By the third time that Margaret Swoboda’s calls to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management were dumped into the agency’s voicemail system, the 100-year-old resident of Northeast Portland said she’d reached a slow boil.
As detailed in a story in The Oregonian/OregonLive last month, the centenarian’s federal pension benefits were summarily cut off on Sept. 1 after she failed to respond to an officious sounding agency letter demanding that she prove she was still alive.
Not just any proof, but a notarized copy of an attached form, a copy of her state ID, and a picture of her holding a recent newspaper with the date showing. Within 30 days…