Word that Bill and Melinda Gates are divorcing proves anew that while money can buy control of computers, politics, vaccines and vast amounts of farmland, it can’t necessarily buy happiness.
At least we presume Bill and Melinda aren’t happy with each other – seriously not happy. If this were a minor disagreement, they’re wealthy enough to preserve a marriage without having to bother seeing each other on any kind of regular basis.
They could rule over separate fiefdoms. Melinda could retain the modest 66,000 square-foot Washington state testament to excess, planning her rebound relationships in the trampoline room.
Bill could play the role of gentleman farmer on some of the couple’s 242,000 acres of farmland, a total that makes them the largest private owners of such property in these United States.
Come to think of it, maybe this was the root of the domestic discord. Perhaps Bill had planned to sell the Washington shack and take up residence on a farm, sort of like Oliver Douglas in the old sitcom Green Acres.
Recall that the Oliver character’s wife, Lisa Douglas, preferred the city life, but bowed to Oliver’s wishes due to the marriage as told by the song’s theme song. “(Oliver) You are my wife. (Lisa) Goodbye city life. (Both) Green Acres we are there.”
In these enlightened times, women don’t follow the lead of their husbands, even if there are $130.5 billion reasons – the Forbes Magazine estimate of the collective Gates fortune.
This is a far cry from the old euphemism for divorce – splitting the blankets. Bill and Melinda will split the billions and billions and billions.
And the New York Times wondered in print what effect this would have on promised, but not yet made, donations to the Gates Foundation.
The couple’s (soon to be ex-couple’s) divorce statement that was posted to Twitter (where else?) alluded in vague terms to working on the relationship and concluding they no longer could grow together in the next phase of their lives.
Bill is 65 and Melinda is 56, so that next phase has geriatric written all over it.
But give the Gates duo credit for not inserting the traditional request for privacy in the statement – at least not in the reporting I’ve read.
When you rush to microphones almost at every opportunity to promote your agenda and lecture the inferiors among the populace, you can’t very well plead to be ignored when the topic turns to something you’d rather not share.
Even for all of Bill’s bought-and-paid-for goodwill from his eponymous foundation, Gates skeptics are many.
New Republic, in an April 12, 2021, posting that features artwork of a horned and bespectacled Gates, ran the headline: “How Bill Gates Impeded Global Access to Covid Vaccines.” The sub headline read: “Through his hallowed foundation, the world’s de facto public health czar has been a stalwart defender of monopoly medicine.”
Having scanned the story, it isn’t exactly an ode to the selflessness of Gates. Maybe Melinda read it and decided to get off the train now that the hero worship of the spouse was breaking down a tad.
Regardless, I’m sure Bill and Melinda will live out their respective dotage without ever having to fear they can’t afford prescriptions, food, or the latest Microsoft operating system update.
Maybe Bill can pal around with Jeff Bezos, a fellow mega-billionaire who also is at liberty after a divorce a few years back. Can a remake of The Odd Couple be on the horizon?
Sam Ross Jr's site 