I want to relate to you an amazing story of a near-miracle that just happened to me.

It involves a bank, and insurance company and a customer service representative.

The other day I received a letter in the mail from Suntrust Mortgage saying my homeowner’s policy had expired for non-payment. This was most distressing news, since Suntrust itself is supposed to pay the policy premium out of an escrow account held for just such purposes.

I was not happy.

I called the Georgia Farm Bureau, who underwrote said homeowner’s policy, to verify the bad news. My agent said, yes, it had expired because no payment had been received. Thankfully, he said if the bank could overnight a check or if I could come by and pay that afternoon that the policy would be reinstated with no penalty.

I decided to call the bank first and get the 411 on the screw-up. Now, since the bank has gotten bigger it’s not as easy to get a local Suntrust person on the phone as it used to be. So I ended up reluctantly calling the 800 number on the original bad news letter from the bank.

Soon I was talking to a young lady who identified herself as “Charlotte.” I explained my predicament, saying I could go and pay the premium myself that afternoon, but I was curious what was to happen with the money held in escrow that was intended for that payment.

Do I get a refund? Do you reduce my monthly mortgage payment? Do you just hold the money for a rainy day? That’s what I want to know, I told her.

“And you want to find out what happened,” said Charlotte.

I was stunned at this frank, astute and undeniable observation. I had never heard a customer service representative express empathy on this basic level before.

“Yes! Yes. I want to find out what happened,” I said after remembering to breathe again.

Charlotte proceeded to relate how Suntrust had called the Georgia Farm Bureau a couple of times, had trouble getting through, and so had to send the “sorry your insurance has lapsed” letter.

Now here’s where the miracle happened.

Charlotte said, “I can take care of this right now. Would you like to hold for a few minutes while I get the Georgia Farm Bureau on the other line and arrange for us to pay your premium today?”

Would I? Would I?

“Th-th-that would be g-great,” I stammered, thinking for a brief moment that this was some kind of reality TV, “Punk’d by Phone” thing I’d stumbled into.

A few minutes later Charlotte returned to the line, thanked me for holding, and said it had all been taken care of. The payment had been made — while I was on hold — and my homeowner’s policy was back in effect.

Fast, polite and efficient customer service? From a bank? I’m still pinching myself.

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Here’s the thing: Property values in this area seldom go down. Like, pretty much never.

So when a series of properties along a proposed road-widening — which will need an eminent domain acquisition of said properties in order to proceed — experiences a sudden and in some cases dramatic reduction in value, by definition something fishy’s going on.

Whether or not the Savannah Morning News assures us, as it did in yesterday’s edition, that there’s “no conspiracy.”

The Kensington Park properties along Derenne Avenue which lost value in the latest assessment are not exactly in the ‘hood. Hell, even if they were it wouldn’t matter; in this area the ‘hood is generally appreciating in value as well, along with everything else.

These are established, comfortable, safe upper middle-class homes. For them to experience any reduction in assessed value in this white-hot real estate market simply defies belief.

I think it’s telling that the Savannah Morning News bent over so far backwards to assure everyone there’s “no conspiracy” to reduce the values to as to guarantee the government a low purchase price.

It’s telling because the only information they used to corroborate the “no conspiracy theory” theory came from the county assessor’s office itself.

No, there’s never been any collusion between elected officials and the assessor’s office to fix property values in this area, now has there? No, sir, never happened. Just move along, folks — nothing to see here.

Anytime someone accuses you of not having a “smoking gun” to prove your “conspiracy theory,” just remember: There’s almost never a “smoking gun.”

It’s a dangerous myth — promulgated mostly by TV cop and lawyer shows — that circumstantial evidence is tainted evidence that is not fully valid in a court of law.

Such is not the case.

Every day in this country hundreds of people are put in prison on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone. It is far, far more common to be convicted on circumstantial evidence than on the convenient literary device of the “smoking gun.”

The thing is, no elected official or county assessor will ever walk around with a sign around their necks saying “We colluded to lower values along Derenne so that we wouldn’t have to pay the homeowners what their property is really worth.”

No memo will ever go out on Chatham County letterhead saying, “I think in the upcoming round of assessments we need to go ahead and let the bottom fall out of those homes that we’ll need to buy for the widening.”

Those things are never going to happen. A Nixonian situation whereby the wrongdoer deliberately records every incriminating conversation on tape for all posterity only comes along once in a lifetime, if that often.

Sometimes all you have is the circumstantial evidence. Most of the time all you have is the circumstantial evidence.

So to paraphrase the late Johnnie Cochran: If the values drop, you must look to the top.

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I’m really happy for Paula Deen. I really, really am. I’m always glad when a local does good. I’ve met her and she seems like a really nice person.

