I spent the past three days at a family reunion/graduation in Vermont. My niece lives right outside of Burlington, in a rural community where there's nothing but farmland, beautiful mountains and lots of rolling green fields. One of my nieces graduated from UV on Sunday with a degree in archeology. She received a couple awards, so we wanted to support and honor her. It was a beautiful weekend in which the family convened to celebrate and also to enjoy a rare couple of days visiting with each other.  

My niece has one of those self sustaining houses with solar heat, etc., and a lively farm with chickens that lay blue eggs, some English breed of sheep, known for their wool, Satan the rabbit that bites, and a very tall regal Great Dane.

The original old 1930's farmhouse is still on the property, and that's where some of us were put up for the night.

It was the night the world was supposed to end before dinner. We had some fun discussing "the end" over a delicious dinner and a round of red wine and apple cider.

Vermont is quiet. I'm not used to such peace and quiet. In fact, it was so quiet and so dark on that overcast night, that I lost my sense of where I was. It felt metaphysical? Well, downright spooky.  No artificial lights. No street lights. On a clear night, however, the heavens are aglow with stars. It was hard to fall asleep because it was too dark for me.

At any rate, I always awaken early, way ahead of the pack, so I just ambled downstairs and fell into an easy chair in the old farmhouse parlor, found a book of imaginative short works by famous writers. One of them was a novella by F.Scott Fitzgerald called "The Diamond As Big As the Ritz". I had never read it before, so figured it was a good Vermont read. Strange story, but it reminded me of many of the gurus in our business.

In case you haven't already read the piece, I'll give you a synopsis of the story. It's about two snooty teenage boys in a Boston boarding school, bragging to each other about how much money their respective fathers have. One of them bragged that his father had a diamond bigger than the Ritz. To prove it, he brought his friend home for a visit. Sure enough, his pop owned a mountain in Montana that was actually a diamond, the entire mountain was a diamond, not just a humble diamond mine. Now, of course this was a secret that had to be kept. In order to enjoy the wealth of his diamond treasure, the father sold a few of the diamonds in New York to sustain his life style. Had it been known that he owned a  diamond mountain, then the value of diamonds all over the world would plummet, and his treasure would be worth very little. He had to keep the secret. So what happened to visitors? Well, they were murdered. Imagine that! The boarding school friend caught on that he would not be allowed to leave Montana alive. So, he escaped, taking his friends two sisters with him. Thinking they had enough diamonds to live very well, the escapees discovered that the younger sister filled her pockets with rhinestones instead because she liked them better than diamonds. They were broke. And what do you think the father did? He knew his secret was out, so he blew up the mountain so that his mountain would not be left to others.

If there's a moral to this story, I don't care. Do you? If there's symbolism, you can easily figure that out.

Still, don't you feel better about those offers that flood your inbox? You may be getting ripped off, but at least you're still alive. And, after all,  you did receive a few diamonds from those offers.