Estate planning is on our minds. This past week a senior colleague spent long periods with his lawyers debating how to dispose of his estate: if I go first then….If my wife goes first then…..What complex solutions they devised. For there are four houses and four kids plus nine grandkids. Who gets what and how to avoid punitive taxes all round?
I checked out my will prompted by him. It is seemingly simple: divide it three ways and let each kid get an equal share. Except: there is an ex-wife married to a rich man she hates and who shows no signs of pegging soon; there is a just-about educated kid who still needs my financial support; there are three houses and they cannot be sold for grandkids live in them; there are investments we made jointly and severally; there is money and property in both Canada and the USA. Let my executor sort out the mess consistent with the guidelines of my will.
Today I went to a social gathering of the town-house complex where I live in a house bought thirty-two years ago. There was but one longer resident than I present. Although I know of two other houses owned by folk who have lived here longer than I. The meeting was dominated by the young mothers with kids the age mine were when we first came here. How fearful they are: don’t let the kids out of your sight; organize a neighborhood watch program; pick up the trash; put compost into local community gardens; plant flowers; and other noble, modern causes.
Me and two old ladies warned them: the tiny trees of yore are now tall pines that block sunlight where flowers formerly grew; the playground is still played in by kids who, like in the past, ignore the artificial equipment from slimy salesmen; kids still prefer to go into the woods and scrounge in the fallen branches and shit of who knows what; earthquake preparedness is a myth if we fail to reinforce our houses; the cost of houses is now such that you cannot these days pay the mortgage on a grounds man’s salary as you could thirty years ago.
The idealism of today’s mothers is admirable but so misplaced and out of touch with reality that we can only let them get old to grow wise. They know not of the old lady who has gone mad and is institutionalized while her three kids fight over the house which is deserted and grows derelict; the gay couple who have lived here together for twenty-four years; the mixed-race couple who will not marry lest it embarrass grandkids; the policemen who deal with drug-addicts on the East Side; the teenager who is a registered sex-offender banned from the communal pool; or the old man and his wife who grew rich on the movie industry. Then there is the Iranian widow: she and her late husband came at the same time as we did, they fleeing the fall of the Shah. They brought, as we did, our fortune from a foreign place. Now my daughter is a successful mining
engineer. Her daughter and her husband, a Secret Service Agent, now live with her. They young couple have a beautiful child: the offspring of blond Irish-Canadian blood and the hues of Persia.
For when we bought here more than thirty years ago, the place was far from the city, a part of the distant surrounding areas. Now the movie studios are but five minutes away. This is now Hollywood, Vancouver. The vacant lots are being built up with high-rise towers. Expensive new town houses replace decrepit old houses. The traffic grows worse and will get far worse yet, for this is now city, not country or district.
The old college of shacks is now the University. The landfill is a riding stable and playing fields for the rich. No longer do we see gulls over newly-dumped waste; now we see sleek horses along urban trails. No longer are we banned from access to the watershed. Instead we can ride our bike fourteen kilometers into pristine woods of the best park of all Vancouver. No longer are the ski places a silly diversion; now internationals with money come to ski where the Olympics did. Buses leave every ten minutes from where they once left ever hour. Cars are no longer the cheap things we could afford; now they are as expensive as the houses in this complex.
Thirty years ago, Kurt could act as grounds man and get a stipend that paid his mortgage. His two boys, play-mates of my son, are electricians in the movie industry. They own fancy condos in North Vancouver, drive Porches, and holiday in Las Vegas. Thus is the success of kids of yore of Purcell Woods.
Now the latest purchasers are a doctor and her investment advisor husband. Only they can afford the high prices where once young engineers and policemen could buy. Now you need family money, a doctor’s income, two salaries, or inherited wealth to buy here. Makes for nice neighbors, concerned & informed citizens, but idealistic and unreal perspectives. Let the ordinary and poor go far east or south to buy condos in high towers. This is a community of the privileged—let us keep it thus. Now this is a place for pure-bred dogs, not children who play with what is there. Now children need iPads and constant parental supervision to “grow.” None of those at the meeting even knew of the woods where my son and his friends played and where I now encourage the grandkids to play. Yet the woods are in the middle of the complex and they know them not.
Rather the kids are taught to pick up garbage in distant neighborhoods, taught to recycle greens, taught to plant in local co-ops—can’t possibly dig up the copious grass around here to plant vegetables: too many trees block the light for agriculture. “I rather like the feeling of living in the trees,” as one romantic said to me. “Keep reality at bay and far away,” is what she meant.
Thus I fled to the ultimate solace: opera & brandy. Tonight it was: Un Giorno Di Regno. This was Verdi’s second opera and a flop. It premiered eleven weeks after the death of his wife and two daughters. It was supposed to be a comedy, but is dark and sad. The libretto is lousy: a trash story of no poetic merit. Yet the genius of the twenty-six year old Verdi shines in the music: pure perfection. Nobody dies. Two marriages are consummated. Yet, as Verdi wrote: “After reading many scores, I chose the least bad.” He needed the money and distraction from the tragedy of death.
Verdi’s next opera was a triumph: Nabucco. And he married Giuseppina Strepponi with who he lived until old age and his only comic opera Falstaff written when he was in his eighties.
Now we can hardly hope for such success at Purcell Woods. But time and tide and the passing of the generations must bring forth new hope and advances.
