NOLA TRIP PIX

 Dear George, 

We’re recently back from a weeklong family Thanksgiving trip to New Orleans. It was a special time to visit. Our family has recently moved from Mid-City to their new Uptown home. Our grandkids, A and L, are in their final year of junior high and will soon be taking a big test to get into the high school of their choice. K’s parents, Linda and Ted, have both recently returned to New Orleans, Ted staying in J and K’s basement apartment for the winter months and Linda in her nearby apartment complex. Here are some of the highlights of our visit.

On our first full day K took us to see the newly established Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience. It’s a very excellently done coverage of the adaptation of European Jewish immigrants to the rural South, often in situations where they were the only Jewish family in the community. Many tears and smiles and highly recommended if you visit NOLA.

 

On Thanksgiving Day J roasted a 20-pound turkey, filling it with butter under its skin, and other family members prepared sides for the holiday feast. Here are a few of the hard-working cooks (Katja, L, and A).

Before Thanksgiving dinner J took a group of us to the horse races at the fairgrounds where the local citizenry dress up in colorful and wacky costumes. My reckless associates lost all of their bets on the horses.

Here is our group at dinner: (from the left), A, Conrad (a family relative), Eddie (as family friend), our daughter-in-law K, K’s dad Ted, the back of my head, L, Linda (K’s mom), and J taking the photo. A happy and filled up bunch.

New Orleans, of course, is a great town for eating out. We had family dinners out at Dat Dog (with the fanciest hot dogs on the planet) and La Crepe Nanou, an elegant French Restaurant. We lunched at the Redfish Grill on Bourbon Street (raw oysters for Katja, a fried oyster po-boy for me), Freret Faire at Rouse’s Market, and Ted’s Frostop, a 1950’s style diner. Above is Katja enjoying her oysters at Redfish Grill, a happy trio at La Crepe Nanou, and Ted’s Frostop.

J took the kids and us to the Historic Orleans Collection which featured a digital tour of the Notre Dame Cathedral post-fire renovation, and then we visited M. S. Rau Fine Arts and Antiques on Royal Street (Picasso, Chagall, Matisse, etc., with price tags up to $2 million, including a million-dollar ornate chess set).

J also took us to see the top high school football player in the nation and University of Texas recruit, quarterback Arch Manning (Peyton’s and Eli’s nephew), in his last home game for local Newman High. Unfortunately Arch had an off day and his team got blown out by upstarts from Baton Rouge.

 

One of our favorite places is the New Orleans Art Museum. This time we saw an exhibition of Black studio photographers in New Orleans and works by surrealist painter Louise Bourgeois. 

Our week went by too quickly and we miss our sweet family. Hopefully we’ll be back in the spring. 

Love, 

Dave

A GATLINBURG REPORT

Dear George, 

 We’ve driven through the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina several times on our way to the South Carolina and Florida coasts, but we’ve never stopped to vacation there. Inspired by our recent trip to northern Michigan, we decided to spend a week in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the famous resort town that’s the gateway to the Smokies. The Smokies include the country’s most visited national park, and the mountains were awesome. With both of us limping around a bit we did our mountain touring by car rather than by hiking. In particular, we visited the Roaring Fork Nature Motor Trail near Gatlinburg and Highway 441 south through the Great Smokies National Park to the Chimney Tops and to the Newfound Gap. At one stop a lady said to me, “We are in God’s presence.” While I didn’t agree with her on all the details, I did share the sentiment. Here are some of the views.

 

Downtown Gatlinburg could be regarded either as a tourist paradise or a tourist nightmare. The mile-long strip along the Parkway is filled with every sort of attraction one might imagine: endless gift shops, restaurants of all sorts, art galleries, wineries (including Cotton Candy Wine), mini-golf courses, video game arcades, an aquarium that USA Today listed as the best in the country, the Ripley Believe It or Not museum (where we spent several enjoyable hours), the Amazing Mirror Maze, an earthquake ride, escape games, laser tag, skylifts up adjacent mountains, a space needle, candy makers, movie theaters, ice cream shops, and a mountain adventure park. We browsed in the shops, ate at numerous good restaurants (most notably, Chesapeake’s), and feasted on dark chocolate almonds from the Ole Smoky candy factory. Here are a few pics to give a flavor of downtown Gatlinburg.

