RUNNING FROM THE GAME

THE CALL CAME OVER THE PHONE during my weekend "floor time" at the office. I had just settled down with my one cup of coffee for the morning's run through cold calls, FSBO's (we say that as "fiz bo s") and updates to scheduled appointments for the other agents. "Hi... I think I need to... I want to list our home. I need to do something soon, can you come out this weekend... maybe write us up by Monday?" There had obviously been a recent crisis in someone's family. He wanted to list his home as urgently as the next business day. I responded with, "Sure. I can come out on Sunday or later today if you like. Would 2pm work for you or... I can probably work out an earlier 1pm if that's better." He accepted the earlier appointment and I hung up the phone. He was calling from the Hebrew correct community not far from my home in Southfield. Their's was a "walk about" community that bade them walk to service and assemblies on holy days. Their's was a seemingly tight knit community that stretched out to fund each other's needs and marry into and out of one another's family. Their's was all that, seen on my daily drives in and out of our community where I lived amid determination to draw independent subsistence by committing solutions to problems of other individuals. It was my job, my profession to be enhanced upon, that would help them climb their desired social status reflected by a comely residential appeal. I worked the property market supported by my office... the high three hundred thousands well into the multi million dollar homestead. It was a dream career and I was there to pull it through. Six months of working diligently on six client files was set to bring a net commission of well over two hundred ten thousand dollars. Other than expanding into land development of industrial real estate, I was reaching my "aurora." I did not have familiars of name, face nor locale but was determined to do what was necessary short of the "any means" touted by so many others in their aim to reach a goal. My job was to make my clients happy. That meant simply to find their best image to present their social status. Oakland County was my file source to fish out of and in to... that and a luxury resort develpment in the heart of Texas... Horse Shoe Bay, Texas.

Somewhere down along the line of pushing my client's want around the area, I fell. It was months after that first appointment was set for the couple in the Hebrew community. Some time after finding satisfactory walkout homesites for three physicians. It came after my rush through researched properties and options available for a gas station... not our office norm, but filled on a "plead thru" situation; and one gift purchase for a brother's wedding gift... a condo in a "well to do" neighborhood for one lucky couple. I was busily lining up a sales base for Sam Tarbet's resort when I lost my everything. I was called to come in on military orders for retraining... cross training as a land surveyor in the civil engineering unit I was attached to. There was no time to argue, alter or delay the decision for me to pick up travel orders and make my departure within the next three days. My sales files were assigned to the office sales manager, Steve Scholes by one of our two Realtor Brokers; with his "guarantee that my earnings would be available to me when I returned from military duty. To complicate the situation I returned home from the office to find an evicton note pasted to the back door. I had to be out of my dwelling place immediately... cause unexplained. My children were set to start school from that address the following week, one at the luxuriant Bloomfield-Lahser High School a short ride from our home. Monies from my earnings were slated for down payment on the other's attendance at Leelenau Private School further north after the upcoming scheduled tour. I was devastated.

Months earlier I had gotten a call pleading for help. It was the voice of my father, or the man I thought was my father as I had been told so many years ago while in my teens. Back then it was an appreciated revelation. I had long waited to meet my father, and this one appeared... self professed with supporting evidences of agreement by the older women in my life. He had provided an older sister and myself with cars and frequent visits to family gatherings which also culled a half brother from Oakland, California and the younger brother that lived with him. Over the years there had been a multitude of what became a traditional drive into Windsor Canada for a family round table at WONGS RESTAURANT and trips through GREEKTOWN for SOVLAKA. Over the years and on after the departure of his smallish wife, Ann; we had all grown comfortable in the family condition. Pride and Ambition was "par cor." It was a somewhat healthy competitive urgency that drew career and education to each individual finish line for a head held high above a brother or sister's own or that of any child or grandchild boasted to have come along. It was a "target practice and bullseye" competitive sport centered around money.

to be continued...