"The rich are not like you and me," F. Scott Fitzgerald once said..."

I think the rest of the quote is, "...they have money!"

And of course, in the absolute sense ot the statement, it is absolutely true.


Nearly all of my friends and aquaintences fall into the same financial category; they are all not starving, most of them own homes and cars, take nice vacations and travel to interesting places, they live comfortably enough. Many of them also have enough put aside to assure that they will continue do be able to do so in the future. A few of them have enough put away to do the future with some style. But none of them are rich with "walk away money", (the kind of wealth that allows you to just walk away from anything...), and this suits me just fine. Don't think I'd want any friends that were that much wealthier than I; that kind of disparity in ready cash just makes everyone uncomfortable. bwa ha.

But I did have a few friends like that for a while, a few years back when I was living in the French Quarter with Bill, when we had our little deli/corner store. The Quarter is a great leveler...

Money Changes Everything...

And, sometimes it doesn't in a way. We had two neighbors, a couple, that had retired to the French Quarter from the hustle and bustle of Birmingham society. They had sold their house there, (which had been featured in "House Beautiful", and it was hugely amazing, my dears...) and came to live among us, accumulating a couple of million dollars in local real estate as they did. The husband came into his money through hard work and a great intelligence in making investments. She came into her money the old fashioned way, through a rather enormous inheritance.

In Birmingham, they were grandees, social arbiters; if you were invited to one of their parties, you would most certainly show up. And you would have a good time. They threw amazing parties, most of them very large charity events because they had a house that was just the thing for them. But they were also very good at an intimate dinner or cocktail party. People looked to them for social leadership and they provided it with flash.

(At one of the big charity cocktail parties at their house in Birmingham, Joe Namath became a bit intoxicated, so his handlers decided to get him out through one of the library doors instead of having him return through the ball room crowd... I told you, this was a big house... and on his way out, he tripped and fell on my friend, the hostess, and in the process, broke her arm. The next day, a huge floral arrangement arrived at her hospital room with the note: "Stars Fell On Alabama, Joe.")

They were good neighbors, always coming into the store and always ready to have a chat on the street. We got along right off, and when it came time for them to throw a big party, I got to cater it. It was pretty amazing; people came from all over the country, many of them in private planes...

Here's something that you may not know; there are many levels of money and social prestige and many of those levels intersect. You may think that someone from somewhere in Alabama might not have all that much social pull, but it's all about old family money and how someone looks in the press. There's an inter-connected social group of very wealthy folks that runs a line along the southern and eastern coast from New Orleans through Florida, up though Georgia, Savanah and all the way to New York. It's a network of Junior League and hospital charities and the like.They don't care to appear on television, a tasteful notice in the society column is all they want because anyone they care about will see it there.

Money and politics...

Well, she wouldn't have liked Bush, she would have found him smarmy and she didn't much care for that kind of social set; Texas cowboys... her family was much older. He, was much more practical about the whole thing. We talked a lot about the first Clinton campaign. I had just met Clinton, (well, a hand shake and a word or two) and I was impressed. One morning, as we were talking on the street, he said, "Listen, I've met a lot of these bastards from both parties, and none of them is worth a shit! Don't expect that any one of these guys is going to protect your interests, they don't know anything about you! It's all about money!" Over the several years that we lived across the street from each other, we talked a lot. And I learned a lot from him, because he could give me history; this man had lived though times before I was aware, and he was willing to share his memories as well as his opinions. And he loved to argue through a topic, he was a physician by trade, passionate and prone to explore all angles.

Bill and I spent a few evenings with them, cocktails and dinner in their lovely house in the Quarter, just the four of us, but everything just so, they were masters at the social graces and so much fun. And they did Christmas with a passion, they lit up the block! And there were presents for everyone, nothing ever big, but no one in the hood was ever forgotten.

We had moved out of the Quarter as Bill got less able to handle the stairs...and other things, not that far away... and when he died, they showed up at my humble door here in the Marigny with a very nice flower arrangement. She hugged me fiercely and said in her very extreme southern accent, "Oh, Darrhal, ah know hooow much ya loved that boy! We did too!" and she started crying. He said, "We can't be here for the wake tonight, but we wanted you to know that we love you both very much and we're thinking of you..."

We would see each other now and again after that, but after a while, the house in the Quarter was empty, they had passed.

They were probably the wealthiest people that I have ever known. I probably would never have met them if they hadn't moved in across the street in place like the French Quarter where high life and low life can mingle comfortably, and at a time where they were happy to mingle with the locals, instead of worrying if the list for the next big party was good enough.

He told me once, "Well, it got to be where we were either cleanin' up after a big party or gettin' ready to have the next one. And we decided it was time to give that all up and just enjoy life. This is a nice little neighborhood and you are nice guys. We are happy to be here."

So, when I say...

...the rich are not like you and me... like I did in that post, well I do have some idea...

I don't hate the rich, some of my best friends... hehe. I just know that they are different and that it's not always a bad thing that they are different. Some of them live close enough to the ground and have a clear idea of what the rest of the world goes through.

I also know that many people with lots of wealth, have no idea what the rest of the world is like.

But that's another story...

durlx