Coming Home

What does home mean to you?  To me home means a safe face.  A place we feel comfortable and loved.  It is a sanctuary and the place that holds our childhood memories.  Home may not be a perfect place at all times but it is the place that formed our deep emotional meaning of ourselves.

Home means acceptance. It is a place where those we love can drive us crazy one moment and make us feel like we can walk on water the next.  Home is where unconditional love is always available to us by the parents who love us.

So as children grow up and leave to attend a university they all long for a visit home to relax and recharge. They look forward to a semester break or a summer vacation at home.  For the parents and grandparents we also can’t wait for those visits.

Ryan graduated in Engineering from the University of Colorado on June19^thand two days later he went off for a two-week trip through Italy. He is a lucky young man and well deserving. He studied hard and made great grades in a very hard major. As his grandmother I am so very proud of him.

He said beauty was everywhere from the seaside villages that plunge into the sparkling Mediterranean to the shores of the Amalfi coast, one of the most beautiful stretches in the world.  He experienced the paradise of Sorrento and Naples and explored the ruins of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius.

He traveled from Milan to Florence in comfort and style on-board a sleek, high speed Italo train. While in Milan he enjoyed seeing the fashion icon city of Italy with its high-end shopping, style & Luxury goods as well as the DaVinci masterpiece, “The Last Supper.” He also really enjoyed the nightlife in Milam. He met up with friends   and he and Liz danced and partied ‘till dawn. He took in the magnificent architecture of Florence and spectacular sculptures and art that he found in museums throughout the city.

Ryan is now home interviewing for a job in biomedical engineering.  He has one offer in his pocket if he wants to wait for the position to become available in six months. In the meantime he is open to other offers. We have our fingers crossed.

Katy is home for the summer from attending SCAD, Savannah School of Art where she is an architectural major. She will be junior next fall and will be spending the fall term attending SCAD Hong Kong where she will be studying and traveling.  She will be leaving September 6^th and will return home in November.  I’m so jealous!

Katy has been interning with a Covington designer and enjoying her friends while home. She has even put her design talent to work designing this birthday cake for one of her friends. It’s nice to be sooo talented.

The Crosby Family

Gunner came home over the 4^thof July weekend . He has an internship at the Gagosian Gallery in San Francisco this summer.  He’s pictured here with his brother Dennis and sister Anita.  This fall he is excited that he and three of his friends will be living together at the Phi Kappa Psi house. Gunner is in the art department at Stanford.

This is his latest piece of art while in California

Hot off the pen! A new sketch by Gunner.  We are so very proud of him!

The Dongieux Family

Parker came home from Ole Miss on several weekends this summer. He’s attending summer school so he can graduate in December so we only got to see him when he could get away on weekends. He plans to intern with an architectural firm after graduation to see if he wants to get a second degree in that field.

Parker is making this crawfish table for his Dads’ birthday. I can’t wait to see the finished product. He has a very creative mind and this table is a masterpiece and shows his enormous talent.

The Maloney Family and the newlyweds the Rosenbergs

These are the families of my three children,

daughter Jete’, son Duke, and daughter Renée

Life is good when all these young people come home. Our summer has been very full, busy, and filled with happiness and love. “Love makes the world go round,” is an English idiom and proverb, which is very important and essential.

We can see by the state of our country how life is not very pleasant without love.

I choose to love- how about you?

Gene and I were married in 1964 in Chicago, Illinois in the Chapel in the Sky. This 568-foot skyscraper is the tallest church building in the world.  It serves as a Neo-Gothic monument to the Methodists’ commitment to “the Loop” in downtown Chicago at a time when pressure was great to move to the suburbs.  It is the home to the First United Methodist Church of Chicago, the oldest congregation in the city.

Mrs. Walgreen (of the founders of Walgreen’s) put up the money to have the chapel built in the steeple.  It is hidden up at the top of the skyscraper church.

Our wedding was very intimate and special in this “Chapel in the sky” and a lovely memory.

Our best man gave us a private dinner with a strolling violinist in one of the downtown hotels and a night stay at the hotel as a wedding present.  The next morning Gene took the “L” back to Loyola and I had an early morning flight to Cleveland, Ohio that our best man was on. Life in the windy city was an exciting time and we met and knew some of the most amazing people.