 

The highlight of our trip was the afternoon we spent at Anakeesta, Gatlinburg’s new mountain-top theme park that opened in 2017. You get there by riding a skylift to the top of the mountain. Katja was completely relaxed and fearless, riding no-handsies, while my knuckles turned white from gripping the safety bar in front of us. Anakeesta is a beautifully done mountain village with attractive shops, multiple restaurants, a lush botanical garden, and numerous treetop adventures for kids and families, e.g., ziplines, a mountain coaster, and an 880-foot Skywalk bridge. I climbed to the top of the AnaVista Tower which offers scenic views of the mountains as far away as Kentucky on a clear day. Among other treats, we enjoyed a delicious meal at the Cliff Top Restaurant.

One of the main things about our recent trips to Michigan and Tennessee is that they have helped us put the pandemic behind us. After two and a half years of feeling locked up at home, life does seems to be getting back to normal these days. It’s about time. 

Love, Dave

FAST TIMES IN NOLA

Dear George, 

 It felt like ages since we’d been to New Orleans to visit our family (i.e., before the pandemic), so our recent trip was very special. Here are some photos that capture the highlights. 

Love, 

Dave

J and K recently bought a spacious new house in Uptown, close to Tulane University, Audubon Park, the kids’ school, and an excellent restaurant strip on Freret St. All our family members are overjoyed with their new home.

Katja and I enjoyed eating at Dat Dog on Freret St. which has the best frankfurters, bratwursts, and alligator sausages we’ve ever tasted. We went once, and then Katja treated the whole family there for a second visit.

We went to see the Queen Nefertari’s Egypt exhibit at the New Orleans Art Museum in City Park. A trip to ancient times. In front: L, A, J, Katja. In back: Ted, K’s dad.

Then we went next door and visited the Bischoff Sculpture Garden, our favorite outdoor place in New Orleans. The Sculpture Garden has recently doubled in size.

Getting beignets at Cafe du Monde in City Park is a lot easier than in the tourist-crowded French Quarter location.

We missed Iko a lot, but his little brother Lil Paws was just as much fun.

Here is our group enjoying dinner at the chic Israeli restaurant, Saba. I had Harissa roasted chicken, and Katja had lamb kofta. From the left: Katja, A, K, L, J.

On Sunday we picnicked at Audubon Park, famed for its live oaks. J and L practiced distance running, in preparation for the upcoming Crescent City race.

Monday J took us on a trip to Biloxi and to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where we visited the wonderful Walter Anderson Museum and the Shearwater Pottery.

Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter is one of our favorite oyster places.

Katja and I went to the Historic Orleans Collection in the French Quarter where they were featuring a “Streetcar Named Desire” exhibition.

We lunched at Pesch in the Arts District, A stranger asked Katja if she could take her picture because she looked so pretty in her outfit.

We loved the paintings of Luis Cruz Azaceta at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

J and K took us to the concert by Louisiana Philharmonic cellists and dancers at the Marigny Opera House.  Eight cellists, no less.

On Thursday St. Andrews Episcopal School had Grandparents Day. These are the seventh graders, including A and L, performing a song with the bells. We were very impressed with the school and our grandkids’ accomplishments.

Katja and I enjoyed our annual oyster lunch at Desire in the Royal Sonesta on Bourbon Street.

On our last day we had a family brunch at the Ruby Slipper in the Marigny. That’s J, L, and Jayme, K’s sister who arrived from California. J’s artwork is on the rear wall at the right.

Our last big outing was to the Audubon Aquarium. A very attractive facility with many interesting fishies.

It looks like we needed a nap by the end of the trip.

