My grandfather
One of my girlfriends asked me how it came to be that my parents were wealthy. So I explained that they got their money from my grandfather. My grandfather was born in 1909. He was from a very poor family; his parents abandoned him to be raised by his grandmother, who was also very poor. She eked out her living telling fortunes. My grandfather dropped out of school in the third grade to work for a construction company as a plumber’s helper. By the time he was eighteen he was a master plumber and had started his own plumbing business. Through shrewd real estate investments that he made with the profits from his plumbing business, he became a multi-millionaire by the time he was thirty-five. When he died, he left everything he owned to my parents.
When I was telling my girl friend about my grandfather’s rags to riches story she told me that our family was a member of the Nouveau Riche club. I asked her “what do you mean?” She explained that term means “newly rich” and it means that the person started out poor and ended up wealthy. So, I guess she’s right, at least when it pertains to my grandfather - he started out poor and ended up rich! But the way my parents are spending that money, I’m going to be just as poor as he was, because I’m sure not going to be inheriting any of it!
