Those Vagabond Shoes

(WSJ Illustration)

The ex-New York-now-Florida uber-rich are back in NYC for the summer. Conversations with their wealthy friends who stayed behind are laced with one-upmanship (one-up-personship?):

It’s summertime, and wealthy New Yorkers who moved to Florida are back North. From East Hampton to Kennebunkport, everyone’s in the same sandbox now. It’s time to compare who has the shiniest bucket: those who decamped or those who stayed.

Palm Beach: the best decision ever? Yep, or so they claim. They golf before work and take a dip on Billionaires’ Row beachfront after work. It’s only two hours by speedboat to go bonefishing in the Bahamas.

But for true Manhattanites, moving somewhere for fishing ease seems positively boneheaded. Asked if he’d ditch New York for enduring sunshine, mega-developer Aby Rosen prefers the big-boy pond. “Wow, gee whiz, how great I’m so free, swimming with kids in the middle of a workweek,” he responded facetiously. “I mean, who does that? I don’t want to putz around. Midweek, I’d rather go to Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center or hear good jazz downtown. Kill me if I have to jump on a boat on a Wednesday evening!”

F. Scott Fitzgerald said the rich "are different from you and me." Nothing distinguishes a person more than language, and what the rich talk about is very different from normal people, too.