The Inheritance, Part 1

A ways back, someone asked me what a High WASP was. The WASP part is straightforward. White Anglo Saxon Protestant. The High part is more difficult. I believe my answer was disingenuous and I apologize. I said in a comment I thought High referred to education. This was prevarication on my part. I apologize again. We are raised not to talk about money. But the time comes. Please forgive my bad manners.

Most if not all High WASPs have inherited money. I was 21. My inheritance was the tail end of a once envious family fortune which allowed people at the turn of the century to marry in lace, live on Park Avenue, travel to Africa, and then to write books about their lives with African tribes. I sat in our sun room on a wicker chair. I asked my father whether I would ever have to work. “Mmmmmmmm,” said my father, in that High WASP way fraught with unspoken meaning whose frequency you feel in your nerves but can’t decipher, “Hmmmm. Well. No. Mmmm. Probably not.” That was the end of the discussion. Of course, he was wrong. But never mind that. These things happen.