The aged, large Brown trout, a trophy sought after by all who angled this or any section of the epic Colorado River headwaters, finned slowly at the lowest depths of a pool, languid, sated and content with his latest conquest of the fat Fall caddis flies that had sought respite upon the placid surface of his pool only to find, too late, that the serene waters upon which they had lit were but the antithesis of respite, rather, it was a canvas for slaughter, not unlike a sleek wooden cutting board that exists for the sole purpose of faunal relief before their methodical and intentional dismemberment, that which is necessary prior to the feast.
The Brown continued to rest, satisfied with all that he had accomplished, living at that moment within a state of supreme bliss; the thought of future glories or excesses nonexistent in his feeble brain, certainly not at this point of ultimate contentment and self-satisfaction.
And then, upon the surface of his domain, a ripple, a tremble showing desperation….the hint of a struggle, perhaps even weakness.…caught the Brown’s attention. Could there be room in his near-to-bursting stomach for another fat morsel; could one ever have too much of a good thing?
Without even thinking, even in his limited vision of what thinking and reasoning involved, the Brown shoots to the surface, mouth agape, ready to blindly gulp one more chunk of what, at first glance, albeit peripherally, seems appealing.
'Glump'….water is sucked in, along with the fat treat. 'Chomp', as the prey is quickly incised, tasted and devoured. These two naturally spasmodic actions, 'Glump' and 'Chomp', are but a split second apart from being simultaneous.
Next, a sting in the upper jaw, a pain so profound, quickly followed by a strain, a violent tug, then a steady flow that pulls and yanks at the Brown’s jaw with an intensity heretofore unimagined or experienced. Screaming downward, back to the safety of his pool, the tug gets stronger, and the pain more intense. He shakes his head violently to and fro, hoping to rid himself of whatever he has encountered, but to no avail; the unseen force continues to pull, and the burning in his mouth has now found its way into the bone and throughout his whole being. He continues to shake his head, he continues to circle his pool, his domain, but the tug and the pain persist and intensify. His energy spent, he gives in and follows the upward force, and in doing so, the pain in his mouth begins to lessen and the resultant shock to his body diminishes as well. He gives himself up to this higher force, his previous state of indolent satisfaction now replaced by an intense desire to survive, to vanquish the suffering which has been inflicted by this source unseen.
He breaks the surface, fleetingly seeing a world and a life that he’d never imagined, that he never knew existed so close to his world. Now in the grasp of the unknown force, he knows only that he is no longer in his world, he knows he doesn’t like this new world, but he has abdicated to this unknown place; sadly, he has no cognitive notion of the pain, the suffering and the violent demise that ultimately and swiftly will befall him as he crosses into this threshold unknown, in what he believes is a defensive measure necessary for his survival.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On December 27th, 2007, at approximately 5:00 PM MST, in front of family both immediate and in-law, a banker, a title company representative, a realtor and Abner Renta, my wife and I signed papers that made us joint owners of The Riverside Hotel, Bar & Restaurant.
Abner had signed his papers earlier in the day, and the money, $690,000, was already in his bank account. Nearly half of that money would immediately transfer to an individual who had loaned Abner $300,000 as an “investment” – an investment that not only earned the investor no dividends, but Abner had never even paid him a penny of the principal, as was their initial agreement and a condition of the loan. While this sucker made none of the promised gains, at least he got out whole.
We arrived at the hotel at 4:30 PM, having pulled a 9’x12’ U-Haul trailer, loaded with a sofa, chairs, our big screen TV and scads of other knick knacks, pictures, decorative items and on and on….the first load of what would ultimately be three additional loaded 9x12 U-Haul trailers and two 25’ Penske trucks comprised of all that we had acquired in 28 years of wedded bliss. The drive had been brutal, with a sideways snowstorm through most of Kansas the evening before, Julie sick as a dog, and the final push into Colorado, over Loveland Pass, up the icy roads, twists and turns of the Blue River Valley and slowly into Hot Sulphur…our new home that welcomed us after this bitch of a traverse like a massive mousetrap welcomes a timid mouse on an innocent quest for a bit of cheese.
