Happy family. Everyone is happy, clean clothes, food seems plentiful. Not saying that every rich family is happy, but having money really fixes a lot of stressors in life.

College friend who had a thick southern accent and generally put out a “country boy” vibe, though he lived in the DC suburbs of Maryland. Invited us to his parent’s house on the border of West Virginia so we could go skiing at Snowshoe. We figured: tarpaper shack.

The 3-story wall of windows looking out on 300 feet of frontage on Deep Creek Lake was a giveaway that “country boy” was not what he seemed.

On a sad note: I’m going to his memorial party on Friday. He passed away in a freak home accident on Jan. 3. I’ve known him now for almost 40 years. This is the big get together of his college friends (his funeral was small, family-only). And it will be a *party*. Because he was the kind of guy who inspired that. Expecting over a hundred equally close friends to attend.

Once a friend invited me to go with him to his family farm for the holidays. I was driving and it was a long drive. Once we were inside a dirt road that was simply endless. 40 min in I asked when do get to the property. He looked confused and said “we been at the property for the last 40 minutes”.
Basically the farmland 100k acres big. This was in Argentina.

My grandmother left my granddad and she got pregnant. Her lover dumped her.

My grandfather took her back along with the baby. They had two kids together after that.

He always treated her son the same as their two kids.

I didn't learn any of this until my 50s.

My father's side of the family had "the help" all the way up until the 70s or so.

Their family employed a black woman who resided in a separate part of the home, did almost all the cooking, cleaning, babysat my father and his siblings, etc.

But she was not permitted to eat at the same time as my father's family - to say the least. There was an extremely small room off the kitchen she was allowed to eat in by herself after the family had finished their meal.

With that said - after my grandparents passed away, my father allocated a portion of his inheritance to her so she would no longer have to work. It wasn't living lavishly or anything - but it was enough to get by. He also insisted absolutely that she be included on family events like holidays and birthdays, because she was also family. I grew up viewing her as like a great aunt.

I feel like deja vu isn't discussed often enough. Not the "this feels like something I've been through" but legitimate "I had this exact dream and now it's happening". We all have that s**t and no one talks about it.