The red and white checkered oil cloth lay on the grass, a spread with tasty delights above the bank of Panther Creek. Stellar’s jays and evening grosbeaks kept up a chatter that punctuated the human conversation. Gregory Petrovich stood downriver fishing. His hip waders were greenish brown. Gloria, her stepmother Sheila, and her father Pete, sat around the tablecloth sipping retsina and eating kalamatas, bread, and dolmades. And tzatziki, plenty of garlicy tzatziki.

The blue sky of late afternoon was complemented by billowy clouds drifting across the view down valley toward the Big River. They talked money. Not the money coveted by need, but of the money of surplus that fostered the great civility of charity.