. . . back in the 20th
century.
"No need to hurry.
No need to sparkle.
No need to be anybody but oneself."
~ Virginia Woolf
You remember the Duke and Duchess
of Windsor who spent their time, after he abdicated the British throne,
traveling around the world to international watering spots and visiting on
everybody else’s dime whenever they could?
After World War II, the Duke and
Duchess were regulars in late El Morocco/Stork Club society just before it
cratered. They had to stay somewhere in
keeping with their station and so they always tried to be in the Waldorf Towers. When they came to New York, they would
invariably be invited out for dinner somewhere they didn’t have to pay.
The Duke was confiding to Bill
Fine who was running a cosmetic company. He complained that the Waldorf was too
expensive. “It costs so much money plus tip for the Duchess and me to have
coffee and toast each morning.” He went
on to tell Mr. Fine that one morning he had walked down to the Lexington Avenue
Drug Store to check on their breakfast plan.
There, the counter man said to
the man who had been King of England, “Ain’t you the Duke?” When the Duke fessed up, he told the
counterman his problem. It was costing at least $25.00 for two people to have
coffee and toast in the hotel. (Those were the days!)
The latter exclaimed, “Relax,
Duke. The Drugstore will deliver coffee and toast to the Waldorf Towers” for
only $10. And, that, exulted the Duke of
Windsor is how he and the Duchess began to have breakfast in their fancy hotel
for only a few bucks.
I’ll vote for him!
