The Rich Are Different

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      "The rich are different", or so proclaims F. Scott Fitzgerald in "The Rich Boy."   This is debatable. I had a crude but honest friend that used to say "hey we all look the same from behind bent over to pick up the soap in the shower." I have no idea where Charley Cary got that line, but that may be more true than the "rich are different."

       The morning was the beginning of a beautiful New York day. My mom and I were taking a short vacation in NYC. I am blessed to have odd connections to interesting people. My sister in law's cousin has been a business manager for David Rockefeller for many years. David is the last of his generation of the Rockefeller dynasty. He is now in his mid 90s. He spends his weekends north of the city in his country home on the Hudson River. We were pleased to learn we could meet him. Upon entering his beautiful old home, if one didn't notice the security, the butler, the cook, and the private nurse--- you wouldn't know you were in the home of a multibillionaire.  I wanted to meet him not because he was wealthy. I was interested in talking to him about his life-- his service in WWII, his leadership in building the World Trade Center towers. And I wanted to know about his life, much of which had been spent giving away family money and running foundations in the arts and social support for the poor. He was sharp and friendly, and quite "undifferent." His great joy was showing us the tricks his dog Snoopy did. He would spend the rest of the weekend in the old family home. Monday morning a helicopter would land on the lawn and take him back to his high rise in Manhattan. At 95, he would show up at "The Rock" at his office to go about being rather "undifferent."

      Unfortunately, our western culture judges success and "net worth" by bank accounts, real estate holdings, and material goods. It was at my father's funeral I realized no one at that moment cared how much money he died with...in his pocket or in the bank. No one cared that daddy had lost the farm to debt, and he was now making an honest living driving the local trash truck. Everyone there knew he'd never worked the system of US government "farm welfare." What seemed important to people, about 300 of them in a town of 200 people, was the fact that Jimmy McCoy was a man of his word. He was kind and big hearted. He would often be the first on the door step of a neighbor in need.  Everyone also knew dad struck the match too many times and I know he popped the top of a cold one too often. But even that didn't seen to matter in the end, when it was all over except for the flowers, and him being carried to the hole "we were planting  him in", as he was fond of saying about funerals. 

       I sat Friday night at the OSU Educators Hall of Fame and realized in the end, our net worth must be measured by what we give, not what we take. It must be measured by the open hand of releasing our lives to others, not the closed hand of hoarding. It must be measured by the brave action of helping the needy, not the cowardly stance that only the lazy can't better themselves. I sat there and thought about that little man, Skeet Carney, described in A Rainbow in the Dark. Skeet did the unthinkable many times. He went to Kirk's basketball games being the only white face in the crowd. He drove to east side of Atoka, and begged Ripp to return to college. He hired African American kids when plenty of whites needed jobs. And more than that he treated them without a speck of difference regarding their skin color. 

      So if we view being wealthy by measures like Dr. Henry Kirkland Jr., Skeet Carney, or even my Daddy--- maybe the wealthy are different. Different in spirit, Rich in spirit.