“Dad, can you tell me how to get rich?”

The poor and the middle class work for money. The rich have money work for them.


“Dad, can you tell me how to get rich?”

My dad put down the evening paper. “Why do you want to get rich, Son?”

“Because today Jimmy’s mom drove up in their new Cadillac, and they were going to their beach house for the weekend. He took three of his friends, but Mike and I weren’t invited. They told us we weren’t invited because we were poor kids.”

“They did?” my dad asked incredulously. “Yeah, they did,” I replied in a hurt tone.

My dad silently shook his head, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, and went back to reading the paper. I stood waiting for an answer.

The year was 1956. I was nine years old. By some twist of fate, I attended the same public school where the rich people sent their kids. We were primarily a sugar-plantation town. The managers of

the plantation and the other affluent people, such as doctors, business owners, and bankers, sent their children to this elementary school. After grade six, their children were generally sent off to private schools. Because my family lived on one side of the street, I went

to this school. Had I lived on the other side of the street, I would