My Pole.

Last week, I received a certified letter in the mail inviting me to a meeting regarding a patch of property I owned. Enclosed was direction to the meeting hall and a contact phone number. I called the number having no clue what this was about. The guy that answered told me a story of how companies were planning on cutting a line through a patch of forest to lay underground fiber optic cables, and I was in risk of loosing my investment. My first reaction was “what investment?”, but I didn’t want to sound dumb, so I agreed attend the meeting and fished out the long forgotten papers. It was at this time, I actually read the papers i received from my Aunt Rudy.


These poles are “rented” by utility companies to deliver their service to people homes. At one time Aunt Ruby’s second husband owned 45 acres of untouched forest. As time passed the land was sold off bit by bit until only a five foot by five foot section of the land was left with the fabled utility pole planted deep in its soil. You might be wondering why anyone would want a pole in the middle of no where. Over the last five years it has made a total of $658. Now this is the amount of money it made, not to include the price for land tax and the two times it has been replaced. The beauty behind this is there is a company that has been keeping track of 100 or so poles. They take the money and invest it; as a result, I have made $855 this year alone.

So I take a vacation day from work and I take a road trip to attend the meeting. If you ever seen movies of mob Dons gathering in a smoky room discussing plans and slamming there fist when the wrong thing was said, you pretty much have a visual of the experience. Of course, instead of Italians in nice suit, you have hill-billies in overalls and flannel shirts. Finally after many conversations of family marriages and the selling and trading of livestock, the subject was addressed. The man holding the meeting told us all but one utility company's contract had expired and companies no longer wanted to use the poles to deliver their services.
We had the option to sale the land to the company or lease our pole with them. There offer was enough to cover the land tax and still leave about $2 a year. I decided to keep the pole in hopes that one day I can pass it onto someone when I die.