BRATTLEBORO — In the mid-1980s, we lived in a cabin without utilities, wore used clothing, and spend money freely only on wholesome, organic food. Before our son was born, I took whatever low-paying job I could get.
Sometimes a low-paying job brings you in contact with wealthy people.
When I began to work for “Mr. Lumbar,” the irony was lost on me that his home was located on Poverty Row. Some people have a second home in Vermont; their Poverty Row house was a third home. Their first home was a Gramercy Park penthouse, and they also owned an ocean-front home with a sailboat.
Mr. Lumbar was the retired CEO of a major financial institution. You would recognize the name of this company immediately.
As an on-call hourly aide at just over the minimum wage, I was sent to help Mrs. Lumbar with her husband, who had Parkinson's disease. My presence gave Mrs. Lumbar a break and a chance to leave the house for a few hours.
Mrs. Lumbar would call the agency on short notice, requesting my services for the minimum permitted time of four hours. It seemed that she was being frugal, only calling when she absolutely could take it no more and needed relief, and then only spending the minimum.
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When, in nice weather, I would take Mr. Lumbar for a walk, I had to keep a grip on his belt because his disease caused his gait to speed up involuntarily. If unchecked, he could end up unable to stop and in danger of a fall.
Other than walks, it was challenging to find productive ways to spend the time. I engaged Mr. Lumbar in conversation. I learned about his childhood. His parents had sent him to an exclusive school with a progressive agenda. He hated it. He wanted to be a regular kid and go to public school.
One day, I brought my Smith-Corona portable word processor and suggested that I would interview Mr. Lumbar about his life, thinking that we could create a legacy for his family. Mrs. Lumbar did not try to hide her dismay: She thought I was trying to get them to hire me for more hours.
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One day, Mrs. Lumbar went shopping and left her husband in my care at lunchtime.
I looked in the refrigerator to see what I could prepare. I saw that there was Mott's apple juice and three quarts of strawberries that were in danger of excessive over-ripeness, begging to be eaten before they went bad.
In addition to proposing that I prepare sandwiches, I suggested making a blender drink of apple juice and strawberries. The food in the Lumbars' fridge was not up to my usual standards, but I tried to work with what is available.
Mr. Lumbar was shocked.
“If you put strawberries in a blender with apple juice,” he said, “and just drink them down by the glassful, you will soon go broke!”
“I will?” I thought.
And here we had been doing it all the time - and with organic apple juice and organic strawberries! No wonder we lived in a cabin without utilities instead of in a penthouse with two vacation homes.We had thrown all our money down our gullets, wasting it on fresh, organic food!
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Soon after that, I stopped accepting the Poverty Row assignment. The commute from Westminster to Whitingham was at least an hour each way: Two hours of uncompensated travel in order to work at low wages for four hours. It was extremely marginal for me to spend the time and expense traveling there for a half-day's work.
I guess I am not the patron saint of the impoverished well-off.