I met this guy at a book fair one time, many years ago. A humble guy who was a teacher. We got along pretty well, had some good conversations. Eventually, he invited me up to his house. It was in a small, artsy little community known for its spas.

I get to his house, which I was surprised to discover was quite large, he opens the door and invites me in, and, there in the foyer sits a 1920’s Bugatti type 35. I was a little stunned, and complimented him on having such a great car in his house. He responded that he had 5 more in the garage, and he bought them when they were cheap (the current price of a vintage Bugatti was in the neighborhood of $1 to $2 million dollars. I would never have guessed this quiet, humble guy was wealthy. When I got home, I did some research, and found out that this guy had made his millions in advertising and had donated several prominent sculptures around Los Angeles. Who’da thunk it. He had retired, and he taught because he enjoyed it and teaching contributed something to the younger generation (he taught graphic design at a local college).

I met this other guy because we had a common interest in photography. Nice guy; we’d talk cameras and photography, go get lunch, in my crappy little 1991 Nissan Sentra, after dropping his nice Mercedes off at the dealer to be worked on, all kinds of things like that. I began to suspect he had a bit of money when he was always turning up with the newest, latest expensive camera. Then he invited me to lunch at one of his hangouts, the Hotel Bel Air. Duh. Eventually, he invited me over to his house, in the hills of Beverly Hills. Now, I knew, after at least six years of knowing this guy. Turned out he was a producer, but, never said a word.

After knowing these guys and having met a few others, I kind of decided that they were just regular people who were enjoying their lives and their friends, and how much money they had just wasn’t part of the equation.