If the “clockwork income” is your synonym for “enough money on hand” (post 109) it is bizarre usage of the phrase. When someone says, “I have enough money on hand” to buy that boat, he means he has enough money NOW to buy that boat, not 4 years from now.
Working at Peter’s business for 4 years and delaying college 4 years is not the typical meaning of “Peter had the money to send George to college.” The typical inference is that the parents “saved” or at least earned in real-time the money to send the kid to college. You can’t just ignore the word “saved” to neatly fit your description.
Which goes back to what I said earlier. If this is true, George doesn’t need to work there at all. The same money (coming in like clockwork as you put it) would be there whether George works there or not. Therefore, this doesn’t explain why there wasn’t 4 years of accumulated money while George was a teenager between ages of 14 - 18 so that he could go to college immediately after high school. If money is clockwork (or rate of cashflow as you emphasized), there shouldn’t be any difference whether the cashflow comes in while George is age 18-to-22 vs 14-to-18.
This difference only makes sense if George instead of Peter has to earn the money.
In any case, the film makes it clear that George had to wait 4 years. This is another plot detail to make the audience understand that George’s family was not as well off as the Wainwrights, Hatches.
This would make more sense to me if the exact missing word was indeed “fucking” as in, “If they were all girls, there wouldn’t be any fucking.” Which actually was my first thought the first time I saw the movie.
I can ignore the word “saved” because it’s not mine. You attributed it to me. I didn’t use it.
I say the money comes in like clockwork to make a point about the Bailey Building & Loan: their family business has a steady supply of money coming in, such that one can make extraordinary reliable calculations about it. The day Harry leaves for college, George already knows that there will be enough money coming in to put another Bailey through college in exactly four years; heck, he already knows that the day Harry graduates from high school. You can count on it. It is, to coin a phrase, like money in the bank.
So let me see if I’ve got this straight: George does George’s job for four years, whereupon he or Harry can be put through college. And then George does Peter’s job for four years, whereupon he can be put through college. That’s your claim? There’s – something odd about it.
I don’t know what was getting bought during the four years that George was on the company payroll while Harry was still in high school. I don’t need to know; it’s no longer in the picture by the time Harry was ready to go to college, and would be long out of the picture four years after that – when, exactly as planned, George was ready to go to college.
Trust your first thought; “children” means “fucking”, since the whole point of saying “children” right then is to imply “fucking”. (Which is why she almost says it, which wouldn’t be the case with “fucking”.)
Sorry, I thought it was reasonable to interpret “saved” based on your earlier statement:
To me, most normal people would read that as money “saved”, and not money as “clockwork cashflow.”
In any case, the George’s line and the word “save” has a point. If it didn’t, why put such a line in the movie at all? If that statement is a throwaway sentence that’s NOT intended to shape audience opinions of Peter Bailey’s priorities and NOT intended to provide another glimpse into their finances, then why is it there?
Frank Capra drops quotes and clues all throughout the movie about the meager Bailey finances.
Incorrect to call it clockwork. Peter at the dinner table says he had “another tussle” with Potter. Presumably again about missed loan payments or similar financial mismanagement. The movie sets expectations on what “tussle” means by showing an example of one earlier in the movie.
When George speaks about the future, he’s being optimistic about the Bailey situation. As a matter of fact, he totally underestimates the management abilities of his younger brother Harry. Peter gently corrects George’s misjudgment by saying, “you were born older George.” Harry’s lack of talent in handling loans and construction can be glossed over only as long as Peter is still alive.
George had the same type of matter-of-fact optimism when he tells Mary he’s going to build skyscrapers, etc.
None of it pans out.
If the Bailey B&L truly was bringing a reliable cashflow, then the directors wouldn’t have been so easily tempted to close it down at Potter’s suggestion.
Your financial analysis needs to make sense in relationship with all other aspects of the movie: the way the family lives, the board-of-directors meeting, the motivation for town residents to chip in and save the institution.
Your claim is that the cashflow itself explains the college funding more than the particular person earning it.
If that were true, Peter could have just put an inflatable doll in the office and say, “This inanimate doll is a stand-in for George. I will pay this doll college money while young George is in high school during the ages of 14 to 18.”
And voila, when George graduates high school, he immediately (not 4 years later!) takes the magic doll’s money and goes to college!