The deal was for Abner to have all of his personal belongings out of the hotel at the hour of closing. The deal also included Abner leaving all of the furniture and fixtures germane to the operation of the hotel in place, as they were included in the price of the hotel. As you don’t have to imagine, the opposite had occurred. Anything of worth, including most of the nice antique pieces in the lobby and the rooms, were noticeably absent…absconded by Abner and held in whereabouts unknown.
Still present in the hotel, particularly in Abner’s living quarters, was his personal junk, trash, garbage…the effluvium of 20 years of pack-ratted living….the very shit of life that a person such as me or anyone would assume that they were paying hard money not to have to deal with. That shit, he left for us.
Step back and imagine me for a second, going into this major life altering venture, having driven through a blizzard, hauling a trailer with a sick wife and reluctant business partner, and walking into our new home, the previous owner sitting in one of the shit stained chairs that he was gracious enough to leave behind, sipping on champagne and chomping on celebratory shrimp that the realtor had provided, throwing the shrimp shells on the floor next to the worthless garbage that he hadn’t moved from the hotel, (not next to the antiques that I’d thought we purchased),…and as I'm smoldering to the point of spontaneous combustion, he says to me “I’ve got my personal effects in the back room, where I’ll still live for a while, if that’s OK with you? I've got nowhere else to go....sniff”
I took a Grand Canyon-esque deep breath and walked back into the living quarters. In one of the back rooms, actually the nicest back room…one that Abner and his kept illegal hadn’t fouled, were Abner’s clothes, personal effects and, believe this or not, his slippers sitting neatly near the side of the bed, his robe laid neatly on the bed and his toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste at the sink (this was a huge shock, taking into account the condition of his fetid dentia).
He sold us the building, he cashed his $690,000 check, he took and sold all of the good stuff out of the hotel, left the garbage and the trash, and still planned on living in the hotel rent free, with us, in the nicest room in the house.
If balls were cash, Abner would have the financial wherewithal to scare Bill Gates and Warren Buffet out of a game of Texas Hold-Em.
………….To Be Concluded
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Abner Renta.......Setting the Hook
Abner was broke.
Flat busted, tits-up, in the hole, impoverished, financially depleted, in the red, destitute, insolvent….you get the picture.
However, of paramount importance to this story was the fact that I didn’t get the picture, or worse and more to the truth, I knew but refused to get the picture.
Abner hadn’t paid his property taxes for three years. I learned, after not paying my property taxes the second year we owned The Riverside, that this wasn’t the end of the world. Kind hearted individuals would step up and pay your taxes, and when you could finally pony up with the money, you would pay your taxes to the County, plus a penalty and interest, which the kind hearted knights in shining armor would reap. CD’s were earning 2% and the stock market was anywhere from losing 100% to breaking even if you were lucky; buying up late property taxes and cashing in on the interest when finally paid netted the investor 10% interest – risk free.
Here was the ugly part, and the reason why Abner pleaded with a total stranger over the phone for a loan of $10,000. You had three years to get right with the County, at which point the kind hearted soul who saved your ass with the County by paying your taxes, at the worst case would gain 10% interest, but a best case scenario they would have first lien against your property when they sold it on the courthouse steps, 3 years to the date of your delinquency.
