at all.
I knew that I had succeeded when one day George Strong quoted ‘Prudence Penny’ to
me.
My ultimate purpose was not to make money and not to impress anyone but to establish
a reputation that let me write a special column in April 11964, one headed `THE MOON
BELONGS TO EVERYONE – but the first Moonship will belong to Harriman Industries.’
I advised them to hang onto their Prudence Penny portfolio… but to take every
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other dime they could scrape up and bet it on the success of D. D. Harriman’s great
new venture, placing a man on the Moon.
From then on `Prudence Penny’ always had something to say about space travel and
Harriman Industries in every column. I freely admitted that space was a long-term
investment (and I continued to recommend other investments, all backed by Theodore’s
predictions) but I kept on pounding away at the notion that untold riches awaited
those farsighted investors who got in early in space activities and hung on. Don’t
buy on margin, don’t indulge in profit-taking – buy Harriman stock outright, put it
away in your safety deposit box and forget it – your grandchildren will love you.
In the spring of 1965 I moved my household to the Broadmoor Hotel south of Colorado
Springs because Mr Harriman was building his Moonship on Peterson Field. In 1952 I
had tried half-heartedly to drop my lease in Kansas City after Brian had taken
Priscilla and Donald back to Dallas (another story and no t a good one). But George
had outflanked me. Title to that house was in George, not Harriman and Strong, not
Harriman Industries. When I told him that I no longer needed a four-bedroom house
(counting the maid’s room), he asked me to keep it, rent free.
I pointed out that, if I was to become his paid mistress, it wasn’t enough, but if I
was to continue the pretence of being a respectable woman, it was too much. He said,
all right, what was the going rate for mistresses? – he would double it.
So I kissed him and took him to bed and we compromised. The house was his and he
would put his driver and wife in the house, and I could stay in it any time I
wished… and the resident couple would take care of Princess Polly.
George had spotted my weak point. I had once subjected this little cat to the trauma
of losing her Only Home; I grabbed this means of avoiding doing it to her again.
But I did take an apartment at the Plaza, moved my most necessary books there; got
my mail there, and occasionally took Polly there – subjecting her to the indignity
of a litter box, true, but she did not fuss. (The new clay pellets were a vast
improvement over sand or soil.) Moving back and forth this short distance got her
used to a carrying cage and to being away from home now and then. Eventually she got
to be a true travelling cat, dignified and at home in the best hotels, a
sophisticated guest who would never think of scratching the furniture. This made it
much easier for Elijah and Charlene to take vacations or go elsewhere if George
needed them elsewhere.
So in the spring of 1965 a few weeks before the historic first flight to the Moon,
Princess Polly and I moved into the Broadmoor. I arrived with Polly in her carrying
case, baggage to follow from the terminal of the Harriman Prairie Highway fifty
miles north of there – I hated those rolling roads from the first time I rode one;
they gave me headaches. But I had been told that the noise problem had been overcome
on the Prairie Highway. Never trust a flack!
The desk clerk at the Broadmoor told me, `Madam, we have an excellent kennel at the
back of the tennis club. I’ll have a bellman take your cat there.’
`Just a moment,’ I got out my Harriman Industries card – mine had a gold band.
The clerk took one look at it, got the assistant manager on duty. He hurried over,