Agreed. And from her tone of voice, I don’t think that it was Ma Bailey shying away from the pornographic implications of that point; it was more like, “Come on, Annie - obviously humanity needs both genders to perpetuate itself, but you know that already, and it’s not worth my time to stand here and explain it to you!”
Look at it this way: The B&L generated enough cashflow to pay for x number of employee’s salaries (Peter included). If he could have gotten by with x - 1 employees, then maybe Peter could have taken more out of the complany to “save” for his kids college. But the workload didn’t allow for x - 1 employees, so George earned the money by working. Regardless of whether George earned the money from the B&L or from some other local business, he earned it nonetheless. And regardless of whether it was George working for the B&L or someone else – the B&L paid that salary out of routine cashflow.
So George earned enough to send Harry to college, then he earned enough to send himself. Didn’t work out that way, so then presumably that extra money he earned would have gone to their honeymoon. Two grand was equal to a year’s pay for him, so that’s a pretty good savings if you ask me. He chose instead to put that money back into the business to stave off a hostile takeover (Potter buying up the shares at a discount).
Certainly George could have made more money by abondoning his business and going to work in construction or whatever, but he chose not to. Just like lots of small business owners do everyday. They choose to run small hardware stores, and wine shops and manufacturing plants, sometimes at barely break even, just to give consumers a choice, to better their community, and to make enough money to survive with the hope of the business toaking off in the future.
Don’t forget that George was able to restore that old.broken down house, fill it with furniture (including a piano), have 4 kids and keep them well fed and dressed. Not bad for 1940’s small town America. He wasn’t Sam Wainwright, but he also wasn’t Ernie the cabdriver or Martini, both of whom also toiled long hours to provide a service to townsfolk and in return lived in much smaller houses – the priveledge of which they basically paid George’s salary. See how that works? George pays Ernie for a cab ride and Martini for a drink and in return, they pay George for a mortgage. Sounds like capitalism to me.
Was the B&L a smashing success business? – certainly not. Did it have any brighter future? Maybe but only with hard work and a little luck. Simply perservering long enough to outlast Potter was the overriding day-to-day strategy. The hope would be that a brighter future would follow for the business if only they could survive the current situation. Many a small businesses today follow that same strategy, such as it is.
btw, I also think you’re way off base on the boarding house thing. George’s original comment was a tease that his mother housed and fed the men (Peter, George, Harry). Your take on the comment about there only being girls is really stretching it, methinks. She stopped short because the thought of all children being girls is so absurd that it wasn’t worth finishing the thought (i.e., that with only girls there would be no more children)
Potter is the Chairman of the bank. Uncle Billy is there to deposit money in his account. He has the money in the bank and the bank deposit slip. Moreover, Potter as a representative of the bank, knows all this and conceals the money anyway.
If this isn’t criminal fraud then I want to be a bank teller. “But, your honor … he just handed me the money. Why can’t I keep it?”
Sure. Right. It had to be done by George. I can’t be done by an inanimate inflatable doll.
No, you’ve got that backwards. You believe that the cashflow is always there and always will be there regardless of whether or not George is there. If that was true, the inflatable doll could take the place of George. The cashflow increases because of George’s contribution. George is the value-added component for the cashflow, not the other way around.
For example, the gym floor at the high-school was George’s pet project. The B&L’s bread-and-butter was residential mortgages for low-income folks. The gym floor would be a commercial project outside of Peter’s typical line of business. It’s projects like this that demonstrate George’s talent to his father. (It also demonstrates George’s talent to the board of directors because without leadership skills like this, it seems implausible that the directors would later trust the business to a 21-year-old kid.)
Another interesting aspect to the gym floor project is that the customer (the high school) is not a credit risk. The high school can dependably pay for the project. A government institution such as a high school can just go to the bank or any construction firm to build their pool. They chose to work with George (possibly because he was the lowest bid.)
The gym floor project would add extra cashflow for George to save for college. If George isn’t at the B&L, then conceivably, there is no gym floor to build, and therefore, no “extra work” to be done. George creates the extra work for himself, therefore earning the extra college money – himself.
You do have that partly right. It was George and not Peter that earned the money.
If that cashflow was truly “routine”, there would be no need for the board of directors just 3 months later in August to shut down the B&L. Why shut down a business that generates “routine” cashflow? The directors argued and the ONLY way they would continue this community service was to have George run it. Not Uncle Billy. And not his brother Harry. George and only George. George is the reason for the cashflow. If the cashflow was “routine” or “clockwork”, then Harry could have just stepped in without skipping a beat. The board-of-directors didn’t think so.
