Hard Lessons

On two separate times in my life I have attended a function at the Country Club of Virginia, both of which were occasions of great discomfort. The first was a business meeting, the second a wedding. Twenty five years separated the two but the vibe was exactly the same. The source of my discomfort probably says more about me than it does the Country Club of Virginia. I will readily admit to a long held bias and prejudice against institutions like CCV and the sort of people who are most likely to be members there. I have always held firmly to the views best expressed by Groucho Marx who famously said that he would never become a member of any club that would have him as a member. Groucho needn’t have worried with regards to CCV.  He was Jewish.

The source of my CCV problem dates back to my time as a student at the University of Richmond. I was a townie who drove his 1966 Volkswagen Beetle all the way from Elmont to class every morning, each day passing by the beautiful homes on Three Chopt Road with their finely trimmed lawns and dazzling cars parked in curved driveways. Once I got on campus it was even worse. My beat up Beetle stood out amongst the BMW’s and MG’s of many of my fellow students who lived on campus in one of the gorgeous dorms that grew out of the grounds like so many mushrooms after a week of rain. UR’s campus screamed old money with its Gothic architecture and brick walkways. My money was always brand new, doled out to me every other Friday in the form of a paycheck I earned building pallets in a warehouse in Ashland while my classmates partied. I graduated from The University of Richmond…but I was never really a student there. The resentment that I felt was palpable and grew over time into something of an obsessive dislike and distrust of wealthy people. To this day I struggle with the same dislike and distrust.

The Country Club of Virginia is ground zero for my biases. Actually any country club will do, but CCV is the poster child for Virginia’s generational wealth. One becomes a member by invitation only through a mysterious process governed by some sort of star chamber of elites who up until the early 1990’s had never admitted a black member. The first Jewish member came just a couple years before that. When I turned off of Three Chopt road onto Westhampton Drive I felt like I was going behind enemy lines. This time I wasn’t driving an exhaust-belching clunker. My Cadillac would fit in nicely. There was a masterpiece of a sunset in the distance…

The reception was lovely, the view over the grounds from the elevated clubhouse was breathtaking. Men and women dressed in their finery stood huddled around propane heaters as the temperature dropped with the setting sun. The open bar yielded cocktails while tuxedoed men and women roamed the crowds offering us trays of bacon-wrapped scallops and spinach-stuffed mushrooms. It didn’t escape me that each of the attendants who waited on us were black and heavily accented, exactly the sort of people who didn’t stand a chance of ever becoming a member.

Eventually the crowd was ushered inside to a ballroom filled with beautifully decorated tables with linen table cloths and fine china. There was a seven piece band performing for our entertainment. Dinner was delicious. We were placed at a table with several people we had never met. They were all delightful. As is usually the case, I had a difficult time staying seated. Several times I excused myself from the table and wandered around the place. I smiled when I found several worn spots in the carpeting. You would think that for $75,000 down and $1500 a month the members could expect decent carpeting. Eventually I found the gentlemen’s bathroom. It was everything I was expecting it to be. No paper towels, just hundreds of neatly rolled cloth towelettes. The thought came to me that there was probably a 60 year old black man in the laundry room who had been rolling these towelettes 8 hours a day for the past 40 years. Then I thought of another wedding we had attended recently where we ate barbecue off of paper plates. We could have used some towelettes.

This was one of those weddings that husbands are asked to attend by their wives. The bride was her friend. I only knew a handful of people. But you go with her because you love her and she looks amazing in her dress. It gives you an excuse to wear a suit. When you discovered that the reception would be at CCV you sighed and prepared for the worst. That old ugly chip on your shoulder reappeared. You spent much of the evening looking for confirmation of every uncharitable thought you’ve ever had about country club people. But then the father of the bride stood up to make a speech. He was nervous, he said. He had written his remarks down so he wouldn’t ramble. He looked familiar. It dawned on me that they were members of my church. We had shared a table with them at a marriage class last year. His speech was an amazing tribute to his daughter and new son-in-law. He was a man of faith and his powerful words bore witness to that faith. He spoke of grace and answered prayers. It was a humbling moment. 

It’s funny how blind we are to our own sins. I have spent almost 50 years harboring class resentment, assigning a host of malignant intentions to people from money and inherited privilege. I stand in judgment of institutions like CCV for their racist, exclusionary past. I blithely belittle them with the accusation that they “woke up on third base thinking they’ve hit a triple.” Then suddenly I find myself a member of a church filled with the very people I have always resented. Some of them have vindicated every stereotype that exists for them. But many, like the father of the bride, have proven to be humble, grace-filled people. It has caused me to examine my resentments. I am learning things I never knew about people I’ve never liked. They are flawed, like me. They are insecure, like me. They struggle with the idea that salvation is a free gift and they wonder if they deserve it…like me. I am learning that we, all of us, have more in common than I ever thought possible.