BY JOELLEN COLLINS
When I taught in schools with many children of wealthy parents, I was often asked how I dealt with the disparity of income in the varied student population. I saw this as just a reality of a teacher at Beverly Hills High who drove up indoor student parking ramps loaded with fancy cars to the teachers’ outdoor level with VWs and Chevys.
This timeless issue has once again become the forefront of discussion since the college admission bribery scandal, highlighting the emulation of celebrity, wealth and power that dominate contemporary American values, from politics to housing. While the media is descrying this latest example of greed and the abuse of material achievement, we can also see how the excessive coverage of and pandering to media celebrities like the Kardashians is partly responsible.
I grew up in a family that had experienced some material comfort in San Francisco until we moved to Southern California due to medical necessities and post-war changes in opportunities for my father, a highly successful radio announcer unable to transition to television. I don’t recall ever feeling “entitled” to anything except the love of my family. My teenage years in the San Fernando Valley were not defined by fancy cars or clothes, travel to exotic places, or assumed access to expensive education. It was a wonderful life for me, without the temptations of vast wealth one could soon see through coverage of celebrities and wealthy homes to desire, something we had not been able to see with the turn of a dial (before remotes).
I love the Wood River Valley and chose to live here because many years ago it seemed a classless area. Waitpeople often possessed graduate college degrees, most of us worked hard for less money than we might have earned elsewhere, and we felt the acceptance of a community that looked at us as neighbors and valued human beings wherever we worked or played.
At one time I received near-minimum wages at two of three part-time jobs here when I could have returned to teaching in Beverly Hills. Then I chose to come “home” to Ketchum after the Peace Corps (where we were given an allowance of a barely adequate $200 a month).
Money in itself has never been a priority for me, a fact I am reluctantly owning in my non-affluent “retirement” years. I am dismayed by what I perceive as a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots in our country and, sadly, even in my beloved community. Lately, the affordable housing issue has given voice to vitriol, anger and rhetoric that I cannot stomach.
I am horrified that affluence and entitlement have permeated the world of higher education, but I think Stephen Colbert was right when he commented on the idea that “Everything is rigged for the wealthy and famous.” He paused, smirked and said, “You’re absolutely right!”
I hope we get away from “reality” television and social media and return to the reality of love and respect between our friends and neighbors.