Bluewater
Lake has dead woman walking
It's
a party for a dead woman and she is quite alive; barkeep Elizabeth Kalceric
poses for a photograph Wednesday at the Lakeshore Inn in Bluewater Lake
and says, "I am very fortunate, I could be dead." The Inn threw
her a wake in her honor because the government can't find proof of her
existence. (Photo by Craig Robinson/Independent)
By Tom Purdom
Staff Writer
BLUEWATER LAKE — Wednesday's wake at the Lake Shore
Inn here was just about the best one Elizabeth "Mike" Kalcevic
has ever attended.
The only problem was, it was her own wake, promoted by friends appalled
that the Social Security Administration informed Kalcevic the Social
Security number
she has been using for 45 years was not her own, that she did not exist under
the number she has been using.
The wake was a spoof, to draw attention to what Kalcevic is going through
and to raise money to help her in a potential legal battle. It had a serious
side
too, though. At 12:01 a.m. Thursday the Lake Shore Inn, a bar and restaurant
she has owned and operated since 1980, had to be shut down, she hopes, temporarily.
Kalcevic put her bar license in voluntary suppression to save the license
if she can get her identity back. She needs to renew proper licensing to
run the
place, and without a driver license for identity, she cannot get the licensing.
In short, not only has her identity been stolen, but now her sole source
of income has been shut off as well.
It began when Kalcevic wanted to get a new driver license and was told at
the driver license bureau that her Social Security number was problematic.
Kalcevic
contacted the Social Security Administration and was shocked to discover
the government considered her either dead, or non-existent.
"I've used the same Social Security number to get documents in Colorado
and in New Mexico, but now, all of a sudden, it is no good any more," Kalcevic
said.
A few days before the wake Kalcevic said "I get more depressed every day."
She wants and needs some action from the federal government and she said
she is getting frustrated. "I gave (the Social Security Administration) my baptismal
records, I gave them my birth certificate, I gave them permission to get into
my high school records. Why, I gave them just about every record I could find."
Many of the records she kept were burned up in a fire a couple of years ago.
She can't get a driver license. She can't renew her liquor license. She can't
serve liquor in the bar she owns. She can't get auto and home insurance.
Money in her bank accounts is frozen. If she fished, she can't even get a
fishing
license and she lives just a stone throw from Bluewater Lake.
Kalcevic said she told her nephew many times that no one likes a cry baby. "After
one of the trips to the Social Security office in Gallup I broke down and started
crying. He looked at me and said, 'Hey you, nobody likes a crybaby.'"
She has talked several times with the Social Security office in Gallup and
just about everyone else she can think of who may be able to help. Kalcevic
said now
the Gallup office has recommended she hire an attorney.
"I didn't lose me, they did and now they want me to hire an attorney that
will cost between $6,000 and $10,000 just for a retainer fee," Kalcevic
said. "I can't even prove I'm an American citizen. I almost died five times
in my 62 years, but never did I imagine it would be the government that killed
me off, killed my identity."
To raise her spirits a bit, her buddies decided that since the government
already killed her off, a wake was in order.
Colleen Rodgers, a friend, helped organize the wake. A flyer on the event
read: "A
cause for celebration. The communities of Bluewater, Thoreau and others are hereby
invited to a celebration of the life of Elizabeth Kalcevic, also known as "Mike" of
the Lake Shore Inn, whose identity has been stolen by the Social Security Administration.
Wednesday, June 30th, marks the final day of the first of many lifetimes devoted
to friends, family and community. Lake Shore Inn hosts the celebration, which
will also serve as a fund raising event for the legal costs of resurrection.
Rodgers is vocal about her friend.
"If this can happen to a business woman of 20 years here, it can happen
to anybody," Rodgers said. "I was outraged. Mike is such a sweetheart."
Because she could not help out in her own bar Wednesday, Kalcevic went from
person to person with her ever-present smile.
"The place was full," Kalcevic said. "I saw people there who I
hadn't seen in years and years, and all the calls ... the calls came from friends
in Albuquerque, Socorro, Belen and Los Lunas."
After the excitement of the evening lapsed into the next day, the reality
came back that she still has a long, long battle in front of her.
"I can't stop," Kalcevic said. "You just keep on going, one foot
after the other."
Social Security Administration recommended she get a new Social Security
number. But if she does, what about all the money she paid into Social Security
for
the last 45 years?
Martha Cushing, a Social Security public affairs specialist from the Albuquerque
office said Social Security has a way to visit the account number she has
been using all these years and possibly extract the funds to a new account.
Cushing
said Social Security will do whatever it can to help Kalcevic find the documents
she needs, so she can show them to the Social Security Administration and
get the situation straightened out.
Meanwhile, she's just happy to be alive. |
Friday
July 2, 2004
Selected
Stories:
Liquor
laws broken every day at city golf course
Bluewater Lake has dead woman walking
Couple drops out of the sky into Cubero
A little bit of thistle and a little
bit of that
Fort
Defiance man wins 'Buy Navajo' challenge
Deaths |
