We visit Ukiah’s city park early every morning to walk around with some other people who do the same thing. Exercise, I suppose.
Some people bring a dog, and the people who don’t have a dog leave it home. Everybody gets along OK. It’s the kind of club you don’t have to pay to join and there aren’t any monthly dues.
That’s the only way it could be, since nobody works. Ed has a fancy pension he brags about but no one believes him, including his wife, and John and I get Social Security welfare. Nick says he works in real estate. That means he drives people around, points at houses and later everybody gets together to sign documents someone else prepared.
Question: How is that work?
But the funny thing is that John and Ed have it in their tiny brains that Nick makes a lot of money doing his real estate stuff. Unlikely, I say.
“Think about it. If Nick had a lot of money do you honestly think he’d set his alarm for 5 a.m., saddle up Peanut the dog, then walk three miles so he could hang out with US??
“Any other rich people you see hanging around Todd Grove Park?” I asked. “This ain’t rocket surgery. Rich guys drive around in limousines and go hobnobbing with movie stars and Silicon Valley cats. Or bank presidents and country clubbers. Or even golfers.”
John and Ed aren’t the brightest knives in the light socket but they got the point, sort of. Yet they remained suspicious.
“What about Dick Selzer?” John said. “Dick Selzer’s rich and Nick hangs out with him. So there.”
I sighed. “Yeah, yeah, but you have to realize Dick Selzer parlayed his real estate hobby into writing for the Daily Journal, and newspaper columnists are the ones who make the big bucks in America.”
Their faces clouded over; I’d lost them at “parlayed.”
If it isn’t already obvious, Ed and John are both perpetually focused on money, which is not to say they are impoverished. Not exactly. But they walk around Todd Grove Park, both heads bowed, and if one of them spots a nickel on the pavement it’s like barnyard chickens squabbling over a fat bug.
(Dear Reader: This long, drawn out introduction brings us to the point, which took place in a grassy section at the south end of the park, not far from the rocket ship.)
The four of us were in a loose circle when Nick, while holding Peanut’s leash, stared at the ground. He bent over, picked up something wet, flattened it out and maybe he shrieked. In all the excitement I’ve forgotten his words, but I remember him holding it up and showing everyone what he’d found:
A one hundred dollar bill.
We could not have been more astounded if Nick had discovered Jimmy Hoffa’s grave. I’m not sure any of us had ever seen a hundred dollar bill before, and we gaped like it was a Faberge egg.
I spoke first. “Uhh, Nick, you know we’re socialists right? If anyone gets anything everyone else gets to have it too.”
“Especially rich people,” piped up John. “To each whatever they want and the rest of us take whatever’s left over.” Ed nodded. “Eat the riches.”
Nick was in a tight spot, and maybe because he actually knew a little more about money than the rest of us, he proposed that he keep one-half of the $100, and that Ed and John and I should divvy up one-third of the rest, and Nick would keep whatever’s left over.
Math might as well be French, and with none of us knowing nothing of either, we agreed to the offer.
Nick, emboldened by that gambit’s success, doubled down.
“Since I don’t have my wallet with me I can’t give you guys anything right now,” he said. “I’ll go to the bank, get change and pay everyone tomorrow morning.”
Frowns and furrows followed, but nobody could think of anything wrong with Nick’s offer. Maybe we were so giddy at getting a piece of the action we never guessed we were being played.
Morning dawned, park walkers gathered, Nick arrived and announced, a little too cheerfully, I thought, that it was very sad, but the hundred dollar bill was a fake. A counterfeit. Sigh.
More frowns and furrows. I looked around. Then I noticed Peanut the dog was wearing a shiny new rhinestone collar, and Nick was sporting a Rolex.
Now of course his new watch could have been a phony; I hear you can get a fake Rolex for about 50 bucks.
TWK, when I read this in the MCT column I wondered aloud about the rocket you mention, and wanted a picture. Nobody stepped up with one, but it occurred to me to ask ChatGPT, which provided this:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6027600078/posts/10160658332995079/
It /is/ a jungle gym shaped like a rocket, with a slide, but it doesn’t match the one I wrote about playing on in a park in L.A. in 1963. That is, it’s different from what I remember. Often, when shown evidence or photos or the actual artifacts, I find that my memory has been creative. The one in Ukiah, going by the picture above, could fit my story with some cutting and welding and generic blond Nazi bully boys.