If We Struck It Rich

If WeStruck It Rich
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Man of War

Man of War

Shoshanah Dubiner

A group of us had rented a house for a vacation south of Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii. The property was in the coffee plantation country, high above Kealakekua Bay and the nearby City of Refuge. Our group included psychotherapists, entrepreneurs, writers, all on vacation from the squalor of the San Francisco Bay Area.

At breakfast someone proposed a game. I think it was the entrepreneur. He had been years ahead of his time on various projects that much later would yield viable businesses. Each person was to say what he or she would do if we struck it rich.

Yachts were mentioned, South Sea islands, a staff of helpers. When the talking stick reached one of our party, he rather mischievously said: “I see us sitting around a koa-wood table in an elegant house high above the Pacific, playing a talking game, with nothing to do that day except eat mangoes, lie on the beach, tour a historic coffee plantation home.”

We all realized that he was describing our actual life. Which was hugely privileged, but not enough, not for a group of strivers, of people always looking for some thing more. Was it John Steinbeck who described us as a nation of “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”? Meaning people who thought they could or might or would probably strike it rich. Who thought in terms of individuals, not of community.

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