Within the City Limits of Atlanta, there is a tony neighborhood known as "Buckhead." It is recognized widely as the most celebrated address from which to hail. Having built there in the last few years, it occurred to me that the name had to have come from somewhere. In the chitter-chatter of builders and Realtors a story came out about the origins of the name that piqued my interest.
According to the story I heard, 100 years ago, at what is now the intersection of (older) Northside Drive and Mt. Paran Road, there was a general store. This was easy to verify in that, indeed, there is a general store there that has been there for about 100 years. The current owners have owned it for a few years. Nice couple, they provide some of the best breakfast fixin's anywhere and construction crews and bank presidents wait in line in the morning to get their biscuits.
So anyway, this crossroad was a busy spot in the piney woods even a century ago. For want of the kind of maps we enjoy today, most people who wanted to meet anywhere would use landmarks and street intersections to give directions. In the case of the intersection of Northside and Mt. Paran Rd., according to the story, they would reference the general store. More specifically, the buck head that the original owners had placed up over the door. Meet me at the "buck head" store became the reference that most everyone in that area of Atlanta knew and understood. Wait, I know you're thinking that this has to be a hoax. I certainly did when I first heard it from a realtor. In fact, several notable locals confirmed that this story was one that they had learned from a young age, though the location I had identified was suspect.
I approached the current owner of the store about this and he smiled and said, "Well, I don't know if it's true or not. I don't care, as long as it brings people in." An affable fellow, he wasn't much help. Well, this was the story I believed until another story surfaced that has apparently been credited with more authenticity. In this tale, one Henry Irby had a general store and tavern located at West Paces Ferry and Roswell Road, which is in the heart of the commercial area Atlantans generally conceive of as Buckhead. In this tale, like the other, Mr. Irby hung a large head of a buck somewhere on his establishment and that became the landmark mentioned in the other story. In fact, the area was known as Irbyville until it was annexed by the City of Atlanta in 1952.
Whichever tale is true, there is apparently some credence to the fact that Buckhead was indeed a name derived from the head of a deer. Buckhead, the community, has prospered for over a century and now possesses the ninth wealthiest zip code in America (30327). According to Forbes,the average income is around $350,000. per year and the average home value is about $750,000. (To convert that to California Real Estate values, add a zero). Buckhead is the home of the Governor's Mansion, along with the highest concentration of upscale boutiques in America. Not satisfied with those milestones, the area's developers decided to raze an entire row of night spots (especially after a rash of shootings, rapes, robberies and general mayhem began to become the theme of the area) in the heart of the community and create a mixed-use area intended to top even Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. That is currently on hold, more or less, due to the economy but it will be completed, sooner or later. The wealthy still have their wealth and wanna-be wealthy neighbors will always flock to their stores.
On the residential side, many mega-mansions sit idle, newly built, waiting for someone to buy them. My builder friends in Buckhead, however painful the lull has been, are already buying up lots and finalizing architectural plans for the next surge in the cycle of home building. Some things never change......
With the rain falling again today, I will continue the renovation work inside. One of those tasks that I have avoided successfully is the replacement and rewiring of the lighting in the main living area. As a retired home builder, the obvious question might be, "Why are you so reluctant to do this?" The long answer is that every home builder has strengths and weaknesses. Though I feel I have strengths, my nemesis is electricity. Not that I don't understand how it all fits together, in most cases, I've just carried some kind of terror at getting electrocuted my entire life. I'm sure the seeds of this are psychological imprints from my upbringing. My dearly departed father, bless his soul, did not know which end of a screwdriver was the business end. He was terrified of electricity and somehow this gestated in my consciousness during my impressionable years.
Too, our house has been "redone" before, some years ago. The person or persons that did it, without professional help, created what I would call a plethora of spider-web wiring that is nothing short of ridiculous. I have seriously thought of finding them and giving them a piece of my mind - or a well-attended public flogging.
On several occasions, I have employed a friend who is an electrician to assist me in avoiding my wife and me dying in an electrical fire. I've also spent a fair amount of effort over the past 6 months deleting wiring that ends up, uncapped, in the middle of the attic; sealing junction boxes that hold live wires but have no cover; fixing switches that activate, well, nothing, and replacing other switches that snap, crackle and pop when turning something on. I trust that by now, I have eliminated most of the "hot spots" in our home's wiring. Today, however, the hunt must continue. (See how much time I've wasted already?)
I could go on and on about my delightful discoveries but the point, and I'm sure I have one, is that regardless of my knowledge level, I still fear electricity. I've been "bitten" before, many times, but knowing that it takes a mere .7 amps to stop the heart in the correct location, it gives one pause. In my case, pause is translated to incredible periods of procrastination. Rained in today, I cannot reasonably explain not doing my rewiring. It must be done, sheetrock patched and finished, before I can paint the interior. Don't you just hate logic?
I suppose the main reason I'm telling this story is that my wife will be out of the house today and if you don't hear from me by noon, please call Fire & Rescue.
On September 15th, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. The Bush administration earlier that week had stepped in to save Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Why, with the likes of the bailout of AIG and others, did Henry Paulsen, then Secretary of the Treasury, under Bush, allow Lehman to fail? This was also orchestrated in a meeting called by then President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner, our current Treasury Secretary.
Through statements made at that time, it was felt by Paulsen and others that: a) the public appetite for huge bailouts had been reached; b) Lehman, unlike AIG and other beneficiaries of the Government, would not have the same global impact if allowed to fail; and most importantly, c) Congress was unwilling to act to provide rescue funds at that time as they languished in finger-pointing and a lack of will. This, then, was the real reason Lehman Brothers was allowed to fold. It was to create enough of an explosion to get Congress to act. It worked. The firm founded in 1850 became the sacrificial lamb.
