When I was working, I spoke almost every day with clients who talked as if traveling to downtown Minneapolis was an odyssey that they'd ruminated over for hours, if not days, before bravely setting out to execute their meticulous plan, navigating the most propitious roadways, parking their car some place they'd settled on in advance, and prosecuting a second errand before its time in order to delay their next parlous journey into the city. I suspected they might have made inquiries about whether a resident of Wayzata, or wherever, needed to present a valid passport somewhere along the downtown exit ramp from I-394.
I'm laughing at myself now, because this morning I had to meet with a guy in his downtown office, and I wasn't too pleased about it. What a hassle! I took the bus--I knew not to drive--and was in the flow of the latter part of rush hour. Nothing impresses on you that superannuated sensation like a bus load of people who are plainly on their way to work. I imagined them thinking to themselves that they're paying into the social security trust fund for the likes of me. Once disembarked, I wandered aimlessly like the rube I now am, marveling to myself at how "downtown has sure changed!" Of course I'd expected transportation complications, and, since there hadn't been any, I had time to kill. The weather was too wretched to keep walking around in so I entered the public library.
I've been a nerdy bookworm for about 55 years and the downtown public library is very familiar to me. It's always been a hang out for people who have no particular place to be, and that's still so. I rode the elevator with an older man who had one of those wheeled walkers, quite an elaborate one with wire shelves in the vertical space between the grips and wheels. These shelves were loaded with what appeared to be his worldly possessions. A duffel bag, half unzipped because overstuffed, revealed articles of clothing. When I asked what floor he wanted, he answered with more volume and force than I'd been expecting: Two! I don't know what the attractions of level two are but the overall attraction is clearly the long rows of computer stations in the big open areas in the middle of all the floors. Internet access! A half hour after the library had opened, there were so few unoccupied stations that I guessed the computers at the empty ones might be broken.
I went to the philosophy section on level four. I've gotten interested in the Roman Stoic philosophers--Seneca, Epictetus, Musonius, and Marcus Aurelius--and I thought I'd see whether any of their works were checked in. Nope. The Stoics held that people would be happier, more content, if they could learn to want only things they already had. They would have approved of your mom if, like mine, she told you that your own troubles might not seem like much if you once in awhile bothered to consider what other people have to endure. Killing time at the public library before meeting with your financial guy is an invitation to take mom's advice. It occurs to me now that maybe that's why I thought to look on the open shelves for The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius or a selection of Seneca's letters.
The financial guy--I bet he doesn't go to the public library. Lots of graphs and smooth chit-chat. After three minutes I could hardly hear him over the AM radio of my youth playing in my head.
Money, get away.
Get a good job with more pay and you're okay.
Money, it's a gas.
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash.
New car, caviar, four-star daydream:
Think I'll buy me a football team.
Money, get back.
I'm all right, Jack, keep your hands off of my stack.
Money, it's a hit.
Don't give me that do-goody good bullshit.
I'm in the high-fidelity, first-class traveling set,
And I think I need a Learjet.
I made it home, turned on the TV, and listened from the kitchen as Katy Tur and her guests discussed the college admissions cheating scandal. I guess it's about fifty grand to have someone else take the test for your kid? Seems like a lot, but there are a lot of people to pay off, and the "businessman" needs to turn a profit, too. The customers have about twenty million more dollars than the guy on the elevator at the library, and their profit on it is that they can buy alternative facts for their offspring. Well, what did we expect? They're in the top 1%, but not the top 0.1%, so buying a résumé with a new wing for the university library isn't an option.
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