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I See Dead People. Just Not Their Files.
Apr. 21st, 2021 06:49 pmYesterday was a mostly weird day until it wasn't. After catching up on some paperwork early on and getting ready for a 2:00 phone hearing with a client and trustee, I had just enough time to take a drive into downtown for the first time in weeks. I had one primary errand: to check on the Surrogates Court file of a client's relative who recently died. But I also planned on getting a book from the downtown library, patronizing a beloved and probably struggling restaurant for a quick lunch, looking up a file and getting co-workers' documents from the county clerk's office, and checking on some small claims filings I'd made between February and April. Five stops in four buildings, all in a half-mile radius, literally uphill both ways.
Found the book. Lunch was tasty. Then it went downhill before going back up (and down) again.
----
Surrogates Court here is what is called "Probate Court" or even "Court of Ordinary" in other places. It handles the post-mortem financial affairs of the recently deceased, along with some functions involving trusts and guardianships. Its practicing bar is old, white and male, even by my standards; and in almost every New York county there is only one such judge, who gets to hand out a ton of patronage appointments of guardians, trustees and evaluators. The Statler hotel chain was founded here, and while its once flagship hotel closed decades ago, its Foundation remains a plum patronage pit that the OWMs drool (more than usual) over the chance to get appointed to for beaucoup bucks for little actual work.
The current incumbent Surrogate Judge here - white, but neither old nor male- was an attorney inside the court system who made known her intention to seek the office when her predecessor hit retirement age, and she quickly built up a war chest from the OWM bar that essentially scared off any challengers within or outside her party. (She ultimately gave most of it back, but it served its purpose.) I'll occasionally make an appearance for a colleague over there, but I haven't filed an estate in ages, find their shop talk to be incomprehensible, and mostly get involved when there's some peripheral involvement to something else I'm doing.
In this case, my client may be getting something out of a recently filed estate, and while there is limited electronic access for filing cases, searching them and seeing documents is generally something you do at public terminals in the court clerk's office downtown. Or at least it was. After book and lunch, I stopped in the "main office" and was promptly shooed out. Only one person at a time.
Mmmmkay. Can I just look up a file on the public computer? We don't have those anymore- COVID. You have to make an appointment. When SHE's done.
I ran downstairs for the file and pickup in the county clerk's office one floor down. Amazingly, it still has its public searching terminals available- fewer, plexi'd apart, but otherwise more than enough for the three people in the sprawling room- and went back up.
Appointments are made online. Here's the email address.
I still had one more stop, my hearing back at the office was coming up and my meter time was running out, so I sucked it up and left empty-info'd, and did no better finding out when my small claims might be heard. In between, though, I did get this picture, which will be explained later:
I then returned to the office for the phone hearing followed by a literal "papercut project." I sometimes refer to daily annoyances as being "death by 1,000 paper cuts," but this was one that would literally throw them off: printing, folding, stuffing and sticking mailing labels onto about 70-odd envelopes concerning that hearing's outcome and next month's follow-on to it. I specifically told myself during the 20th-odd fold, Don't get a fucking paper cut! when I got, well, guess:P While I bled out (okay, not really), I moved onto the less dangerous task of label-sticking, which I could do at my desk, and saw the BREAKING NEWS banner on whatever site I was looking at.
Verdicts in. All three. Like it said on the tin yesterday: GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.
Now, about that photo:
I’d seen that sign before, from high up in the new federal courthouse across Niagara Square, but I noticed it again on yesterday's utterly nasty, brutish and useless trip into downtown. LA Fitness bought out all the coed Buffalo Athletic Club joints a few years ago, including their founding location in this historic building. Part of the deal must’ve been taking the BAC name off the side, but real estate lawyers will always advise never to take a sign down, so it’s grandfathered for zoning.
So they shuffled the letters. And after recent events, from Minnesota to places in sight of that sign, it’s only a matter of time before somebody graffitis an extra A in there.
