Some thoughts on wealth

In my synagogue, there are some very wealthy people.  When I went to San Francisco recently, I ran into some very wealthy people.  In my neighborhood, where houses sell for a million dollars each, there are some very wealthy people.

I am nowhere near ready to go buy a million dollar house, and probably, I never will.  I drive a 1998 plymouth voyager with 140,000 miles on it.  My house needs to be repainted, and I can't afford to do that.  Although I probably ought to get a loan, get it done, and then sell the house and find something much smaller.  When I had 4 children living under my roof, I needed a house that big.  Now, it is just my long-suffering wife and me.

However, in many respects, I am an extraordinarily wealthy man.  I had one of the finest educations that money could buy - I went to Overlake School, which was expensive.  That's where I learned BASIC, and in the mid 1970s, high school students were not programming - in anything.  Then I went to Harvey Mudd College, where I got my B.S. in physics and my exposure to FORTRAN (which should be in all caps, because it is an acronym), pascal, ALGOL, 6502 assembler, VAX assembler.  Now, I am a linux system administrator, and I am a hot commodity.  Even if some draconian government took away everything everubody owned, I still have the skill: in a few years, I could catch up.

In other respects, I am an extremely wealthy man.  There is a man who is busking at the corner of Fairview and Virginia - in the dark, in the rain.  He's not homeless, because he is trying to make up his rent.  But it seems as if he is in a precarious position.  For one thing, his favorite spot is a traffic island - not the safest place to be.  He's lonely.  He broke up with a woman several years ago, and he still grieves.  By way of contrast, I have a loving wife (why, I don't know, but she loves me), a warm home, no concerns about food, or health care.  Tommy Bahama even gives me an ORCA card so I can go pretty much anywhere I want to go (except Eatonville) for free (Tommy Bahama is a great place to work - if you can get a job there, go for it!).

On the other hand, I feel a tremendous sense of responsibility that I am failing to meet.  I have 4 grandchildren that I would like to send to college.  The thing that makes me valuable is that I know things that most people don't know.  That's why you go to college.  My parents sent me to college - it was the greatest gift they ever gave me - and I returned the favor for Sarah and Daniel.  I didn't return the favor for Chris and John, and now I