February 17, 2021:
We cavassed Mission Viejo. A long drive north from San Diego. My first job after college, going door-to-door collecting money and signatures to fight utility rate hikes.
We called it "bourgie turf". Easy to make quota, but a very tiring day.
One fellow in a McMansion asked me at the door — a white-haired gent, tall and thin like me today — a would-be gentleman of leisure, the self-conception of a little league patrone — patronizingly, the superiority of aristocracy — "Have you ever heard of Don Quixote?" — where his tone exactly mimicked, with unselfconscious farce, Do you have any Grey Poupon?
"Of course!," I grinned. "Have you ever heard of Karl Marx?"
Leaving me laughing the whole long ride home.