RING ANY BELLS? No? Yet when I was nine, there were those who regarded Lattimer as the most notorious name in America. My grandmothermy mother's mothertried to persuade me to change it legally to hers, insisting that my own name would brand me for life. I was stubborn. I refused to change. Her lawyers persuaded her not to force me. But she won a small victory. I remained on her heavily-guarded Maryland estate with private tutors. I had wanted, for the first time in my life, to go to school. I pictured other boys saying, Are you the Lattimer? and being wildly embarrassed when I said I was. I don't know what made me lust for notoriety. I've gotten over it. I am richer by far than many whose wealth is their one claim to fame, and yet you've never heard of me. It is ridiculously easy to avoid the spotlight. If you don't, it's your own fault. If you should look up the name Lattimer in back issues of any American newspaper, the banner headlines, especially in tabloids, would make you wonder too that such notoriety could fade away.