Simply put, let’s say I owed the County $6000 in property taxes on February 10th, 2004. I didn’t pay the money, but some nice guy did, and the County is cool, as they get their six grand and don’t even bother sending me a nasty notice. I pay $7000 one year later, for the 2003 tax, of which the nice guy gets $6600, and the County gets the $400 penalty. If I can’t pay the $7000 the following year, the compound interest grows into the next year and the next, until you hit three years past due. Let’s say I pay nothing for three years, as was Abner’s case, then on February 10th, 2007, on the courthouse steps in the County of Grand, CO, my property is auctioned off to the highest bidder – the nice guy that plopped down that initial $6000 investment three years ago gets the first grab at his six grand and 10% compounded interest over three years – that’s almost $2000 on a $6000 risk-free investment. In these and any times, buying up property taxes is a good investment. Instead of buying a dilapidated haunted shithole of a hotel, possibly I should have looked at that as a means to making a buck in Grand County…..but alas!
Abner was two weeks away from that three-year delinquent courthouse steps auction. He was about to lose the thing that he’d put 20 years of blood, sweat, tears and all of his monetary wherewithal into - his financial life was literally flashing before his eyes, and the ending was a cataclysmic event, from which there was no recovery; at best we’re talking homeless shelters, if they would have Abner and his cantankerousness.
The first $10,000 got Abner out of immediate trouble with the County and the really unpalatable ‘sale on the courthouse steps’ thing, which was bearing down on Abner to the point where it made Father Time look like a lazy good-for-nothing slacker. The next $10,000 that we sent went towards the next year of unpaid taxes and “a little credit card debt that I’ve compiled….”, a nervous little laugh accenting this profession. After submitting this second financial resurrection, now $20,000, we were a little more serious about buying the place, and we figured worst case, we’d get it back with interest if we didn’t buy The Riverside and one of the multitudes of interested parties that Abner had on the hook did buy the place.
A few blogs back I took a personal break to relate a childhood incident, possibly directly unrelated to the purchase of The Riverside, but probably subliminally related to the purchase of The Riverside – i.e. my early in life failed quest for the attainment of Sainthood. While I didn’t have a sit down with myself to discuss this, again subliminally, the notion of redemption and being back on the active board for Sainthood-liness festered in the dark recesses of my red-flag ignoring, financially deficient mind.
A visit to my banker in KC to discuss my wild notion of buying The Riverside wrought the following discussion. This was a banker that had financed my business for years, through times both lean and hardy – we’d become pretty good friends…as friendly as a banker can become with a borrower.
“We’ve found this place in Colorado that we’re considering buying. It’s a historic hotel in a beautiful little town. It’s something we’ve always considered doing, and now with the sale of the business, I think we’ve got the wherewithal to make it happen. I’ve got cash flow projections and pro formas for the next five years that I’d like you to look at. Any chance UMBig Bank would be willing to consider this?”
“Without even looking at your numbers, I’d be pretty certain that it’s not a loan we’d consider. Let’s be honest…you don’t have any experience in this type of business, and it’s in a remote spot that we wouldn’t be interested in investing in” said my friend, the banker, really looking out for me at this point and of course I FAILED TO SEE IT!!!
“But you’ve got locations in Denver! You’re trying to establish interests in Colorado.”
“Right, but they’re pretty selected investments in Colorado. Here’s the deal…we’re hesitant to loan money to established Kansas City restaurateurs with locations around the corner from our banks, let alone your venture, someone new to the business trying to make a go of it in the middle of nowhere.”
(A financially savvy friend, whose financial opinion I’d sought and trusted as Gospel for the past 20 years had just sat me down, looked me in the eye and told me in a fashion that a five-year old would have understood, that this was a bad deal and to make it but a funny point of cocktail party conversation in my future.)
“So, how serious are you about this deal?” my friend, the banker, inquired.
Sheepishly, “I’ve loaned him $20,000 to pay his delinquent property taxes, of which he’s guaranteed that he’ll pay me back when he sells the hotel.”
I’d known this banker for 20 years, and I’d never heard him cuss, not once. He was a Catholic, but his demeanor and apparent disdain with regards to booze, gambling, profane banter and all of the other fun things that Catholics are able to do whilst still being faithful to the their religion, would have made him a pretty solid Baptist.