I should note: I do not believe in ACAB. Most cops I encounter, in courthouses and even our own occasional (mostly) traffic-related visits, are never anything but pleasant and professional. But see "OWM," above. It's what I don't see that leads to the sentiment. And it can change for the better- even in the heart of the land of Slave Patrols from which most southern PDs sprang. Imagine this: instead of "defunding the police," this North Carolina city went with "make the police smarter"- stopping BS traffic stops for shit like taillights and air fresheners, and focusing on real safety violations like speeding and DWI. And guess what? Black motorist stops decreased by half, use of force went down, traffic fatalities went down, and citizen complaints against the police went down. All because a white cop didn't believe a Black motorist about being out early for a Bible study. She was. With the Fayetteville Chief of Police, who couldn't believe the unbelief. He did something about it. He is not AB. Most aren't. Many more of them- and us- need to understand the sentiment, though.
----
Another dead person from Minnesota quickly got lost in the headlines: Walter Mondale, who died earlier this week at a dignified old age. I remember one of the greatest scripted lines in politics, one that is not remembered by many people, because of its truth. When Mondale accepted the 1984 Democratic Presidential nomination, he said, “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I… He won’t tell you, I just did.”
It became the thing of attack ads and likely was instrumental in his resulting landslide defeat. It was also true, which people tend to forget when deifying Ronaldus McDonaldus Maximus.
Rest in peace, Fritz. YOU were Minnesota Nice.
----
We awoke today to a couple inches of heavy wet snow. More had been predicted, and the attitudes ranged from Oh how pretty to Oh shit not again. This combo summed it up for me as I made another library stop closer to home today, to pick up a copy of Selma:
April snow showers KILL May flowers.
From there, I headed back downtown, because my audience with the Great and Powerful Surrogates Computer was granted in a heartbeat of an email. I was ushered to a back room with three computers, one running XP, and left for 30 minutes to figure out what was what. That one had a program open I didn't recognize; the other two were hibernating, and when I powered them back up, I couldn't get a mouse to move on either. So back to Miss Congeniality (who probably could have just called down the hall yesterday to let me into the empty room), who did nothing to help me but meanwhile the dead mice had come to life and I got my needed information.
I headed straight home from there, where poetry supposedly awaits any minute and Selma may follow. Hopefully the Dead are done with me for the time being.
Found the book. Lunch was tasty. Then it went downhill before going back up (and down) again.
----
Surrogates Court here is what is called "Probate Court" or even "Court of Ordinary" in other places. It handles the post-mortem financial affairs of the recently deceased, along with some functions involving trusts and guardianships. Its practicing bar is old, white and male, even by my standards; and in almost every New York county there is only one such judge, who gets to hand out a ton of patronage appointments of guardians, trustees and evaluators. The Statler hotel chain was founded here, and while its once flagship hotel closed decades ago, its Foundation remains a plum patronage pit that the OWMs drool (more than usual) over the chance to get appointed to for beaucoup bucks for little actual work.
The current incumbent Surrogate Judge here - white, but neither old nor male- was an attorney inside the court system who made known her intention to seek the office when her predecessor hit retirement age, and she quickly built up a war chest from the OWM bar that essentially scared off any challengers within or outside her party. (She ultimately gave most of it back, but it served its purpose.) I'll occasionally make an appearance for a colleague over there, but I haven't filed an estate in ages, find their shop talk to be incomprehensible, and mostly get involved when there's some peripheral involvement to something else I'm doing.
In this case, my client may be getting something out of a recently filed estate, and while there is limited electronic access for filing cases, searching them and seeing documents is generally something you do at public terminals in the court clerk's office downtown. Or at least it was. After book and lunch, I stopped in the "main office" and was promptly shooed out. Only one person at a time.
Mmmmkay. Can I just look up a file on the public computer? We don't have those anymore- COVID. You have to make an appointment. When SHE's done.
