I once had a friend whose great-grandfather was a partner of J.P. Morgan. My friend had grown up in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He was a good man, and you wouldn't have known he was heir to a vast fortune, except for his  anamnestic autos. In fact, he eschewed the affected life. He was an organic farmer outside of Lawrence, Kansas. I mean he really was a farmer. He was up at 6 and drove a tractor til sunset. He and I would get together from time to time eating tapioca pudding at Denny's and, of course, chatting. The one idiosyncrasy that gave away his untold wealth was anamnestic autos. To the side of his modest farm house was a field within which were old antique cars spread out as if they were cattle, but they were not. There was an Alpha Romeo, a Horsch, a Lamborghini, a Maserati, and a Ferrari. My friend would get an impulse to buy a certain antique car, and because he had the money, he'd buy it. But then after enjoying it for a time, he literally put it out to pasture. The scene reminded me of a painting Salvador Dali might have painted. He never talked about his fortune, but he often ordered a second tapioca pudding.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks