'I never told her about the Depression. She would have worried.'
Amidst all the endlessly tedious media hoopla over Ted Kennedy’s death, I heard one good anecdote. During a period when Kennedy was being attacked by an opponent for never having worked a day in his life, he supposedly visited an ironworks factory where he was accosted by a labourer who asked him: “Is it true you’ve never worked a day in your life?” As Kennedy hemmed and hawed, the labourer said: “Believe me, you ain’t missed a thing.”
Which in turn reminds me of the anecdote about Queen Victoria, who supposedly said: “It must be fun to work, because it’s so much fun to watch other people work.”
Which reminds me yet further of an old New Yorker cartoon of an obviously wealthy woman lounging contentedly while, nearby, her husband (or perhaps lover) is telling a friend: “I never told her about the Depression. She would have worried.”
