'JP'- my first millionaire 'encounter'

'JP' was the first millionaire who came to my attention simply because he noticed me when I noticed him and vice versa....those who are still alive and remember him,as he was a very shrewd business man,whose mansion still sits in a prominent area though he and his wife, who had no children,are long dead. Nowadays, the magnificent mansion sits vacant and surrounded by the inevitable development of condos, houses,etc. so that passersby do not get the full glimpse and visual impact the mansion once had..... When I was in the seventh & eighth grades I often walked to school or rode the bus and then in high school, I had to walk to and from school since bus service only was granted if you lived beyond a certain mileage and I was short by several feet...... At any rate,'JP' had a block up town named after him and his wife had a business which sold cakes, pies, doughnuts and on weekends,'baked' beans. the drivers that worked for his large bakery on Maple Avenue also rented his apartments and so he gained back some of the wages he paid them, no doubt, and this was during and after the Depression....many people worked on and off in this establishment...including my mother at one time.....I worked in the building when it was sold to another owner and operated under another name in the '70's...it is now defunct but the building became a flea market and then that went out and now it is supposedly being rennovated by someone or some group but that has been going on for several years now....and only some small signs of progress are showing... A friend of my grandmother's worked at the mansion and she related, that 'JP' and his wife,being frugal as most millionaires are apt to be, took home the unsold products, usually the beans and brown bread and ate them for supper Saturday nights,etc... 'JP' drove a bit Cadillac and usually had a large cigar in his mouth as he drove to and from the large bakery.....when he was going opposite to the direction I was walking, he would always wave to me and acknowledge my presence, but when he was going the same way as I was walking, he never noticed me, at least not overtly, and,of course, never offered me a ride in his Cadillac, for which I am most grateful since my walking,running, bicycling in those days have apparently kept me in fairly good health,etc....But I suspect something else in his waving to me....perhaps he was merely encouraging me to eventually consider working for him in the bakery or else he mistook me for one of his night shift workers going home at that time from his bakery.... When I did work at the bakery for about one year, I worked on the bread slicing machine which had razor sharp blades that when running and slicing could hav easily cut or sliced off fingers MY JKOB WAS TO PUSH LOAVES OF BAKED BREAD FROM THE OVENS INTO THE SLICER on a moving belt...and the first day I began it, everyone in that area took bets I would not last but,to their surprise, I went for a year and quickly developed ways to move my body and arms etc and put loaves in a group, as many as I could hold, rapidly...the only time they had to stop the machine was to bandage my fingers from the blood that came from teh sharp crust that cut under my nails and bled onto the bread, which they threw away,etc....I learned a lot about bakeries and bread, prices and various things that I will sometime discuss when I have more time.