“Tell me you are f-ing kidding me? You loaned him money to pay his property taxes so the place wouldn’t be seized and sold? Please tell me you didn’t do that? Do you realize you could have gone out there and bought that place for nickels…maybe pennies.. on the dollar??”
This is where the Sainthood thing comes back into play.
I knew damn good and well that I could have done that. I knew that I could have told old Abner that I too had not a pot to piss in and he was at the mercy of the State. I could have shown up two weeks after denying him his $10,000, and probably bought the place for 1/5th of what we ultimately paid for it. I knew this, I thought about it, and St. Richard decided against it as a course of action – a course that would hopefully define me and my future, a course that would give me good karma going forward, knowing that I allowed a human who’d given his heart and soul to this place, to walk away from that place with his head held high and some money in his pocket. I didn’t want to take ownership of The Riverside under any other scenario.
OK, so my Saintly actions weren’t reciprocated by the seller – after the deal, on paper, I am not Saint Richard, I’m Schmuck Richard. But to this day, as of this writing, I look into the mirror with aplomb, hoping that someone of a higher pose, someone beyond a banker, will note the good thing that we did; not for the purpose of a favorable reply, but for the sheer purpose of doing good.
To Be Continued…………..
Flat busted, tits-up, in the hole, impoverished, financially depleted, in the red, destitute, insolvent….you get the picture.
However, of paramount importance to this story was the fact that I didn’t get the picture, or worse and more to the truth, I knew but refused to get the picture.
Abner hadn’t paid his property taxes for three years. I learned, after not paying my property taxes the second year we owned The Riverside, that this wasn’t the end of the world. Kind hearted individuals would step up and pay your taxes, and when you could finally pony up with the money, you would pay your taxes to the County, plus a penalty and interest, which the kind hearted knights in shining armor would reap. CD’s were earning 2% and the stock market was anywhere from losing 100% to breaking even if you were lucky; buying up late property taxes and cashing in on the interest when finally paid netted the investor 10% interest – risk free.
Here was the ugly part, and the reason why Abner pleaded with a total stranger over the phone for a loan of $10,000. You had three years to get right with the County, at which point the kind hearted soul who saved your ass with the County by paying your taxes, at the worst case would gain 10% interest, but a best case scenario they would have first lien against your property when they sold it on the courthouse steps, 3 years to the date of your delinquency.
Simply put, let’s say I owed the County $6000 in property taxes on February 10th, 2004. I didn’t pay the money, but some nice guy did, and the County is cool, as they get their six grand and don’t even bother sending me a nasty notice. I pay $7000 one year later, for the 2003 tax, of which the nice guy gets $6600, and the County gets the $400 penalty. If I can’t pay the $7000 the following year, the compound interest grows into the next year and the next, until you hit three years past due. Let’s say I pay nothing for three years, as was Abner’s case, then on February 10th, 2007, on the courthouse steps in the County of Grand, CO, my property is auctioned off to the highest bidder – the nice guy that plopped down that initial $6000 investment three years ago gets the first grab at his six grand and 10% compounded interest over three years – that’s almost $2000 on a $6000 risk-free investment. In these and any times, buying up property taxes is a good investment. Instead of buying a dilapidated haunted shithole of a hotel, possibly I should have looked at that as a means to making a buck in Grand County…..but alas!
Abner was two weeks away from that three-year delinquent courthouse steps auction. He was about to lose the thing that he’d put 20 years of blood, sweat, tears and all of his monetary wherewithal into - his financial life was literally flashing before his eyes, and the ending was a cataclysmic event, from which there was no recovery; at best we’re talking homeless shelters, if they would have Abner and his cantankerousness.
The first $10,000 got Abner out of immediate trouble with the County and the really unpalatable ‘sale on the courthouse steps’ thing, which was bearing down on Abner to the point where it made Father Time look like a lazy good-for-nothing slacker. The next $10,000 that we sent went towards the next year of unpaid taxes and “a little credit card debt that I’ve compiled….”, a nervous little laugh accenting this profession. After submitting this second financial resurrection, now $20,000, we were a little more serious about buying the place, and we figured worst case, we’d get it back with interest if we didn’t buy The Riverside and one of the multitudes of interested parties that Abner had on the hook did buy the place.
