Not long ago, I was the master of all I surveyed. As I gazed down from my mountain-top estate, I was confident in the knowledge that the fate of the yeomanry that cowered below was firmly in my grasp. I owned all the property in the local village and took 15 percent of the harvest. If a peasant wanted to leave the county, he had to pay a toll on one of my bridges and had to be back before night-fall, lest my feared mastiffs track him down and tear him limb-from-limb. Then the nouveau riche started moving in. Yes, I realize I just used a phrase from the hated French language, but it is the best way to describe the Johnny-Come-Latelies who have decided to pollute my environs with their effete ways. They claim they like to “winter” here, far from the chill and coal-smoke of the city, and hunt foxes, play polo and enjoy “cocktail” drinking-beverages and other silly nonsense.
The worst of these sap-heads are my closest neighbors, the Baintons. They are the heirs to an enormous soap fortune and are easily the worst idlers I have ever laid eyes upon. Rather than responsibly hoard their precious wealth in a large under-ground cave, they fritter it away on lavish parties, fashionable apparel and priceless jewels. And they’re about the weakest-minded bunch I’ve ever seen. Last week, Chauncey Bainton, the paterfamilias, paid an uninvited call to my bed-chamber. “Zweibel, old stick, how the devil are you?” he said. “Care for a few holes of golf?” Now, who in their right mind would invite a 130-year-old man encased in an iron-lung to play golf? Barely controlling my temper, I said I would be in-disposed for the remainder of the after-noon. “What a pity,” Chauncey said. “But not to worry—my wife C.Z. is arranging the most absolutely cozy little supper with a few of our dearest friends this evening, and we’d be ever so thrilled if you’d grace us with your presence. And please bring along your delightful great-grand-daughter Livia. Our sons Bubbles and Busby are just mad about her, really they are!” I’ll be damned if any great-grand-daughter of mine ever consorts with those balloon-headed Bainton twits! But before I could react, Chauncey had scampered out of my bed-chamber, no doubt to mingle with one or more of my equally fatuous sons, who think the Baintons are, to use a slang term preferred by the youngsters, “the bee’s knees.” How I despise those neighbors of mine!
T. Herman Zweibel, the great grandson of Onion founder Friedrich Siegfried Zweibel, was born in 1868, became editor of The Onion at age 20, and persisted in various editorial posts until his launching into space in 2001. Zweibel’s name became synonymous with American business success in the 20th century. Many consider him the “Father Of American Journalism,” also the title of his well-known 1943 biography, written by Norman Rombauer.
