Daily Archives: July 7, 2015

Widower Gets Bill From Social Security

They had married in December of 1953 and built a great life together.

Betty and Ralph Mauro had five children, adopted two more and celebrated the arrival of every one of their ten grandchildren. But the story of their lives together came to an end on May 27th. After years of declining health, Betty passed away.

“Towards the end, I would say the last three or four months that wasn’t my wife. She was on her way with Alzheimer. The poor thing suffered so much”, said Ralph.

The transition not been easy for Ralph. After nearly 62-years of marriage, he’s now about the business of giving away Betty’s clothing, passing along her possessions to the kids and setting up his new life without Betty.

Before the marker was ready for Betty’s spot at Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Ralph got a letter from the Social Security Administration (SSA). It offered condolences on his loss.

It also contained a bill for $909.00.


 

Before the marker was ready for his late wife’s grave, Ralph Mauro got a letter asking for the return of her May benefits check. (Photo: Ralph Mauro)

Betty had not lived through all of May. The monthly benefit check would need to be refunded to the agency.

Ralph figured there was some sort of mix-up. So, he called the local Social Security office in Buffalo, only to be told again, this time by phone, he would have to pay-back the May benefits check for his late wife.

“Whoever wrote this is stupid,” said Mauro, “That nine-hundred dollars is my money.”


But that is the law. A regional spokesman for the SSA notes benefits are not paid in a month where a beneficiary dies. To receive a monthly benefit check, that person must live the entire month. But the agency admits is does not do public outreach to help spouses and family members better understand the law.

 

“Social Security is not an entitlement. I paid for that. That’s my money,” said Ralph Mauro after being told he’d have to pay back his late wife’s May benefits check. (Photo: Dave Harrington/WGRZ)

When 2 On-Your-Side contacted US Senator Chuck Schumer about SSA’s policy he said, “No family should have to sift through paperwork with a fine toothed comb to find critical information.”

Fortunately for Mauro, he has money set aside to absorb this financial blow.

Mauro said, “I’m worried more about people who can’t afford it…and they’re looking forward to that.”

I have been told many times that they do not do this, and I know different when a friend of mine died and I had to take care of his estate. There were final bills to be paid and they immediately took the money back out of his account.

This is the kinder gentler GUVMENT we have these days.

Black Youths Mock and Laugh at Unconscious and Bloody Victim After July 4th Beatdown

Black Youths Mock and Laugh at Unconscious and Bloody Victim After July 4th Beatdown (VIDEO)

A video posted Sunday to the Facebook account of “QbabyOfTeamQ” purports to show the bloodied victim of a racial attack in Cincinnati during a race riot in Fountain Square on Saturday night.


The white man was beaten unconscious following a hip hop and electronica Fourth of July concert.

The video shows a mostly Black crowd gathered around the white male victim laid out on the sidewalk. A few are trying to help the unconscious man while others squeal in awe at the blood covering his head.
Many onlookers are laughing.

(Warning on Language-Violence)


One voice can be heard asking for someone to call 911.

A report by a police officer posted online said that police had to rescue the man from an attacking mob of about forty Black people.

Two officers were injured during the riot by people who were throwing fireworks, rocks, bottles and punches at the officers. Seven people were arrested including three juveniles.

Mayweather stripped of title


Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been stripped of the welterweight world title he won after beating Filipino Manny Pacquiao this year for failing to comply with rules, the World Boxing Organization said on Monday.

Mayweather, who improved to 48-0 by beating Pacquiao in May, missed a deadline by which he had to pay a $200,000 sanctioning fee from the fight and vacate the junior middleweight title he also held, the WBO said in a statement.

The WBO said it is against rules for boxers to hold world titles in multiple weight classes and that Mayweather had to indicate which weight division he would retain.

Mayweather, who finished ahead on all three scorecards of what proved to be the top-grossing prize fight of all-time, had until 4:30 p.m. ET last Friday to advise the WBO of his position.

“The WBO World Championship Committee is allowed no other alternative but to cease to recognize Mr. Floyd Mayweather, Jr. as the WBO Welterweight Champion of the World and vacate his title, for failing to comply with our WBO Regulations of World Championship Contests,” the WBO said in a statement.

Mayweather, who earned over $200 million from the fight which generated a record pay-per-view revenue in the United States of $400 million, has two weeks to launch an appeal.

Wife Finds a Loophole for Her Husband’s Greedy Dying Wish

Maya Angelou once poignantly said: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Many of us strive for this. We do good, moral, and upright things because we want to leave a positive legacy in our wake.

Unfortunately, not all of us feel this way. Some people give in to their more selfish emotions, wanting to enjoy their lives on their own terms regardless of how it affects others, and one of the most common ways people do this is by succumbing to greed.

One widow, in a story that has haunted me for years, was nothing like her late spouse. Her husband was a man who worked very hard for his money and felt that because he did, he deserved to keep it all to himself. Guided by this kind of moral compass, he also expected his honorable wife put her morals on the line to grant him a dying wish. At the funeral of her husband, however, she figured out a way of keeping her integrity while granting his wish, and the idea is nothing short of brilliant…

“There was a man who had worked all of his life and has saved all of his money.

He was a real cheapskate when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, ‘Now listen, when I die I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. Because I want to take all my money to the after life.’

So he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died she would put all the money in the casket with him. When one day he died.”

“He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to their best friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said, ‘Wait a minute!’

  She had a shoebox with her, she came over with the box and placed it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket and rolled it away.”

“Her friend said, ‘I hope you weren’t crazy enough to put all that money in there with that stingy old man.’

She said, ‘Yes, I promised. I’m a good Christian, I can’t lie. I promised him that I was to put that money in that casket with him.’

‘You mean to tell me you put every cent of his money in the casket with him?’

‘I sure did,’ said the wife. ‘I got it all together, put it into my account and I wrote him a check.’ ”


I guess he got what he asked for…….

Retro of the day: Peter Paul and Mary

“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” is a contemporary folk song. The first three verses were written by Pete Seeger in 1955, and published in Sing Out! magazine.[1] Additional verses were added by Joe Hickerson in May 1960, who turned it into a circular song.[2] Its rhetorical “where?” and meditation on death place the song in the ubi sunttradition.[3][better source needed] In 2010, the New Statesman listed it as one of the “Top 20 Political Songs”

The 1964 release of the song as a Columbia Records 45 single, 13-33088, by Pete Seeger was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002 in the Folk category.

Pete Seeger: Grammy Hall of Fame Awards[18]

Year recorded

Title

Genre

Label

Year inducted

1964

“Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”

Folk (single)

Columbia

2002