Friday, December 22, 2017

Wealth

The Revolution may not, as they say, be televised, but it sure has been made easier to get to, courtesy of the Washington State Department of Transportation’s beautiful SR 520 bike trail on the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge across Lake Washington.

When the tocsin sounds and we storm the barricades, we can do so in luxury as we pedal on the double-wide path into the land of one-percenters so as to requisition their ill-gotten gains for the deserving masses.

In the meantime, though, we will continue to marvel at the abundance of our region. 

Even those of us who don’t reside behind perfectly-groomed twelve-foot high hedges and ornately crafted wrought iron gates, are still able to enjoy the lavish gift of cycling together through neighborhoods and downtown cores where—if the streets aren’t exactly paved with gold—they certainly glitter like precious metal with an undeniable burnish of wealth and power at every intersection and byway.

I mean where else have you been cut off while riding by a Bentley convertible, the driver so content with her station in life that she merely waives like the Dowager Countess dismissing her handmaiden for tea?

It’s a place where a playground, even one in the part of town in which houses are permitted to touch one another, has a jungle gym that fairly oozes privilege, its complex system of ropes and rings like something from LeCorbusier via Chanel.

But then, lo and behold, after a rousing chorus of “Sleigh Ride,” you eventually pull up at a friendly watering hole that would be right at home in your humble homeland, illustrating that, in spite of what F. Scott Fitzgerald observed, the rich aren’t so different from you and me; after all, who doesn’t love tater tots no matter what hedge fund you manage or multinational conglomerate you own.

Eventually, the complete loop of luxury is completed, and you bed down, feeling, like George Bailey, the richest man in town.

1 comment:

  1. I kind of thought of the path opening as a Christmas Gift.

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