Saratoga Stereopticon
That inner voice is mouthing off again
By Willys Peck
'Your problem," said Sam. "Is attitude. You have a real, dyed-in-the-wool attitude problem."
Sam, as introduced in this column some time back, is the acronym for Subliminal Argumentative Mouthing, the inner voice which, in my case, is an after-the-fact social conscience. Sam is never there to warn me beforehand, but he's right on top of any conversational gaffe when it's too late to remedy.
"All right," I said, "what's with the attitude?"
"It shows up in those columns you write. Some people might call it snotty. You've got an attitude."
"Whatever are you talking about?" I protested. "I just write about what I know and observe regarding Saratoga."
"Maybe so," said Sam, "but, for one thing, it looks like you've been going out of your way to needle real estate people. They're only trying to make a living, you know."
"I'm sure my comments really bother them," I retorted. "They must be crying all the way to the bank."
"And what's this thing you seem to have about rich people?" Sam persisted. "Do you have a problem with the fact that some people are well-to-do, as in rich, as in buying houses in Saratoga, as in, you should excuse the expression, rich man's enclave?"
"Not really," I said. "When I was much younger, I concluded that some of the unhappiest people I knew, or knew of, were that way because of wealth. So I resolved that, as far as my own future was concerned, I would make every effort to avoid acquiring too much money. I must say, with all modesty, that I have exceeded my fondest expectations."
"That's called rationalizing," said Sam. "You've just gotten by on dumb luck. For instance, what you paid for that house of yours couldn't buy a backyard gazebo in Saratoga today."
"One-holer outhouse would be my choice of simile," I said, "but I paid what the going price was for houses 49 years ago."
"Like I said, dumb luck," said Sam. "So now you can sit back on your million-dollar property and make snide comments about people paying the going price today. I must say, though, that you are managing to maintain an aura of rusticity. Any person as old as that car of yours could legally buy hard liquor."
"I'll drink to that," I said. "Old, maybe, but very dependable."
"Have you ever thought about having it washed?" Sam bored in.
"I was giving it serious consideration," I said. "But then I noticed the rather intricate pattern of bird-droppings over the top and the hood, and it struck me that this is exactly the kind of abstract art people are buying at these auctions on the Internet. I think that car has a future as an objet d'art."
"And I think you have a future as a candidate for some in-depth therapy," Sam muttered. "But," he went on, "what you really need in that column is some sort of gimmick, some kind of theme that will build suspense, like campaigning for a cause."
"I think I've been doing that," I said. "I've been plugging the Heritage Orchard."
"Sure, you've mentioned it, even written some rather nice things about it," Sam admitted. "But I mean, make it a recurring subject. There are people getting up before the city council during oral petition time, pushing for preservation of the orchard, and they're really getting their point across. You should be doing the same thing in print. Get to the point where the city will agree to keep the orchard in perpetuity just to get you off their backs. Be a gadfly of the state like Aristotle. Or was it Socrates? Or maybe it was Plato."
"It's all Greek to me," I admitted, "but I get the point."
"Anyway, be obnoxious," Sam continued. "You certainly know how with that attitude of yours."
"It's nice to be appreciated, even by one's inner self," I said.
"All right," said Sam. "Maybe I am being a little hard on you. You can't help the fact that you're a relic, a throwback."
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
