MONEY

February 13, 2009

Birren #2

Money

Friday the 13th, and the subject is money!

When I was a young man an incredibly wealthy older woman said to me: "Bob,

you'll never have money, but you'll always know people who do."

Alas and alack, she was quite correct.

When I graduated from high school in three years at the age of 16 during World

War II, I really had a choice of colleges. I did not want to stay at home, nor

did I want to go too far away, so I chose Denison which was one of the most expensive schools in Ohio. I did get a small scholarship, but it was said that a year at Denison was about what a new Oldsmobile would cost, and it seems to be still true today. A new Olds in 1943 cost about one thousand dollars, and a comparable car today would be close to forty thousand dollars. We once figured that my four years in college cost a total of just over five thousand dollars.

I later went to Northwestern because it was one of the best theatre schools in

the country, but it is also probably the most expensive school in the Big Ten.

I went to teach theatre and speech at Drury College in Springfield, Missouri,

and my first year's salary was less that four thousand dollars. Still, at Christmas vacation I flew to New York (where I stayed with friends) and the following

summer I went to England on the Queen Mary and stayed in London with friends from Northwestern before going on to Stratford-upon-Avon to study Shakespeare. I then went to Paris for ten days where I met eight people I knew, (including one married couple from Denison who had an apartment on the

Ile-de-la-Cite and only three servants) and I returned on the Queen Elizabeth

In 1951 when Mom became ill I returned to Toledo and got a job as studio manager at WSPD-TV when television was just starting (my first TV set was

of course black-and-white and the screen was seven inches). I later became

a director and local live TV was exciting, but hardly lucrative.

While still at WSPD, I started a summer stock company which lost money the

first season (1952), but was slightly in the black the following year.

Later in France I taught Writing and Speech for the University of Maryland at

Fontainebleau which really did pay well, and when I went to England I was offered a job as television director at Lime Grove Studios, but was unable to get a

working permit. Still. I stayed with a friend in Onslow Gardens who was a premier danceur with The Royal Ballet, and got to know many of the theatre elite.

I ended up in Los Angeles, and though I have never made BIG MONEY, I have

indeed associated with many who did.

I am the poor boy in my family. My sister married a guy from a Texas oil family

and her three children (my niece and two nephews) each have trust funds from

their paternal grandmother which allows them to live pretty much as they please.

My niece of course has worked steadily and now lives in New Haven, Connecticut,

where she is the head of a state agency for preservation of farmland.

My current income is limited, but I can live reasonably well. I do miss going

to the theatre and opera as much as I wish, and although "Two Buck Chuck"

is an acceptable house wine, I would like to splurge on Gevrey-Chambertin a

little more often.

rwtf