RetiredForGood

This is not my story, though I have made some expensive choices in past relationships.

Perhaps because of those mistakes, it has made me more aware of the kinds of people who prey on others who are needy.

The Olympics are lovely in the dusky light.

Recently, here in Washington State, there have been a number of stories of women (though certainly there must be men who have been taken advantage of) who, through on-line dating sites, have been convinced they have met the Love of their Life. The other aspect of this vulnerability is that most of these people grew up, and were dating, at a time when fraud and scams were incredibly rare. They just can't quite believe they are a really excellent target.

Recently Dr. Phil did an hour-long program with a woman who had been persuaded to send over $250,000 dollars to a man she never met, someone she talked to every day (sometimes many times a day) and who now was at the risk of losing her home and becoming alienated from her family because she refused to believe this man was scamming her. Even with all the evidence Dr.Phil presented, she continued to talk to him and was prepared to send him more money.

There is, for these people, an addiction being fed by hope and dreams.

You can find a Malaysian comment thread with stories of women who have had the courage to tell their stories.

This is the story outline:

A man, recently widowed (or after several years of being alone after a divorce), has joined Love.com (not a real match site) in order to meet someone he can marry. His target 'audience' is another lonely heart, usually older, and with information that indicates they are financially secure - and eager. Older women are not as savvy about what they put in their profiles and they give away a lot of personal stuff without realizing it. 

Going on a cruise is one way to meet a lot of people.

It is curious that the pattern is about the same. After about three weeks of daily phone contact, the guy promotes a meeting but then suddenly, the night before or several days before, he has to go abroad (Malaysia, England, South Africa, someplace far away from the U.S.) for some kind of business. He has some flimsy excuse why he cannot use Skype for face-to-face conversations, so no one really knows who he is.

He uses a throw-away phone to call, so the number and his location cannot easily be revealed. 

The photos used to depict this character are usually stolen and have no relationship to the real individual. Oh, and he is often 'connected' to an adult child who lives apart, but who can 'vouch' for him. This other character may even communicate with the target.

I have had two friends caught up in these scams. One listened to me and got out early with no more damage than that to her ego and is now happily involved with a man who is truly who he says he is and who cares very much for her.

The other one refused to listen to my warnings. And when I became seriously worried and spoke to our mutual pastor about what I feared was going on, she cut me off, saying some cruel things. It is my belief that she took out a loan on her home, eventually selling it to pay off the loan, and as she was leaving the area, she announced that she was sending him another $3500 for a one-way ticket back from Malaysia so he could drive her belongings to her destination. The last I heard she had left without picking him up at the airport.

We all want to have a connection with someone, to not feel as if there are no witnesses to our lives. But desperation, especially for older divorced or widowed individuals, seems to drive common sense out the window.

The idea behind dating sites is a good one, bringing people together with like interests. But no amount of money for membership fees will guarantee that the people on the site are really who they say they are. If you know of someone who is considering going on a dating site, caution them about these scams. And the old adage "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is..." is one of the few things that still has value.

Perhaps it goes back to the cave dwellers when paintings of deer, bear and other creatures was a way for the owner to advertise that he had smoked meat for sale, but it is clear that as we go more and more digital, we are losing certain artistic and hand-made skills.

Sign painter and mural artist Jackson Smart talks about the tools of his trade.

As a Public Relations consultant years ago, I advised new businesses to think about how they were going to give their impression of what they were selling, which included signage. I worked with a few sign-makers in Boise, ID where my business was. However, even then I did not realize that, for the most part, the age-old apprenticeship program was how sign painters were trained. Tricks of the trade were not learned in books, but at the elbow of the master!

Recently I attended a presentation by a Port Angeles, WA, sign painter, Jackson Smart of SignArt Studio, demonstrating some of the learned techniques and the tools used, along with the paint construction. (The link is to an article in the Peninsula Daily News about Smart.)

There is a three-second rule for signs: it must be able to be seen and read, computed/internalized and a decision made in three seconds. "You are driving along the highway, see a sign and it either motivates you or you ignore it", Smart said. He added that it is not just letters, but colors and shapes, that convey the message and he is well known for his creative work around the Peninsula.

Smart demonstrates using a mahl stick to letter in script style; it is used to keep hands and oils off the surface.

The Burma-Shave signs were inspired by the desire to sell. Started in 1925 to promote the shaving cream (purported to have ingredients from Burma), six signs placed in sequence along the highway originally sold the cream in little rhymes, but later offered safety messages.

One series I recall along the road from Peterborough, NH to Keene was this: Past / Schoolhouses / Take it slow / Let the little / Shavers grow / Burma-Shave. Although there wasn't actually a schoolhouse near where the signs were placed, we used to love to read them out loud as we rattled along to the lake, much to the irritation of the driver - usually our mother. Somehow even seeing them regularly didn't decrease our delight in this loud recognition of our reading ability.

Artist Smart uses a squirrel hair brush to demonstrate how fine a line can be drawn with the right technique.

Increasing speeds, more sophisticated signage, television and other elements brought this roadside entertainment for the 'little shavers' to an end in the 60's. And just as the commercial elements of sign design were advancing, so was the looming digital age which would change it completely. And artist Smart opined that it is not just the digital age that is affecting sign painting skills, but there is a lack of desire on the part of the youth today to learn something that requires apprenticeship. "They want to be able to do it quickly. It requires learning about the shapes of letters, the distance between each letter, and the construction of the thinner and other chemicals in the paint and whether or not it is hot or cold outside, because that affects the performance of the paint, too." Smart says more and more signs are made on computer and fewer of the people who are making them have ever even used a brush.

Jackson Smart - an artisan and an artist - has painted on wood, metals, foam board, plastic and other materials. He has painted signs for businesses, on motorcycles, cars, trucks, and busses for a native american tribal casino as well as doing the Port of Port Angeles mural welcoming visitors from Canada.  As you enter Port Angeles from the East on Highway 101, you will see his sign greeting you to the city he has made home for the past 34 years. He is as much a part of the city as the signs and murals he has done here.

A village between Santa Marta and Cartagena was already flooded when I passed it in November, 2010. Many of these impoverished people now have lost even the sticks that propped up their roofs with the intense flooding.