Reluctant Millionaire

Reluctant Millionaire
That was the headline.

I'm sitting here watching Headline News and they have a story about a man who lives with no electricity, no phone service (though he recently got himself a cell phone) and a generator to run his air conditioning - 32 years (as long as I've been alive!) this guy has happily lived like this - in the boonies of Florida. Now the state forced him to sell his land for a nature preserve or some such thing. He fought it for years - loved his place in the 'country' that he built himself ("I went into Miami to get the tin for the roof." he said) and didn't want to leave it.

Said he was staying till the last possible moment. They gave him $4.95 million for this plot of lush nature. And he begged them on the news to take it back and give him his land back. How many of us would do that? Not many I think - we've spent too much time in the city being spoiled with cable and electricity and internet and telephones. All the damn wrong things matter to us.

No way I'd want to live without my creature comforts, trust me, I'm VERY addicted to electricity and internet thanks, but it sure would be nice to say some material thing meant so much to me that I'd give up a sudden 5 million dollar windfall for it.

He was what I call a 'woolybooger' - long hair, fuzzy beard - lovable, not the scary type, laughed a lot, seemed truly happy with how he'd spent the last 32 years. He said, "32 years shot to hell (hahahaha) thirty two years, shot to hell (more strangely sad laughter.)" He was what we'd all consider a social outcast, and oddly enough, I find myself wishing I were more like him - because right now, all I can think of are all the things I'd give up for a fraction of 5 mill.