All of the above discussion is about an earlier point: Peter didn’t have enough money to send his sons to college.
I understand principles of cashflow but resorting to that type of justification is a departure from how everyday people speak of “having enough money to buy something.” It’s also a departure from how the movie portrays Peter Bailey.
…to rescue the under-privileged people from themselves. The purpose of the B&L is a community service to the poor. It is not there for George’s benefit. George doesn’t want to run it. Dr. Campbell guilt-tripped him into taking it over. George got shafted again when his brother brought home the secret wife.
“Chose” is a funny word because the movie sets it up so that he couldn’t really choose. George is the sacrificial lamb of the movie. He has to be. Otherwise, the movie audience would find it ridiculous for town folks to chip in at the end and save him. The low-income town people are the flock of sheep and George is their shepherd. Mr. Potter is the pharaoh king or the devil, whichever you prefer.
You can’t equate those small business owners with George. Most small business owners are not sacrificial lambs to their community. (Some business owners may feel like sacrificial lambs as fathers to their FAMILY but certainly not to their COMMUNITY.) For example, the builder that built my house is a small-time business owner. He practices various good-hearted principles such as not working on Sunday. However, he runs his business because that’s what he’s able to do in life. He can’t play in the NFL. He can’t sing opera. He doesn’t have the financial wizardry to be a Wall Street tycoon. He builds homes because that’s what he knows to do.
That’s not the George we see in the movie. George has talents to be anywhere else BUT Bedford Falls. He wants to be somewhere else AWAY from Bedford Falls. He wants to make a million dollars building skyscrapers and bridges instead of handling small-time loans for the under-privileged. The whole B&L is to be a community service (“charity”) and George is the sacrificial lamb running it. The observant Mr. Potter knows this also because he’s able to use that information against George. Mr. Potter’s assessment of George’s nursemaid role to the poor is so accurate that it makes George squirm in his seat.
George is a “chump” because he builds homes for the poor that are worth “twice their value.” That’s charity in its most naked form.
See if you can name any bank or any homebuilder that builds homes and sells them for half their market value. Bank of America and Countrywide Mortgage and Toll Brothers and Centex don’t do it. And neither did my church-going homebuilder! Those businesses aren’t run as charities.
In no part of the movie does George express a desire to amp up the B&L and take it to the next level.
The old house presumably was bought and given to them by Mary’s mother as a wedding gift. It is not clear if Mary’s mother is a widow with an inheritance or a divorcee getting alimony from ex-husband. Mary’s childhood house has a picture of an older man on the wall so I presume her mother is a widow.
The point is that the furnishings could have been contributed by Mary’s mother. It’s also possible George bought it all. It’s also possible that it’s all 2nd-hand used stuff from the thrifty stores.
They may have been well-fed but they weren’t well-dressed. George admits that to Zuzu’s teacher Mrs. Welch.
There are aspects of capitalism in the movie, but the movie isn’t about capitalism. There are also army soldiers in the movie, but the movie is not about war.
At the beginning of the film, George explains to his father that he wants to pursue his inner Greed-is-Good-Gordon-Gekko. At the end of the film, the town pays him back for his lifetime of sacrifices. That’s the bookend pieces of the movie.
The purpose of the B&L is not profit.
If it was about profit, George wouldn’t say, “Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I’ll never know.”
If it was about profit, George wouldn’t have an inferiority complex about running it.
That comment was not a tease. Ma Bailey runs a boarding house in both the real and alternate universes. In both universes, everybody basically has the same roles (except for Mary Hatch and Mr. Martini) – they just execute those roles with bitterness vs cheerfulness. There are other commentators that acknowledge the boarding house at the beginning of the movie. I’ll try to dig up a link.
To spare the SDMB readers from this thread popping up again, this will be my last post about this topic unless new information comes up. At this point, everybody (including me) is just repeating themselves. I like the film and I like talking about it but I’d rather discuss new trivia.
The leaps of logic and assumptions that you’ve made here are quite astounding.
