Part 6 Harry Hareston

The Charities of the Rich Women & Helen’s Tennis   

 

          Now as I said, Helen, the sister of Harry, was becoming quite a tennis player. In the future some interesting things would happen to her personally & with her game. But let me begin by describing some ventures that Helen will figure in later, the women of charities among the super rich.

          Not all rich people are vain, shallow & greedy, there are some with hearts of gold, there are those who vacillate between being good & bad. Let me begin by an overview.

          The people Harry Sr wanted to be a part of were not just well off, they had super abundance. Their homes were at lowest, two million dollars each up to 150 million! These were estates, American palaces, the royalty of our land. Some of the most impressive were Greenwich, Ct, right there where Harry lived & worked & saw the beauty/ luxury around him. People with several acre plots, right on the ocean, tennis courts, indoor & outdoor swimming pools, homes with six to ten bedrooms & even more baths, gardeners tending sculpted hedges & magnificent laws, flowers everywhere, a paradise. Harry had a goal in mind. He didn’t think he could strike the highest notes ever, but he aimed for a house, some day, that cost over one million bucks. Mind you, in the sixties a million bucks was a million bucks! Then he’d feel he’d ‘made it’ He’d be happy & people would show respect. Of course, the cars had to go with it – the most expensive ones on the market, albeit used.

 

          As I said, some of these people were good souls. Not all – indeed there are even more shallow, materialistic folks from the rich than from the poor. But let me begin with a good one.

          Maria Sandy Montbalm had married a tycoon. She belonged to that group of women who every year had a huge bash for charity – many families went all out for this, hundreds attended & good works were done. Maria was one of the ten females most active.

Her endeavor was a soup kitchen that she opened up in Bridgeport, Ct. She rented a hall there with a big room, kitchen, a couple rooms to the side & good bathrooms. All year, every day, meals were served. Much soup with good bread was given. They even made pizza! Those who were homeless & so dirty & smelly had to take their food from a window, so as not to offend the others, especially children.

People could sit or do takeout.

Maria put this affair onto Face Book with her own picture proudly standing next to the poor on the Christmas feast.

She went all out on Christmas, huge decorated tree inside & even one big one outside by the parking lot, all color baubles, tinsel, bit star on top, at bottom the statue of Jesus in the manger/stable with his family & beasts looking over him. This delighted the children, some of whom had no tree & no décor of this type.

The food she had prepared was all out: Turkey/& or chicken with all the trimmings & sumptuous desserts. Each child got a bag of five candy bars to take home – the healthy kinds with coconut, peanut butter & nuts with the chocolate. And believe it or not, she got a large number of champagne bottles for the adults. This was a big hit! And she had a little band, a piano which was there all year & played during dinner – popular & classical – which was augmented by other instruments & a few singers who had all the carols ready for the people to join in.

There was more. Weeks before Christmas Maria asked all her friends to donate gifts they could hand out to the poor. Some of the gifts were exquisite – & Maria & here servants went personally to each house to collect. Kids were asked to sacrifice one of their toys – even if it was one which they favored the least or had gotten tired of. Girls gave dolls, the older ones gave new cosmetics & costume jewelry, boys gave replicas of trucks, & luxury cars. There were statues, paintings & some appliances like cd players & such.

{The other room housed, at all times, the used clothing of the rich, especially for children, & including beautiful blankets, sheets, kitchen appliances, dishes, silverware, cups, glasses & the like – even golf clubs & old tennis or badminton rackets!: almost everything you could want for your house & family. Everything was spotless – clothing laundered & washed clean with steam – Maria was meticulous. She wanted no dingy ‘thrift store’ scent.}

When Maria visited for Christmas, of course she had two body guards with her & did NOT use the Rolls, just an ordinary car from the servants. The pictures she took standing with the poor, featured on Face Book, showing her beaming with joy, proved to the world how much she cared & there was JOY in charity.

And it was important to put images of the folks having a good time, & the children beaming, holding the presents they had chosen from the collection – & those who donated could see their old toy or blanket happily in the arms of some poor tyke who really needed it!

And the poor were dressed to the hilt. They had gone earlier to the used store & picked out the best clothing they could find.

Now the husband of Maria, Henry, everyone thought was a tough guy & not soft. But deep inside he was proud of his wife although he said not much, but he was generous to the hilt & sometimes gave large bonuses for some poor family in need; for instance the Grandmother Bettina. She was caring for eight children! Both her daughters had come to a bad end, each had had four kids. One of them died of an overdose; her husband was in jail for violent crimes & drug dealing – a long sentence. The other daughter had died in a street shootout, her husband was nowhere to be found. The kids were orphans under Bettina’s care & yes, she did get benefits, but it wasn’t enough. Henry donated $800 a month or 100 to each child, to this family each year, until the kids would turn eighteen. And they did visit Maria’s center almost daily, receiving the gifts & food & this family was saved from the worst poverty. And besides receiving, they donated their time to work there, out of their own hearts of gratitude – it was not compulsory.

Other women in Maria’ bracket funded animal shelters or gave cash to a list of families in need – many were women with children, no man. Some gave large amounts to various Churches or battered women’s shelters.

