Got my income taxes done on time this year and every silver lining has its cloud in that I owed a few bucks this time . The silver lining to that particular cloud was that it wasn’t all that much and it was in fact a debt much easier to meet having a lot more extra cash now that I can no longer afford the premiums for home owners insurance here in hurricane prone Florida .
With some of the money no longer going to the insurance company I’ve been busy lately setting up each window of the little un insured house with aluminum storm shutters . Some of those storm shutters were purchased lightly used and only once on a home in Pine Island Florida that was devastated by Hurricane Ian . After Ian took the roof and the water started to recede from window sill height the looters came to take the stove and water heater leaving the owners with only one thing that still had monetary value …. my new storm shutters .
The week after the storm shutter purchase the wife and I attended an advertised yard sale in a community of mixed mobile and manufactured homes . As we arrived the owner of the manufactured home was mowing the lawn in front of what was no more than three and a half walls with a blue tarp over it . Most of his neighbors were all gone as were many of their homes. The only things there for sale were valueless storm damaged junk that the man hoped beyond hope that there would be something that someone could want to buy .
” Born and raised right here in Florida … still too stupid to run away ”
That’s what he said about he and his wife riding out Hurricane Ian in that home and seven months after that storm they were still living under that blue tarp behind plywood windows . He mentioned they were coming in ten days to demolish what they were still living in and I asked
” Where you going ? ”
With ten days left they still didn’t know where they were going to go …..
But Hurricane Ian is old news now , and we have far more important issues on our news chanels now . Like Disney World and Critical Race ….. know what I’m saying ?