February 29, 1960 was a historic day for Chicago and the world.  Playboy magazine owner Hugh Hefner decided to open up the world’s first Playboy Club on Walton Street in the Gold Coast. The club provided the first appearance of the Playboy Bunnies.  As VIPs of the club, key-holders could enter the club at anytime and indulge in an atmosphere filled with music, alcohol and nubile women.  The flagship Chicago location was so successful that it became the busiest club in the world.  These clubs became known as “Disneyland for adults.” The Chicago Playboy Club helped solidify the greater Rush and Division Street area as one of the most happening areas in the country during the 1960’s.

As a graduation present from Dental school Gene was given a “Key” to the Playboy Club.  You could eat free on Wednesday nights. So guess where we spent many Wednesday nights?

Money was tight but we managed to be able to enjoy so much spectacular entertainment that Chicago offered.  Also our apartment was so convenient to where everything was happening in the world of entertainment in Chicago.

Our apartment was located not far from a club called Mister Kelly’s.  We frequented Mister Kelly’s a great deal and saw the most incredible entertainers, one of which was Barbara Streisand in one of her first appearances.

From around 1956 until its demise, Mister Kelly’s was a springboard to fame for many entertainers, especially jazz singers and comedians.  As reported in the Chicago Tribune, “it was a supernova in the local and national nightlife firmament.

Below a reporter Charlie Dawn reports on Barbara Streisand’s successful show.

CHICAGO AMERICAN — June 13, 1963

Dusk Till Dawn

Popular Songs Unusually Sung

By Charlie Dawn 

Take popular songs like “Happy Days Are Here Again” and “Cry Me A River” and you listen, today, with half-hearted interest. But take those same songs with the unusual dressing Barbra Streisand gives them and they become alive and thrilling all over again!

Miss Streisand is the young songstress who has done a Broadway show, made numerous featured personal appearances on television network shows, and now is capturing the fancy of Chicagoans in Mister Kelly’s on Rush Street.

She opened her first engagement in Mister Kelly’s this week and judging by the crowds who have gathered to hear her—early and late— her 3-week showing will be a hefty winner!

For those who seek unusual treatment in song presentation, Miss Streisand is the answer. And for those who merely want entertainment the answer is the same.

With Peter Daniels as accompanist, Barbra unfolds many fine songs, all dressed in Streisand style. “Cry Me A River,” the way she does it, sort of makes you forget about Johnnie Ray who introduced the number. And “Happy Days…” takes a new stance in the Streisand program.

Among other winners this comely lady presents are “Any Place I Hang My Hat is Home,” “Keeping Out of Mischief Now,” “Who Will Buy?” and “Down With Love.”

With singing — and performing — talent like this, it’s no wonder Mister Kelly’s is doing a bang-up business!

Sometimes we had to drive to Skokie to see some amazing concerts.  Even though our car wouldn’t go in reverse we managed to find parking places on corners where we just could go forward. Since we didn’t have the money to get it fixed we always found a way to get around.

We saw one of Nat King Cole’s final performances in Skokie in 1963.  It was amazing and one of the highlight performances of my life. I remember it that way still today.  He died the next year in 1964 of lung cancer.

We loved Chicago so very much and would have stayed there after Gene graduated if it hadn’t been for the winter weather.  I can remember the icy wind whipping off the lake almost blowing you off your feet and making your knees bleed. It was soooo cold!

We did return to New Orleans and set up an Orthodontic practice on what is called the west bank of the city.  Ten year later our marriage ended in divorce.  I have spent about thirty years being mad at Gene for messing up my dream. Just a few years ago I decided to bury the hatchet, so to speak, and “forgave him.”

You see I finally have figured out that my dream may not have been his dream.  I figured out that life goes on and goes on very well by you.  I figured out that I could be in charge of my own destiny and be happy and successful. I figured out that no one promises you a “rose garden” unless it’s an exceptional person that you just haven’t meant.

In forgiving Gene I have found he has become my new “BFF” and that makes me happy.

So my lesson on living well today and for the rest of your life is to “forgive.”

Do it now “Forgive” because it’s freeing and can release so much tension and unhappiness in your life.

Write me if this lesson suggestion “to forgive” has helped you!

