable in our battle.
Cynthia.
Jim.
Brad.
Nila.
Jonathan.
And many others.
Our community is too small, because we’re able to identify most of our ranks by first names only. But it’s growing, I promise you it’s growing.
No, actually it was about 283 HOA dollars a day. But the treasurer of the Stratford Homeowners Association in a well-to-do suburb of Augusta, Georgia, is facing theft charges.
Laurie Wainwright-Vanover now stands accused of stealing more than a quarter million bucks from her Homeowners Association over a four year period. She was treasurer of her association and had access to the dues paid by all her neighbors.
Of course, she’s not guilty until proven so in a court of law. Unless she pleads guilty, innocent by reason of insanity or….better yet? How about this for a defense: Since we’re living in an era of redistribution of wealth, all she was doing was trying to help carry out national policy. Who knows? People who embezzle from their neighbors sometimes come up with some goofy excuses for doing so.
