Tennessee visit coming to an end

As plans now stand, I am leaving for the return trip to Texas in the early morning. Ted and I have much to accomplish there toward the rebuilding effort of our home which was lost to Hurricane Ike back in September.  Texas Windstorm Insurance Association offered us less than 9 percent of our total insured value, the same as they have our friends and neighbors, and it is a joke. We, of course, declined and are continuing to battle for our rightful payment.

Our Yahoo Internet Group, BolivarBLUE, which I founded shortly after the hurricane, has organized a protest demonstration in front of the big TWIA building in Austin, on Friday, March 13, for those who are dissatisfied with the association's practices.  Several dozen folks are joining us there and our media coverage has just gotten underway.  It is shameful that this huge association of insurance companies has banded together to beat lawful policy holders out of what is due them for their homes.

It is very simple.  We struggled to buy and pay for hurricane insurance for our homes.  We had a hurricane.  TWIA will not pay our policy values.  They have engaged in some unsavory practices, including, but not limited to, hooking up with engineering firms that are not on the ethical side to try to prove that water came before the wind. If you look up the definition of a hurricane, you will note it is a wind-driven event. Six months is long enough to wait and be patient, while many of the Bolivar Peninsula residents are virtually homeless.  And, for the record, FEMA is largely a joke, too.

DeAnna and Callie flew into Nashville and DeAnna and Nikki and I drove to Atlanta on Sunday in a terrible snow, sleet and ice storm to bury my nephew John Paul Richardson who was found dead in bed on Thursday. Cause of death has not been determined, but he did have sleep apnea and they believe that played a role.  Our sympathy goes out to Jean Richardson, his mom, Joe Richardson, his father, Misty, his sister, and handsome David, his brother, and to Willie Stancil, his grandmother who loved him greatly. How sad to bury a child or brother.

Please continue to pray for the residents of the Bolivar Peninsula who were so affected by Hurricane Ike and its aftermath.  Our battle has been underway for six months now and we are tired, but not discouraged.

I am uploading a photo DeAnna sent me last night of Mother (Flo Davis) and myself taken at my retirement party last January.  Mother died on August 26, 2008 on her 87th birthday after suffering a stroke caused by a cancerous brain tumor.