As we get older there may be times when we feel irrelevant and left behind. To live well as we age it’s important that we appreciate the life we have lead and find a feeling of happiness in our journey.  We gain wisdom and joy that’s only possible through our personal journey. That wisdom is now our gift to our family.

It’s called the story of our life and it should be documented for our grandchildren to know.  People today are in search of their past and who their relatives were, how they lived and how they contributed to times they lived in.

What does the story of your life say about you?  As you write your story you will receive a renewed realization that you are a very special person.  A person you should be proud of and excited about.  That no matter how much attention is focused on your children and grandchildren, you know that at one time you set the stage that the younger generation stands on. It’s your story, your life and you can be pleased with the person you were and will continue to be for the remaining years of your life.

My story began the first five years of my life in a very small community of Iota, Louisiana.  We moved to Church Point, Louisiana when my father took over his father’s bakery “the Baquet Bakery” when his father became ill and could no longer run it.

It’s hard to believe this small time girl accomplished so much.  There were many first for me beginning with my trip to Europe in the last six weeks of my senior year in high school.  No one from my high school had ever taken a trip to Europe. I was required to give a talk to the assembly with business people in our town as well as the students.  I became an instant celebrity and was voted the most “likely to Succeed” in my class.  I didn’t feel this was deserved because I was not that popular or achieved much in high school, so for me it was a hollow award.  I was however the editor the “Sulphur High” year book my senior year, which was an award I did value

I become comfortable in my own skin in college joining a sorority, Chi Omega, being the director of the home economics yearly fashion show and becoming sweetheart of Sigma Chi fraternity.  College was so much fun, I was popular, I was very happy and unfortunately my studies took a back seat.

I cruised over with a group of college students to attend the University of Hawaii the summer of 1959 the year Hawaii became a state.  That was a magical time with many celebrities like Debbie Reynolds, Loretta Young, Tab Hunter, and David Niven, running around the beach we frequented almost every day in front of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel.  We met and went to parties with all the young people on the island from the native Hawaiians to the Americans that lived there. This was the first time in my life that I interacted with people of different cultures.  I have to say this summer taught me so many lessons in human interaction and friendship. It was a time of some of my most treasured memories.

My next lesson in life was when I failed to graduate from college in 1960.  I failed organic Chemistry for the second semester. I even tried to bribe my professor with dinners at the home economics house in order to hopefully get a D- in the course and graduate with my class. It failed!  I learned a big lesson about failure and the fact that to succeed you had to earn it by working for it and studying for it. Some lessons aren’t always happy ones but important ones.

I did meet my husband to be when I transferred back to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana trying to once again graduate from college.  After he graduated from Dental school and moved to Chicago to attend Loyola University to get a degree in Orthodontics I applied with United Airlines to be a “Stewardess”.

My mother was very much opposed to me being what she called a “flying waitress” and moving to Chicago. However I got the job and was stationed, yes, in the windy city.  It’s funny how life seems to give you the opportunity of growth.  The lessons I learned in flying the friendly skies of United were great.  So many wonderful friendships were made from one of the vice president of the airlines to and architect in Seattle, Washington who became the best man at my wedding. We were always holding over Chicago because of weather conditions so we had to learn how to be very creative in entertaining to appease the customers who were missing their meetings and connections.  I just loved this job.  It was one of the best jobs I ever had.

This job taught me responsibility and how to be an actress, a comforter, and a leader.  This was the best job I have ever had and I preformed it with excellence and a sense of pride in my dedication to this company.

The 60’s were the best time to be a stewardess or flight attendant.  We had a handful of people in first class and only a half cabin full in tourist.  People actually dressed up to fly and the food service was spectacularly wonderful. I was so fortunate to have gotten this opportunity at this time in my life.

When I got married in my second year of flying I could no longer be a Stewardess so I transferred to reservations.  I soon learned it wasn’t the job for me. I found it quiet exhausting.  However soon after I was working there Air France gave a very great package of appreciation to United Airline reservation clerks, four days and three nights in Paris with expenses paid except for gratuity.  We were able to scrape together enough money to cover the tips that we would have to pay and off we went on a honeymoon in Paris compliments of Air France.

I will end this tale right here and once again say that these experiences have made me the person I have become. At eighty I look back at all these moments and life lessons as a beautiful story that I want to share with my grandchildren and their children.  So I write it down for the generations to come in my family.

I challenge you to do the same!