Nowhere does it say of even imply that BB&L had anything to do with the gym floor. It’s only mentioned twice – once by Harry saying “We’re going to try out that new floor tonight” and once by the principal saying “Putting a pool under this floor was a great idea, saved us a building” He doesn’t say that the good idea was George’s – it’s equally plausible that he was complimenting himself for a good idea. End result is that you’ve made a massively unsupported assumption – not your only one. The idea that Ma Bailey runs a boarding house in the real reality is equally unsupported. Or that Mary’s mother paid for the house. Those are all assumptions you’ve retrofitted to support your argument.
It’s true that the board sees the talents of George and realizes that only with him in charge is the B&L worth saving. But they do determine that the B&L is worth saving with him in charge. Worth saving as a business. Does George get guilted into staying? Absolutely. I agree that that’s what makes the story work. But it doesn’t negate that the B&L is a business – not a great one (a “penny-ante” one in fact), but a business nonetheless.
Your comments about how modern-day small business owners do what they do becuase they’re not talented enough to do anything else (implying “better”) is so insulting as to call into question all your observations.
Also the part about all the houses being worth twice what the Baileys cost to build were. That means they are worth twice as much now vs what they cost to build then. What the guy is telling Potter is that Bailey Park is increasing in value while Potter Field is decreasing in value – becoming just that – a field.
Potter calls the Baileys chumps because his motus operandi would have been to foreclose at every opportunity and then resell those houses at the new, double value. What he fails to understand is that by constantly foreclosing on his houses, he is preventing the very increase in value that he critcizes the Baileys for not exploiting. He doesn’t get that the favorable mortgages the BB&L gives out allows the homeowners to keep up their properties and increase the values in the neighborhood. This, potentially, would over time increase business for the BB&L. This never happened in Potter Field because Potter was too short-sighted to see the value of increased property values – he was all about churning short-term cash. And with no competition, he could get away with it.
George is a good businessman trapped in a marginal business in a difficult town to succeed in. Whatever his motivations for staying – family loyalty, community loyalty, love of Mary, whatever – is what makes the story work and what make the redemption screen-worthy. But none of it turns a business (penny-ante though it may be) into a charity.
Can you just move into a vacant house like that? Wouldn’t it belong to a bank or a realtor or somebody? How much would it cost a couple of broke newlyweds to pay for a house that, well, is probably going to be condemned someday anyway if somebody doesn’t come along and fix it up?
Also, completely unrelated, there is a PSA that invokes IaWL – I’m pretty sure I can’t post such a link here, but go to YouTube and look for Move Your Money. It makes a lot of the same points made here about how George ran the B&L.
Harry actually says, “we’re going to use that new floor of yours tonight.” It’s George’s floor in some way – presumably because he designed it, or oversaw the construction of it, or did something very very significant to bring about its existence.
The principal is talking TO George when he says it.
Right. Just like when he says, “Now, Harry, Sam, have a lot of fun. There’s lots of stuff to eat and drink.” … it’s equally plausible that he’s TELLING HIMSELF that there’s lots of stuff to eat and drink. No, I don’t think Mr. Partridge the Principal is a lunatic with Asperger Syndrome with a incurable desire to converse with himself.
The principal compliments George at 0:19:44 into the movie. Around 15 minutes later, at 0:34:44, the board-of-directors ask George to take over the B&L.
Ask yourself, what scenes and dialogue can the audience refer back to to believe that a board will appoint a 21-year-old kid to run a financial institution? There’s not a lot of film time for Frank Capra to establish George’s credentials.
The alternate reality supports it. George’s comment was not a joke and also supports it.
I said “presumably.” Please provide your alternative theory as to how the house came into their possession without George knowing about it.
I’m well aware the “label” of the B&L is a business. I’m looking past the label and simply talking about its true nature and purpose.
As I said before, I know that a church is a church is a “church.” However, a church that sells indulgences is actually running a “business.”
I don’t think of it as a question of talent. It can be just easily said that the NFL player is not talented enough to build a house. No insult meant either way. If I’m insulting small business owners, then I’m insulting all my friends and myself.
The context of that line was made by Potter’s accountant to explain why George hasn’t “made a dime out of it.” Also, Potter’s accountant is talking about both the building of the homes and its value in the present tense.
If one does “not make a dime” out of the loans, then what is true purpose of the B&L? Is it truly a profit seeking enterprise? Or is it a charity in disguise? Hmmm…
If it’s truly a profit-seeking entity, why does George not know why his father started it? Is George dumber than he looks?