Now as I said, not all were good souls. An example of a spiritually misguided woman was Annette Spellding. Her husband was a TV tycoon, so rich they built an estate worth 100 million. Annette had exquisite taste; she spent all her time designing the building, then furnishing it. Their status was so high that the Prince Charles, the Duke of Windsor, visited!

But Anna had no time for charities, she would do things like collect antique dolls & even had a room for them. What in tarnation could a grown woman do with hundreds of dolls? But there they were.

And when Anna died, she took nothing with her, surprise, surprise. She had all of eternity to think on what she could have done to help the poor, whom she ignored.

 

The Tennis Game of Helen

 

At first, Helen & Harry started as equals with Harry having the edge. But soon, Helen left him behind. Why? Because Harry was pursuing other goals & stopped practicing, his games were sporadic. But Helen was committed & faithfully followed her coach.

Bit by bit, game by game, she was becoming a legend. Pretty soon no one could beat her – neither male nor female. There came a cliché when someone was bragging a bit much, the retort was,

“But you can’t beat Helen.”

People became fascinated by her & why was she so good? They tried to spy out her secrets to no avail, so it was assumed it was her coach. Some of the toffs hired him also, but the results were mixed. Indeed he gave the same advise to all, but not all followed accurately nor did they practice enough, nor did they all have great talent. The downfall of the average guy was arrogance in not obeying the coach, the downfall of most women was envy of Helen but lack of confidence in themselves.

Then someone caught her, on her knees, in the dressing room, praying her Rosary to the Holy Mother. Then rumor went out it was God helping her smash her victims.

But this was not true. Helen had gone back to her childhood training by her Mom, who had the children on their knees, reciting the Holy Rosary every day.

After graduating her girl’s school she escaped their influence, her spirituality sprang back & she wanted to pray out of Love – no ulterior motives. It gave her peace of mind. She did not invoke the Supernatural to win games – it would not be the affair of God to defeat one person against another – God loves all. However, it did help her win because the Grace of God brought out the best in her. It was just a matter of obeying her coach & practicing, along with talent.

So let us have a look at what this coach taught Helen & some of us can gain insights to better our own game, lol.

 

Helen’s teacher saw her innate grace & worked at maximizing that. He focused on the fluidity of her moves, concentration on the ball and the correct preparation and swing pattern.

He told Helen that she must stay balanced and composed at all times even when the match was going against her.

 

Helen had great confidence in her teacher – his words were sacred, but also, she believed in herself, a key element.

Coach Kellerman emphasized that Helen must meditate off the court, to send the power gained there while playing for the big points.

 

But here is the biggie – everyone listen. He taught her to hit a two-handed backhand. The other guys were using one arm with the backhand stroke but because Helen used two hands her backhand service return was lethal – it made that shot a weapon.

 

Her opponents were so afraid of hitting the serve to her backhand that they started to go to her forehand but her forehand was always a good shot so they had nowhere to go. Helen became a strong returner of serve regardless the side her opponent served her on (forehand or backhand.)

 

Helen was beating everyone. Her new fiancé {will explain later} challenged all his friends, male as well as female, to take her on. He tried one game with his beauty & it was curtains. He wanted to test her power & make sport of his friends – all of whom felt superior to her because of their status, arrogance & wealth. And some of them were really good, compared to average folks, but this Helen business was another dimension!

 

When she came upon one of these puffed-up types, Helen would pull this trick, which would afterward humiliate them. At the beginning of a tennis match they flip a coin to see who serves first …..whenever she would win the coin toss (although most people when they win

would elect to serve first (serving is advantageous) Helen would tell her opponent to serve first so she could break their serve the very first game of the match. (To break serve means the returner wins the game that the opponent is serving.)

Also Helen had such confidence in her service return that when her opponent missed their first serve she would move up in the court to intimidate them (by doing this she was sending them the message that she didn’t respect their second serve and was going to slam the serve back for a winner) and this so discombobulated her opponents that they would often double fault…. meaning they would miss their second serve and she would win the point.

 

The crowd loved watching Helen because she had variety and hit spectacular shots. At these times she would raise her hands in the air and wave to the crowd for applause. This love affair of crowd to Helen was great for her but demoralizing to the other guy.

All the things Helen does disrupts her opponents, especially the men. They can’t stand the fact that the crowd gets behind her spectacular shots, running around gracefully, hitting winners and humiliating them so they lose their concentration & their game goes downhill.

Also the audacity that a woman would move up in the court on a male second serve showing it total disrespect was unnerving for the men.

 

And then there was her beauty & style. As I said before, she looked like Gene Tierney. Her tennis garb was functional, tasteful and sexy. The males were attracted to her & wanted to impress her, not be beaten by her. Beautiful women they saw as sex objects, not competitors. If Helen was ugly they might have said,

“Oh well, beaten by a three bagger – she has nothing to do but practice so sure, she can beat me.”

The tennis set talked about Helen constantly, more & more people challenged her to no avail. She ruled supreme.

 

To be continued. This is from the forthcoming book, “Church of Women,” copyrighted Rasa Von Werder 2023, all rights reserved.