American Pie: The Life Of Reilly
"This is the first time in my life that I chose a location for no other reason than that I wanted to live there. In the past, where I lived and how I lived was determined mostly by the need to be near family or by where I found work... The home we have purchased is spacious and modern, with beautiful views and a daily sunset that could make you cry.''
Reflecting on his lifestyle and his new lakeside home in Florida, John Merchant concedes that he is "Living the life of Reilly''.
Read more of John's thoughtful and invariably entertaining columns by clicking on American Pie in the menu on this page.
I read that the expression, “Living the life of Reilly” originated in the 1880s from a music hall song called, "Is That Mr. Reilly?” The song included lyrics such as "A hundred a day would be my pay," and apparently other comedic speculation about what "Mr. Reilly" would do if he were to become wealthy. The song was apparently brought into prominence by its performer, Pat Rooney, but my various attempts to track down the rest of the words through several search engines, have failed to locate any other lyrics.
I find great poignancy in such songs from the hey-day of the music halls. They are full of irony and bravado, and speak volumes about the gulf between the “haves” and the “have-nots” of those days. “Ours is a Nice ‘Ouse Ours Is,” “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,” and the rest. The songs and the performers pretended that “With a Little Bit of Luck,” the gulf could be crossed. A social and economic gulf exists today of course, but with the difference that at least there is the possibility that it can be crossed.
What brought “The Life of Reilly” to mind, was thinking about the life I’m living today. This past week or so has been the first opportunity I have had to reflect on what will hopefully be the life I will lead until I no longer have domain over it. In the past 7 months, my wife and I have moved house, with the objective of settling into a dwelling, a community and a climate that will be the setting for our final years, however long they may be.
The situation has an odd feel to it. This is the first time in my life that I chose a location for no other reason than that I wanted to live there. In the past, where I lived and how I lived was determined mostly by the need to be near family or by where I found work. This is not to say that any of the places I have called home were undesirable, far from it, but they were, in a sense, chosen for me by circumstance. For the first time in my life, the only constraints on where I live or my life style are what my wife and I can afford.
The choice of Florida as my home state was, as they say, a “no brainer.” My wife and I have been coming to south west Florida for vacations for a number of years. We have owned a vacation place on one of the barrier islands for 5 years, so we knew what to expect when we opted to settle in the area. The location of what we hope will be our final home is a beautiful, lake-side community with the kind of facilities one might expect to find in a first class resort. The home we have purchased is spacious and modern, with beautiful views and a daily sunset that could make you cry.
Unlike many such gated communities in Florida and elsewhere, this is not primarily a place to which people retire. Many of our neighbors are middle aged, and some are young-marrieds with children. For many of them, their condo is still a vacation home, but there are others, like ourselves, who have established their primary residence here. The age-range mix is more stimulating than most, so called, “senior communities.”
Growing up poor produces different reactions in people. My family wasn’t exactly poor, but my father had opted to purchase a house with a mortgage in the belief that his income would grow with time. Unfortunately World War II restricted his career progress, so we were always “house poor.”
In a recent conversation, someone said that they didn’t know they were poor, because everyone around them was also poor. My experience was quite different in that our house was located in a very middle class suburb, so most of my friends and schoolmates were from “comfortably off” families. Despite this daily reminder of my own family’s fiscal shortcomings, it didn’t produce in me the drive to succeed that it does in some people. To be sure, I wanted the good things in life, but thought, like Charles Dickens’ Mr. Macawber, that “something would turn up.”
Well, though there have not been any dramatic windfalls in my life, and I’ve had my share of set-backs, propitious timing and great good-fortune have given me a lifestyle that I could only have dreamed about fifty or sixty years ago. Mr. Reilly’s “Hundred a day” isn’t quite the fortune it must have been in his time, but I’m living the life he dreamed about, and I’m truly grateful.
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