This is not to suggest that Lehman Brothers did not have problems. It was in serious trouble. It had closed down its sub-prime mortgage division, BNC Mortgage, in August of 2007. The damage from sub-prime mortgages, however, had already been done. Oddly, it had held on to both the mortgages and other securitized mortgage instruments. The Lehman holdings in debt swaps was also enormous, leading the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to hold an unprecedented trading session on September 14th for traders to offset their positions, on the promise that Lehman would enter bankruptcy that day. In fact, Lehman did file the next morning. The official records of the Bankruptcy court show that Lehman had $768 billion in debt and $639 billion in assets. The Lehman Brothers employees all packed up and went home.
The Lehman Brothers debacle did what it was "intended" to do. Shortly thereafter, the tumbling markets, triggered by the failure of one of America's venerable old investment firms, forced Congress to act. Thus, the TARP funds, to the tune of $700 billion, was passed by Congress in a surreal environment of cooperation with the Bush administration. No economist, of whatever ilk, doubted that this was needed. The markets continued to bleed and the rest, as they say, is history.
They also say that hindsight is 20/20. Much has been written about the decisions a year ago for the selective euthanasia employed by our government officials. With the storm seemingly behind us, the history being written today seems to gloss over the real impetus for Lehman's failure. Most of us have difficulty in conjuring up the terror we all felt at what could possibly happen from a complete global meltdown. In that sense, we all have walked away from that day one year ago. For 26,200 Lehman employees, it is still all too fresh in their minds.
In the ethereal world of politics, one topic that has caused me great consternation is the debate over illegal immigration. Ideologically, it makes sense to secure one's borders, if for no other reason than national security. Common sense dictates that you can't just have anyone coming into the country who might be carrying a suitcase nuclear weapon. In this regard, the debate is, intellectually, a moot one.
Then, there is the practical world we live in. Hispanics have been sneaking into our country for decades to find work. Migrant workers out west were always allowed in to provide the labor not otherwise available to pick crops for the agricultural industry. We just looked the other way. It was a convenient and symbiotic partnership that provided a win-win situation. That, of course, paved the way for a flood of illegal aliens into the United States during the last half of the 20th century and the proverbial caca began to hit the fan. Many unskilled and semi-skilled based businesses began to choose the cheap labor from across the border rather than the more expensive domestic laborer. Soon, more ambitious immigrants started their own businesses with this cheap resource, effectively putting American small enterprises out of business.
Nowhere has this impact been felt more profoundly than in the construction trades. We in the industry have witnessed an entire generation of craftsmen displaced through this invasion. Stone masons, carpenters, painters, roofers, electricians and so forth have become predominately of a foreign extract and the American component has dwindled away. For this reason alone, there has been a lot of animosity towards illegal immigration and the loss of "craftsmanship" that many feel has been lost, forever. In reality, the only remaining craftsmen who can survive do so in the high-end niche of home building and commercial finish-out trades. A few "natives", employing foreign labor, survive by running the largely illegal crews so that they can compete cost-wise with purely foreign crews.
The last two years have been withering for the foreign workers. Many have returned home. Others survive in a catch-as-catch-can attitude towards work. Some headed into commercial construction with their American counterparts, only to face what appears to be a looming meltdown in commercial construction. But I intended this to be a human interest piece. It is about a young man we'll call Paco. We won't divulge his real name as he is an illegal alien.
Paco came to America, illegally, 12 years ago when he was 13. He has worked hard and now owns a home (in a legal relative's name), has a beautiful wife who is legal and two children. He did a lot of trim carpentry for me and is quite gifted at what he does. He lives in a metro Atlanta county that is, let's say, trying very hard to crack down on illegals. His brother (who is a citizen) has been stopped by this county's police forces several times, roughed up a couple of times and generally been harassed to the point that he's moving elsewhere. Bravo, say some. Paco's wife, again, a citizen, has had the same treatment in the same county. Tough break, say others.
Without getting bogged down in that story, however, it is incumbent on me to comment on Paco's character. He is doggedly honest, despite being cheated out of money by others. Paco is a tireless worker, who gives everything he has to produce the best possible outcome for those who employ him. He is generous to a fault. In other words, Paco's crime of coming here illegally is not important to me. He has helped me renovate the exterior of my home charging me only for his discounted time and actual material costs. The other day, when I told him that I was over budget and would have to complete some incidental work on my own, he told me: "No, I will finish what I started - no charge!" I just looked at him amazed and he said, "Don't worry. You are my friend." How would I feel if he were deported? Crushed.
This is my dilemma. I support the idea of secure borders. But in my experience, I have never seen people work so hard, for so little, to the benefit of Americans in general. Both the industry who profits from them, and the home buyers and commercial lease holders who pay less because of this cheap labor, we all have benefited from their presence. Many of them I call my friends. The economy has reduced the sense of urgency of the issue in that the border crossing has now become stagnant. I will forever be torn, though, as my heart and my head cannot come to terms as to what is fair.
Within the City Limits of Atlanta, there is a tony neighborhood known as "Buckhead." It is recognized widely as the most celebrated address from which to hail. Having built there in the last few years, it occurred to me that the name had to have come from somewhere. In the chitter-chatter of builders and Realtors a story came out about the origins of the name that piqued my interest.
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