Measures

How do we measure the value of an endeavor? This afternoon around 3:00 o'clock p.m. I received a call from First American Signature Services in Santa Ana, California. They wanted me to travel to Worth County, Georgia to conduct a closing for Countrywide Home Loans. They had no idea how far away Worth County was from Griffin. They probably didn't care. They tried to send me to Decatur County one time, which lies on the Florida border in extreme southwest Georgia, about four hours away.

Worth County is located in South Georgia, west of Tifton. I had been there before. I anticipated it would take me about two hours to travel there, half an hour to conduct the closing and two hours back, with a stop for gas and supper. At my usual hourly rate, about $675 worth of my time.

Because it was so late in the afternoon, First American was willing to pay me a premium for closing it after hours. A premium, but not enough to cover my time.

But my situation today was different. I had just reduced my fee for closing the loan from last Friday in order to ensure that it would close. We had discovered a problem with the general account balance. Things were looking grim around the ranch.

Of course, I didn't really have anything to do this afternoon other than a meeting with a criminal client to discuss the plea deal offered her. Of course, First American was willing to pay $385 for the closing.

So at around 5:33, I headed my car east down Georgia 16 toward I-75 South and South Georgia. As I continued south on I-75, I watched as the terrain whizzing past me got progressively flatter and greener. It seemed as if the fields along the interstate were more wet with humidity and greener and full of life than up near home in Central Georgia.

Finally, I found the sign I was looking for and got off at the second Ashburn exit and turned into and through the little town and on west towards the setting sun. I drove and I drove and I drove. The fields rolled along beside me and the irrigation gear passed gently above and across the fields, in a pattern of metal and corduroy furrows across the land.

I finally found the little community of Shingler, where the borrower lived, and took a left and drove down the county road through the cluster of homes which constituted Shingler. Finally, I found the white clapboard Methodist church which was the landmark I was looking for to find her house. I drove past her house at first because there was no convenient place to park the car. I noticed a large tractor and a slew of cars and trucks of the parents of the children who were to ride on a wagon pulled behind the tractor for VBS.

I parked my car and stepped out and around the tractor. Several people standing around for the ride smiled pleasantly at me and asked me who I was looking for. Clearly I was a stranger in Shingler, but they were all willing to make me as comfortable as possible in a strange place. I was directed toward the red brick house next door. I walked over to the carport to find the borrower and her family sitting around in the carport, watching baseball from a tv hung under the roof of the carport.

After a hasty introduction, she ushered me into her kitchen, where I was seated at the kitchen table. A solid white English bulldog licked me profusely on the hand as I removed the closing documents from my file.

I looked out the French doors at the back and looked over the fields stretching away from the backyard. The green of the green fields was magnificent. A miniature Ireland in Southwest Georgia.

As we talked I was captivated by the slow rythms of the South Georgia dialect of my borrower. She was a little younger than my parents. Her skin had suffered from a life spent outdoors. But she was cordial and hospitable.

When we were over, I walked back out to my car, examining the papers to make sure I hadn't omitted anything for her signature. I reentered my car and drove off, waiving at the church parents sitting on the front steps of the church, waiting for their children to return from the wagon ride.

I left Shingler as the sun slowly disappeared into the clouds to the west, promising rain that evening. Everything unravelled before me slowly and caught me in a space and time somewhat familiar but so far away from the world I live in.

Sure it was only $385, but the trip through the fields and the people I met and the ending of another day was definitely worth the ride. I couldn't eat it, but the feeling of the evening was definitely pleasant and worthwhile.