Friday, June 10, 2011

(461) Parenting -- seventy years ago

My grand ma was great at story telling. One day she happened to talk about a local millionaire. We would normally assume that the son of this millionaire would go to school in an expensive car driven by a uniformed driver. Apparently such a picture does not include his son.

This millionaire owned a huge bungalow a stone's throw away from a mission school. His son walked to school. Not only he was not given privileges as a rich man's son. He was brought up as a working man's son. When he finished schooling, he was sent up north to start at the lowest job at his father's factory. He was billeted at the workers' hostel.

Even millionaires grew old. In his old age this man would take his eldest son's son to a coffee shop most mornings. He would order one coffee without milk - it was five cents cheaper than a cup with milk. Then he asked for a glass of hot water. With the practised ease of an acrobat, he remixed the coffee into two portions. The old man took the bigger portion and the young boy was given the diluted beverage in the smaller cup.

Legends came down the generation that the entire fortune was frittered away by this young boy. This family comprised of many aunts and sisters. In the olden days, female off springs were not entitled to any share of the family fortune. There was only one son for the millionaire. This only son begot only one son too. I leave it to you to ponder over why the son turned out well but not the grand son.

No comments:

Post a Comment