If it’s truly a profit-seeking entity, when George asks why his father started the business, the answer would have been obvious: MONEY. But the word “money” doesn’t come into his mind as the answer. Why?
Yes, I’m coming to understand that. There is NOTHING George can possibly do to make people see he’s a charity. Labels are everything. George’s actions in their totality mean nothing.
The president of American Red Cross has a salary of $600,000 a year. But the Red Cross is “labeled” a “charity” so we say it’s a charity. George earns $30,000 a year as Executive Secretary but can’t catch a break as being SEEN as a charity because he happens to be labeled a business. The psychological speed bump of not giving George his due and at least give him the HONORARY title of a “charity” is baffling.
Wrote up a great, long, point-by-point rebuttal that would have inspired great dialog between the two of us – and then I was kicked off the system and lost it :smack:
I don’t have the energy to attempt a re-creation, and I don’t care that much, so I’ll just call this a disagreement and move on
One thing I do want to mention, though, is regarding the pool scene. I love this scene and have always viewed it as showing (foreshadowing) George’s perserverance. He doesn’t even want to be in the dance contest and thinks he won’t be very good. But then when everyone else panics over the floor opening and George and Mary falling in, he adapts to the situation with grace and humor and ends up winning the contest because of his creativity and level-headedness.
This scene to me, is kinda like a microcosm of the whole movie.
Re. the pool vis-a-vis George. I agree that it is clearly implied that the pool was George’s idea and the principal guy is giving him credit for it. How far this extends in terms of designing it or financing it or whatever I’m not sure (ie, I don’t know how much the BB&L played into the financing), but this is one more bit of evidence Capra presents about George’s smarts, multiple talents, and big thinking. He is an idea man with enough aspirations and talent to go out in the world and do great things – engineering types of things among others – note the suspension bridge and architectural or whatever plans that are strewn on the table in the living room that he looks at despondently and sweeps off in a fit of angst.
Even stuck in Bedford Falls, George is a big thinker and applies his smarts wherever he sees an opportunity. Another example of this is on the phone with Sam Wainwright: “why not use the vacant plant for the new business?” [or whatever it was]
All of these are very, very clear evidence that George is not just a “good guy”; he’s really smart, and has the abilities to be a huge success and make a mark on the world. Instead he finds himself living a very mundane, ordinary type of life. Like any ordinary schlub, as Potter says. But he’s NOT an ordinary schlub (as Potter also says).
I think there are many, many people who can relate to that kind of frustration, and this is what makes the movie so poignant and good, and also makes Capra such a brilliant filmmaker, because he portrays it so well, so personally. And at the end of the day? Living a mundane, ordinary life, we really DO make a mark on the world. (Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye…)
Also: re the boarding house. I can see evidence both ways, but if the Bailey house were NOT a boarding house in the real world, why would they need Annie? Surely any sort of domestic hired help like that would be considered an unnecessary extravagance for a small town businessman’s family in the '20’s-'30’s era. I came from a whole passel of small town people in the Midwest and I can’t even imagine domestic help for anyone except the “Rockefeller rich” type inhabitants in a town of that size.
Mainly because they wanted a sassy maid character for humor, I suspect. This was pretty de rigeur for movies of the era. Lucky for Lillian Randolph that Louise Beavers, Hattie McDaniel and Ethel Waters weren’t available, and Thelma Ritter wasn’t in films yet.
No but seriously. I’m looking at the script now (the final script as shot, included in the It’s a Wonderful Life Book by Jeanine Basinger), and I found two tiny pieces of evidence that it’s not a boarding home. FWIW.
In the scene during the Pottersville section of the film, there’s this description as George visits his mother – emphasis mine:
Now, why would George pay particular attention to the sign announcing that it’s a boarding house unless this were a new state of affairs for his former home?
More conclusively IMO, in one of the appendices of the script book, they include the original extra budget, which lists each set and the extras required for each scene. All of the scenes set in the Bailey house are referred to as “BAILEY HOME,” except for the one during Pottersville. That’s referred to as “MA BAILEY’S BOARDING HOUSE.”
We never see any boarders, we never hear of any boarders, and we don’t see any evidence of the house’s dual purpose (such as a sign out front, which would have been visible in the scenes where Mrs. Bailey convinces George to visit Mary and where George/Mary leave after their wedding).
I think it just takes too much assumption to call it a boarding house. It was a joke, and possibly intended as a little bit of foreshadowing on Capra’s part.
