Yesterday Mr. C's Scout troop helped park cars at the Radnor Hunt spring races.
I guess the foxes got a break for a few days while the well-heeled were paying attention to writing down races and bets in the magazine published just for that meet.
I'm happy to say that this annual meet has become considerably more democratic over the years. Now anyone with $50.00 to spend on a parking ticket can pull into Gate 4 and picnic near the rail, watching the horses and their riders get ready to race.
The riders come back to that point as the race ends -- unless their horse has reared up and thrown them somewhere along the crowded track.
A few years back, when our kids were a lot smaller, we decided to experience the Hunt tradition for ourselves in company of a social group my ex belonged to. However, as he recalled yesterday, we didn't realize that we were supposed to bring food. Most definitely not to the manor born. Generally tailgating isn't a New York custom -- unless you are the designated driver.
I noticed yesterday that though there were a lot of carefully tinted blonde women and straw-hatted men driving BMW's, there were also a number of onlookers garbed in leisure suits.
It still seems peculiar that my son's Boy Scout troop should have hooked up with this formerly patrician event -- peculiar until my ex tells me that his troop makes a cool 4,000 or so out of acting as parkers.
The DQ, of course, expresses a great wish to live in the general environs of the Hunt Club, only one of the most expensive areas in the Philadelphia area. If you knew my DQ, you wouldn't be surprised -- maybe she got switched at birth with a deb.
But I also am aware of who, on that lovely day, isn't there.
The single parent who spends the dollars on food, or transportation, or clothes. The working parents who choose to send their son to summer camp at the Y rather than blow the money on a day at the races.
Those girls who care less about horse races but want to be able to avoid gunfire on the streets when they walk to school. Boys who dream of earning enough cash to have their own horse and ride it in the country, a place they have never even visited.
Allow them into the picture, and some of the glamor goes out of the day. Perhaps that isn't such a bad thing, after all.
2 commentaires:
I'm in an affluent part of Silicon Valley, and there are plenty of wealthy people here who hob-nob together, and think nothing of spending big money on things they don't really need. It's part of the "prize" they won when they sacrificed other aspects of their life to put themselves in position to be wealthy.
A dad of my daughter's friend is extremely wealthy, and has never seen her run in a track meet. I don't have the money he has, but I'm at every track event, rooting on my daughter - and his daughter, and the rest of the team. I'd rather be present, than making billions.
4 grand out of parking cars??? Jeez... someone pass me a set of keys, and I'll happily park a few BMWs and friends...
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