BLAST FROM THE PAST

My brother, DeLoy, my mentor, my editor excellent, and my friend, made a suggestion for my blog:  Periodically you could run something like “Bits From My Past # x...xxx” and cover bits from your journal, etc. that your vast audience today may not know about. Here's a candidate entry for #1. 

How could I refuse an offer like that?

In 1910 I entered the following short essay in the Santa Barbara California Fair & Exposition. It’s a true story. It won a First Place in Creative Writing, Fiction, Short Story, Mystery. Never mind that it’s a true story. Truth is stranger than fiction, and I already had an entry in nonfiction, mystery. Part of its title is borrowed from a quote by Winston Churchill — on not ending sentences with a preposition.

 TAXES UP WITH WHICH

WE SHALL NOT PUT 

In 2005 

Our property taxes were $1,020.

In 2009, they are $1,800

--- up 76%.

We wish our retirement income

had increased as much.

According to Davis County,

Our house value went up $50,000 

In the past two years.

During a recession?

When homes were foreclosing, 

And houses weren't selling?

You wouldn't think

That painting our bathrooms

Green and blue

Would raise the value of our home

Quite THAT much!

 We suspect that officials

Have confused their budget shortfalls

With home appreciations,

And will therefore 

Appeal their

Faulty 

Math.

The County rejected our appeal for 2009.  The next year our house was evaluated less, in fact, exactly what DeRay said it was worth the year before; but they raised the mill levy 30% so the taxes went up again.  You can’t win, you know.