New Question: Something I’ve always pondered. In the bank run scene, when George has arrived and just spoken to Potter on the phone, he turns to Uncle Billy, who says, “George, was it a nice wedding/ Gosh, I wanted to be there…” After George says “Yeah,” he looks at Uncle Billy wearily and tugs at the string on his finger. “You can take this one off now.” Uncle Billy makes a kind of rueful, embarrassed look and shakes his head.
What is this all about? I mean, I know that Billy’s wearing the strings to remind himself of stuff, but the interplay/vibe I get is that George is (in a mild, weary, affection way) blaming Uncle Billy for forgetting something, and Uncle Billy’s feeling somewhat guilty. The only thing I can think of his that Uncle Billy forgot to go to the wedding, but that seems ridiculous – in all likelihood he just couldn’t get away from work. So what subtext am I missing here? What was Uncle Billy supposed to do? It wasn’t his fault the bank called their loan, after all.
(I’m also curious about just whose kids Eustace and Tillie are. I guess Peter and Billy had another sibling.)
Having a maid without the boarding home is incongruent with how the entire Bailey family is portrayed.
[ul]
[li]Peter Bailey works at the B&L.[/li][li]Little George works at Gower drug store.[/li][li]Mother Bailey does not work, and on top of it, has a maid?[/li][/ul]
It doesn’t seem reasonable that the Bailey family employs child labor at the same time they have a maid. Incongruent.
In both universes, the home is a boarding house but the emphasis is different. In the real universe, the residence is a “home” first and foremost and a “boarding house” second – hence no sign out front. In the dog-eat-dog world where George Bailey was never born, the residence is a “boarding house” first and a “home” second.
I believe this because I’ve stayed at boarding homes when I went skiing on a budget. None of the houses I stayed at had an obnoxious “BOARDING HOUSE” sign plastered on the front. The owners live in their “home” and to them, it’s a home first and foremost. The “boarding house” usage is very low key to them. My presence in their home is treated as a temporary guest. The boarding couple is very warm and before the lights are out, they remind me that breakfast is at 6am. I eat with the parents and their kids as if I was distant relative. It’s not a hotel – it’s a home.
I’m not saying there aren’t boarding houses that conspicuously mark their house as such. I’m sure there are, depending on the type of neighborhood it’s in. It’s just not the type of boarding houses I stayed at.
As far as no guests being there, many boarding homes do not have 100% occupancy 365 days of the year. Or the guests were out of the house doing something else. When I stayed at the boarding house, the key meal for guests was breakfast – not dinner. The Bailey dining scene was dinner time.
I think you got this correct. However, I didn’t get a vibe from George that he blamed Billy for missing the wedding. I assume Billy meant to catch it during lunch hour or something but missed it because of chaos from the bank call.
I believe they are cousins of Peter and Uncle Billy which would make them aunt and uncle to George. Eustace and Tillie are full grown adults when little George was 12.
There were thousands upon thousands of poor, uneducated, unmarried, and unwanted women of various ages who had to make some kind of living for themselves. Taking a job as domestic hired help makes total sense. They probably didn’t get paid very much, but they got room and board, when they had nowhere else to go, and with luck lived with their employers as part of the family for a long time.
A. Uncle Billy gave him the money inside of a newspaper, not with a deposit slip.
B. Billy knew that Mr. Potter wasn’t a teller, and, being there with the chaffeur, or whoever, should tell one that Mr. Potter wasn’t doing business.
C. The teller’s job is to take cash deposits.
D. How did Mr. Potter defraud a bank? Where was Billy’s receipt? Did Mr. Potter indicate that he would do anything toward accomodating a deposit? Why didn’t Billy wait for his receipt?
E. Billy gave him the money, all wrapped up like a gift, on Christmas Eve, and he was smiling and laughing while he did it.
There was an entirely different dynamic of money back then that can’t be accomodated for by inflation/CPI, and, as you point out, there were a lot of domestics back then. Watch Hazel on TV, and junk like the Farmer’s Daughter, etc…, and you’ll find that some strange places could accomodate that, not just the uber rich. Additionally, paying Annie for her services could also be one reason that George didn’t make it to college.
Didn’t George tell his Dad, when Peter said that he’d hoped that George would stay, that ‘I’ve been saving, saving,’ or something like that?
