Appreciating What We Have

My home town has a fairly high number of seasonal residents.  Most of these seasonals are well off.  Some of them are seriously beyond well off.  One of these beyond well off couples (he is the owner of a very successful business in Chicago and she is the CEO of a relatively well known internet company) more or less struck up a friendship with my wife and I.  Not because we run in the same circles or any such...far from it...but because they have horses and we have horses.  There is really no comparison to the levels of "having" horses, but it was enough to start a conversation between my wife and the wife of this couple.  Discussions about economic development and contribution to the community started the conversation between myself and the husband of this couple.

We have always led a fairly simple life.  Satisfying but simple.  I would not change it.  We rarely go "out" to supper and the once a month or so that we do is usually to a local special where it is more a social event than supper.  We were at one such event, spaghetti night, and had sat down at a table when the couple I am discussing came in the door.  They looked around the room and saw us and came over and asked if they could join us.  Of course they could.  We talked about mundane items and had a good meal and, to be quite honest, I never thought a thing of it.  It was a nice evening, but not anything particularly special or exciting. 

About a week later, my wife came home laughing.  She had run into the couple in the grocery store and all they could talk about is what a good time they had eating spaghetti with us.  They raved about it.  We were both amused, but more than a bit flabbergasted. Silly.  A simple meal and mundane conversation with a couple of beers....nothing to rave about.

The following week, I ran into the fellow myself, and spaghetti night was still the topic.  Again, silly.  I told my wife that night that maybe we should have them over for supper some Saturday evening.  She agreed and the next time she ran into them, arrangements were made.

They came down to our house that Saturday evening and had brought what was probably a very expensive bottle of wine.  My son and I had been salmon fishing on Friday night, so the supper I was making was fresh salmon filet cooked on the grill.  Very simple...salt, pepper and a bit of dill weed with butter.  We had new potatoes dug from our garden.  Again, simple,  cleaned, boiled with the skins on and drizzled with butter and a bit of salt and pepper.  We had green beans and snap peas from the garden that were just slightly stir fried so they were hot, but still had that fresh garden crunch.  We had home made ice-cream and fresh cherry pie (from our trees) for desert.  In addition to the wine that the couple brought, I had home made cherry wine on the table.

It was a good meal.  A hearty meal, but again nothing special or out of the ordinary...at least for us.

I don't think we even uncorked the wine that the couple brought.  They absolutely raved about the food.  At one point, the fellow said that he could not go to the best restaurant in Chicago and get as good a meal.  I felt pretty good as did my wife, but we were still a bit confused by the level of the compliments.

Then it became apparent.  The fellow made a comment, "I wish I knew how to grow potatoes!"  A bit later, he told us that neither of them had ever been fishing.  The light bulb turned on!  The meal we were eating for the most part, was entirely home made.  Simple certainly, delicious?  definitely, but the fact that we had caught the fish, dug the potatoes, picked the beans, peas and cherries and made the wine and ice cream ourselves was something they simply had not experienced.  Elegant?  No way.  Good?  Without a doubt! 

They were experiencing something totally mundane to us, but that they had never had before.  With all their resources, they had no idea how to grow a potato.

It was a bit of an eye opener.  It was also an excellent lesson illustrating the fact that having everything can also mean having nothing. And, I still have an expensive bottle of wine, unopened in the cupboard....