A few blogs back I took a personal break to relate a childhood incident, possibly directly unrelated to the purchase of The Riverside, but probably subliminally related to the purchase of The Riverside – i.e. my early in life failed quest for the attainment of Sainthood. While I didn’t have a sit down with myself to discuss this, again subliminally, the notion of redemption and being back on the active board for Sainthood-liness festered in the dark recesses of my red-flag ignoring, financially deficient mind.
A visit to my banker in KC to discuss my wild notion of buying The Riverside wrought the following discussion. This was a banker that had financed my business for years, through times both lean and hardy – we’d become pretty good friends…as friendly as a banker can become with a borrower.
“We’ve found this place in Colorado that we’re considering buying. It’s a historic hotel in a beautiful little town. It’s something we’ve always considered doing, and now with the sale of the business, I think we’ve got the wherewithal to make it happen. I’ve got cash flow projections and pro formas for the next five years that I’d like you to look at. Any chance UMBig Bank would be willing to consider this?”
“Without even looking at your numbers, I’d be pretty certain that it’s not a loan we’d consider. Let’s be honest…you don’t have any experience in this type of business, and it’s in a remote spot that we wouldn’t be interested in investing in” said my friend, the banker, really looking out for me at this point and of course I FAILED TO SEE IT!!!
“But you’ve got locations in Denver! You’re trying to establish interests in Colorado.”
“Right, but they’re pretty selected investments in Colorado. Here’s the deal…we’re hesitant to loan money to established Kansas City restaurateurs with locations around the corner from our banks, let alone your venture, someone new to the business trying to make a go of it in the middle of nowhere.”
(A financially savvy friend, whose financial opinion I’d sought and trusted as Gospel for the past 20 years had just sat me down, looked me in the eye and told me in a fashion that a five-year old would have understood, that this was a bad deal and to make it but a funny point of cocktail party conversation in my future.)
“So, how serious are you about this deal?” my friend, the banker, inquired.
Sheepishly, “I’ve loaned him $20,000 to pay his delinquent property taxes, of which he’s guaranteed that he’ll pay me back when he sells the hotel.”
I’d known this banker for 20 years, and I’d never heard him cuss, not once. He was a Catholic, but his demeanor and apparent disdain with regards to booze, gambling, profane banter and all of the other fun things that Catholics are able to do whilst still being faithful to the their religion, would have made him a pretty solid Baptist.
“Tell me you are f-ing kidding me? You loaned him money to pay his property taxes so the place wouldn’t be seized and sold? Please tell me you didn’t do that? Do you realize you could have gone out there and bought that place for nickels…maybe pennies.. on the dollar??”
This is where the Sainthood thing comes back into play.
I knew damn good and well that I could have done that. I knew that I could have told old Abner that I too had not a pot to piss in and he was at the mercy of the State. I could have shown up two weeks after denying him his $10,000, and probably bought the place for 1/5th of what we ultimately paid for it. I knew this, I thought about it, and St. Richard decided against it as a course of action – a course that would hopefully define me and my future, a course that would give me good karma going forward, knowing that I allowed a human who’d given his heart and soul to this place, to walk away from that place with his head held high and some money in his pocket. I didn’t want to take ownership of The Riverside under any other scenario.
OK, so my Saintly actions weren’t reciprocated by the seller – after the deal, on paper, I am not Saint Richard, I’m Schmuck Richard. But to this day, as of this writing, I look into the mirror with aplomb, hoping that someone of a higher pose, someone beyond a banker, will note the good thing that we did; not for the purpose of a favorable reply, but for the sheer purpose of doing good.
To Be Continued…………..
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