Monday, April 27, 2009

Car Repo Biz Booming in West Rogers Park/Lincolnwood


Last night, while quietly bicycling to the Rogers Park School park, mini-bikepath, I ran into an unusual occurrence. A Honda mini-van being repo-ed on the 2700 block of Chase Avenue.

This would have been considered aberrant for, usually sedate, West Rogers Park in more normal times --and and certainly for affluent Lincolnwood. But is apparently becoming a part of the social fabric during the new Obamanation.

I ran into an interesting fellow, named Elijah, who was as burly as the monstrous diesel-fueled tow truch that he was using to effect the bank repossession of the vehicle.

Eli -- as he called himself, was a scary looking, enourmously rotund, yet wildly muscular fellow. The sort of which would readily qualify for a WWE wrestling bout.

His closely cropped hair, earring and menacing body tattoos (one of which was the famous Grateful Dead's icon of a pot-smoking, rolling paper advertisement) made you think that this was surely the kind of guy that you would definitely want on your side in a free-for-all bar fight.

(Memo to self: Get Eli to go barhoppping with you next time you go to Wells St. or to Madison, WI. publick houses. And guarantee to pay for all his booze.)

But aside from looking menacing, he was a very articulate fellow. He apprised me as to the astounding rate at which bank repossession of cars is now occurring in even, usually solid neighborhoods like West Rogers Park, Chicago, Lincolnwood, IL and even posh, Sauganash, Chicago.

Eli apprised me that he was a native of West Rogers Park, a grad of St. Gertrude's School and Mather -- and seldom had had calls to perform his trade in his old neighborhood.

But on this night, he politely apprised the African-American, new and probably, sub-prime-mortgage, affirmative-action homeowner on Chase Ave., that he had legal and lawful papers for the banks repo of his Honda mini-van. Eli told me that the man was in the process of bank foreclosure on his newly acquired home.

The African-American gentleman asked Eli for a copy of the repo notice for his files. Eli demurred, saying it was not part of their standard repo procedure, but I intervened and said, "What the hell, Eli, let the poor guy make a copy for his files."

He did.

Eli apprised me that it was weird for repos to occur in areas like this, and even in Lincolnwood -- of all places.

More amusing details on that in tomorrow's piece, which will be entitled:

"Eli's coming,
hide your car girl,
Eli's coming
hide your car"

Until Tomorrow, when I'll have some rather amusing tales to relate as to Eli's re-po's of some really crazy charachters in West Roger's Park and his wild adventures re-poing a short-bed pickup truck from a family of Gypsy homeowners in Licolnwood.

I am just relating what he reported.

I am not making this stuff up.

It is too weaird for words.

But nothing should surpirse in the Brave New Obamanation.

This is, after all, Obama's Chicago.

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