But I do have one small peeve that I wanted to get off my chest.

You know this new place she opened, “Uncle Bubba’s?” It just doesn’t make sense.

In the South, “Bubba” generally is baby-talk for “brother,” in much the same way “sissy” is baby-talk for “sister.”

So the name of the restaurant is actually “Uncle Brother’s.”

I think that’s a pretty dumb name.

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I’m not one of those who is bashing the Willie Nelson/ Bob Dylan concert. I had a great time Saturday night and everyone else I know did too.

Perhaps I’m a little biased because I live a few blocks from Grayson Stadium. While everyone else was rushing over to claim their space — only to get caught in a torrential thunderstorm, or “gully washer” as a friend called it — we were at home on 50th Street drinking gin & tonics, waiting for the menacing black cloud to pass over.

Having waited the storm out, we sauntered up to the stadium drier than Effingham County, just as Willie slid into his traditional opener, “Whiskey River.”

Other than a handful of jerks in the very front row — whose jerkdom I corroborated from several independent eyewitness sources — the crowd seemed uniformly mellow.

Indeed, over the last few years I’ve been impressed at the peace-loving nature of most concert crowds I’ve been in. Younger concertgoers today are just not into bad vibes like they were back when I frequented rock ‘n’ roll shows.

When my crowd would go to concerts — mostly metal shows back in the early to mid ’80s — we would go knowing that a certain percentage of guys in the audience went to shows primarily to get in fights. It was considered a real occupational hazard of concert-going back in the day, and if you weren’t into it — as I wasn’t — you knew to steer clear of the hard-ass crowd who weren’t there to enjoy the music.

Saturday night, however, I was able to push my way — if “pushing” is even applicable — near to the front with my seven-year-old daughter. Not only that, but she was able to lead the way most of the time.

At one point, with her up on my shoulders, one young guy there with his girlfriend turned to me, pointed to my daughter and said, “That is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.”

And then, almost as an afterthought, he looked down at the unopened can of Coors Light he had in his hand. “Want a beer?” he asked. Sweating in my (unnecessary) rain poncho under the joyous but weighty burden of the 48-pound little rock fan on my shoulders, I eagerly took him up on his spontaneous act of generosity.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. The dude wasn’t just being nice. That was the X talking.

It’s true that the choice of drugs has changed since my younger days. We were purely drinkers back then — beer, bourbon, Bacardi 151. Nowadays the younger crowd smokes a lot of weed and does Ecstasy, neither of which were nearly as big back in my day.

But say what you will. I’m not one to look a gift horse — or a gift beer — in the mouth.

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As most discriminating readers can attest, I’m something of a conspiracy theory buff.

I certainly don’t believe every conspiracy theory I come across; far from it. But I do find any effort to connect the dots of history at a subtextual, under-the-radar level — away from the prim whitewashing and outright propaganda typical of any mainstream media outlet — to be fascinating and worthwhile in and of itself, if for no other reason then it stimulates the mind in unanticipated new directions.

Any discussion of the unveiling of Deep Throat would be remiss without a mention of one of the all-time great round-up conspiracy theory tomes, Ron Rosenbaum’s stylish and wry The Secret Parts of Fortune.

Among chapters on Lee Harvey Oswald, the Skull & Bones society, George H.W. Bush investigator Danny Casolaro and bogus cancer cures in Mexico, Rosenbaum pens a chapter on the mystery of Deep Throat — specifically, Richard Nixon’s own musings on the subject.

It’s fascinating to read Rosenbaum’s take — written circa 2000 — now that we know who Deep Throat really is. A snippet:

“One possible explanation for the Silence of Throat… is that if Throat were, like [Henry] Peterson or [Seymour] Glanzer, part of the Justice Department prosecutorial team, the disclosure of his identity might give all the Watergate felons cause to petition for a reversal of the verdicts on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. Who knows, they might have to restage all the big Watergate trials. As John Dean said, ‘What an exciting prospect.’”

Perhaps Rosenbaum puts his finger on why we’re now seeing such a torrent of abuse heaped on the senile, 91-year-old Mark Felt by such convicted felons and general worms as Chuck Colson, G. Gordon Liddy and (to a lesser extent of wormhood) Pat Buchanan.

These people criticizing Felt’s motives are among the most venal and corrupt political operators in modern American history. Their manufactured outrage is not just a symptom of rank hypocrisy; it’s a symptom of how sadly debased our public discourse is that such bottom-feeders would be in such abundance in the media the last few days, slandering Felt and his family without so much as a peep from the talking heads about how such morally and legally compromised men could feel so free to point a finger at others.

We may look back and see that the Watergate investigation was the last, best moment of American-style watchdog journalism. Indeed, I think the nostalgic looking back has already commenced.

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