I ran downstairs for the file and pickup in the county clerk's office one floor down. Amazingly, it still has its public searching terminals available- fewer, plexi'd apart, but otherwise more than enough for the three people in the sprawling room- and went back up.
Appointments are made online. Here's the email address.
I still had one more stop, my hearing back at the office was coming up and my meter time was running out, so I sucked it up and left empty-info'd, and did no better finding out when my small claims might be heard. In between, though, I did get this picture, which will be explained later:
I then returned to the office for the phone hearing followed by a literal "papercut project." I sometimes refer to daily annoyances as being "death by 1,000 paper cuts," but this was one that would literally throw them off: printing, folding, stuffing and sticking mailing labels onto about 70-odd envelopes concerning that hearing's outcome and next month's follow-on to it. I specifically told myself during the 20th-odd fold, Don't get a fucking paper cut! when I got, well, guess:P While I bled out (okay, not really), I moved onto the less dangerous task of label-sticking, which I could do at my desk, and saw the BREAKING NEWS banner on whatever site I was looking at.
Verdicts in. All three. Like it said on the tin yesterday: GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.
Now, about that photo:
I’d seen that sign before, from high up in the new federal courthouse across Niagara Square, but I noticed it again on yesterday's utterly nasty, brutish and useless trip into downtown. LA Fitness bought out all the coed Buffalo Athletic Club joints a few years ago, including their founding location in this historic building. Part of the deal must’ve been taking the BAC name off the side, but real estate lawyers will always advise never to take a sign down, so it’s grandfathered for zoning.
So they shuffled the letters. And after recent events, from Minnesota to places in sight of that sign, it’s only a matter of time before somebody graffitis an extra A in there.
I should note: I do not believe in ACAB. Most cops I encounter, in courthouses and even our own occasional (mostly) traffic-related visits, are never anything but pleasant and professional. But see "OWM," above. It's what I don't see that leads to the sentiment. And it can change for the better- even in the heart of the land of Slave Patrols from which most southern PDs sprang. Imagine this: instead of "defunding the police," this North Carolina city went with "make the police smarter"- stopping BS traffic stops for shit like taillights and air fresheners, and focusing on real safety violations like speeding and DWI. And guess what? Black motorist stops decreased by half, use of force went down, traffic fatalities went down, and citizen complaints against the police went down. All because a white cop didn't believe a Black motorist about being out early for a Bible study. She was. With the Fayetteville Chief of Police, who couldn't believe the unbelief. He did something about it. He is not AB. Most aren't. Many more of them- and us- need to understand the sentiment, though.
----
Another dead person from Minnesota quickly got lost in the headlines: Walter Mondale, who died earlier this week at a dignified old age. I remember one of the greatest scripted lines in politics, one that is not remembered by many people, because of its truth. When Mondale accepted the 1984 Democratic Presidential nomination, he said, “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I… He won’t tell you, I just did.”
It became the thing of attack ads and likely was instrumental in his resulting landslide defeat. It was also true, which people tend to forget when deifying Ronaldus McDonaldus Maximus.
Rest in peace, Fritz. YOU were Minnesota Nice.
----
We awoke today to a couple inches of heavy wet snow. More had been predicted, and the attitudes ranged from Oh how pretty to Oh shit not again. This combo summed it up for me as I made another library stop closer to home today, to pick up a copy of Selma:
April snow showers KILL May flowers.
From there, I headed back downtown, because my audience with the Great and Powerful Surrogates Computer was granted in a heartbeat of an email. I was ushered to a back room with three computers, one running XP, and left for 30 minutes to figure out what was what. That one had a program open I didn't recognize; the other two were hibernating, and when I powered them back up, I couldn't get a mouse to move on either. So back to Miss Congeniality (who probably could have just called down the hall yesterday to let me into the empty room), who did nothing to help me but meanwhile the dead mice had come to life and I got my needed information.
I headed straight home from there, where poetry supposedly awaits any minute and Selma may follow. Hopefully the Dead are done with me for the time being.