ARCHIVE: VIC'S PHOTOS #15

Dear George, 

 Here is another archive of my dad Vic’s family photos, mostly taken between the mid-1930s and the mid-1950s. The source for most of them is my brother Peter’s postcard project in which he printed Vic’s negatives in postcard form and sent them to family members. I’m very grateful to my dad for keeping such a good visual record of our family history and to Peter for keeping them alive. 

 Love, 

Dave

Here’s my dad, Vic L., as a young man from his senior high school yearbook photo.  Vic was born and grew up in Marinette, Wisconsin, across the river from Menominee, with his siblings, Kent, Karl, and Martha.  He graduated from Marinette High and went on to St. Thomas College in St. Paul and the University of Wisconsin where he obtained his law degree.    

 

Here’s our mom, looking like a bathing beauty.  Given the high hills in the background, this was nowhere near Menominee or the U.P., and it looks like California to me, probably taken in the 1930s before any of us were born.  

Here are my mom and myself on the Green Bay shore, perhaps at Henes Park or the Caley’s Northwood Cove beach.  I wonder if I caught something to put in the pail.  In any case, I look quite pleased.  

Here is our family in 1941, posing in from of the Tourist Information Lodge on Ogden Avenue.  Vic, Dave, Doris holding infant Steven.  Vic would be joining the Navy in two years, and Doris would be at home with Steve and myself. 

 

Christmas was a major celebration at our house from early on.  I will guess that Steve was 1 and I was 5 in this photo (if so, it would be 1942).  It looks like we got a bonanza of presents, and we children look pretty happy.  

Here’s my dad, looking trim and fit in his Navy uniform, with Steve (maybe 3) and me (maybe 7).  Vic was sent to the Pacific around this time, and we boys missed our father badly.  He spent time in occupied Japan, then returned home in 1946.

   

These are my parents’ close friends Bill and Florence Caley at their family home on Sheridan Road in Menominee.  Bill was the president of the Signal Electric Company in Menominee, and Florence was a former teacher and homemaker, mom to Bill Jr., Tom, and Bruce.  

The Cedar River is 25 miles north of Menominee along M-35.  We knew it best because Jean Worth’s hunting camp was on the banks of the Cedar, and we took many hikes along the river bank trail on visits.  This was the most beautiful primeval forest that we knew in our youth.   

Jean Worth, one of my parents’ closest friends, was the editor on the Menominee Herald-Leader and a pre-eminent U.P. historian.  Our family had many adventures and good times at Jean’s hunting camp at Cedar River, along with his and his wife Margaret’s three kids, Dooley, Ann, and Jeanne.  

Here is baby Vicki (my sister) and our Irish setter Mike on the window seat in the living room at river house.  Dog and baby seem very compatible, and Vicki loved Mike more and more as she grew up.  

My brother Peter is intently soldering together components of the ham radio set that Vic bought for him to put together.  Though I was away at college at the time, my recollection is that the radio actually wound up working.  Good for kid and father.  

I’m in the background with the bow, and my younger brother Steve is lying dead with an arrow in his chest.  Since, in real life, I was a bully older brother to Steve, I suspect my photographer father was documenting my various travesties.  

Here is an entertaining fire hydrant portrait, probably dolled up for the purposes of this photo.  I don’t know the back story, but I’d have to guess that this is my father’s humorous creation.  

A year older than me, Bill Caley was one of my childhood friends, and our family would visit his  in their Northwood Cove home on Green Bay.  Bill was a star football player for the Menominee Maroons, played football and graduated from Dartmouth in 1958, and established the successful Twin City insurance agency in Menominee and throughout northern Michigan.  An avid sailor, Bill passed away in 2017.

Here is my brother Steve with his motorcycle in the driveway at river house.  As you can tell from his taped up leg and bruised face, he took a nasty spill on his bike and wound up at the hospital.  I was away at college at the time and only heard the gory details afterwards.  

Here are a pair of lovebirds making faces.  Steve and Margie met on spring break during college in the early 1960’s and got married on June 20, 1964, in Margie’s home town, Elmhurst, Illinois.