Percy, see my last blog entry, was poor most of his life. He came from a family that really didn't have the money to send him to college. We enlisted in the army and the army covered his college costs.
When he started work as a teacher he always felt that he should marry a rich woman. Her family would take care of all of his needs. As life would have it, he fell in love with a girl from a family that had the biggest house in Atherton California.
Atherton is a small very upscale town on the San Francisco Peninsula between Belmont(San Carlos) and Mountain View (Palo Alto). Her family home had massive greek columns 25 feet high on the front steps leading up to the house. In front of the house was a huge reflecting pool that doubled as an unheated swimming pool. It was an enormous house with two basement floors underground with row upon row of rare books. The family's hobby business was rare book stores. They owned three. None of them made any significant money. Their operating capital came from land they owned in San Luis Obispo. They had wheat growing in fields between San Luis Obispo and Atascadero.
Percy's friend had a brother almost exactly my age. I was invited down for a day to meet him and be a part. We decided to go to the movie. No one had the two dollars required to go to the movie. The irony was we were in a multi million dollar house and no one had two bucks.
Finally we asked the domestic helper and cook who lived there if she had two bucks we could borrow. She happily gave it up for us to go. I guess we could have asked the gardener.
When we got back the family was having a dinner party. We were invited. It was the first time I had had a canape. I was asked about my family and we had a good time at the dinner table.
I left late at night with Percy driving us home to South City with a little bit of chagrin.
Love Pat
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