The Very Real Appeal of Gentrification

A few days a week, I take our kids to a nearby playground at Palmer Park. It is a distinctly urban experience. Opal climbs in her City Mini stroller and I push her as Zola rides her scooter alongside me. It is four or five blocks to the park. Sounds idyllic? It is a trek.

We travel the first few blocks to the end of our neighborhood and carefully make our way across the six lanes of traffic that make Claiborne Avenue practically a highway. Safely across, we weave down tree-lined Neron Street's cracked and sinking sidewalks to cross at busy South Carrollton Avenue. At this intersection, the street narrows, and cars are shifting lanes either to merge or changing lanes to speed ahead as soon as space allows The grassy neutral ground in the middle of the street provides a safe spot for moment, but we have to watch for streetcars rumbling by.

Once we cross under the arch at Palmer Park, Zola takes off. Her foot hardly touches the pavement as she scoots across the expanse to the playground. At the play structure, she takes off her helmet, and waits for Opal and me to catch up so she and her bespectacled shadow can storm the castle together. I settle in on a bench to survey the other families. The crowd is mixed, black and white, old and young. Toddlers, preschoolers, and primary school kids play next to fifth graders; grandparents and fathers visit with moms and babysitters. If the girls are lucky, an older kid will organize a game of Red Light-Green Light or Duck Duck Goose. Sometimes someone will agree to race Zola through an obstacle course she's laid out. One day she joined a girl with a husky voice collecting cicada exoskeletons for her mom's art. Mainly, Zola leads Opal around, creating imaginary personas for both of them or showing Opal how to wait in line for the swing and always taking the first turn.

Sumner and Ramona never played at this playground. Soon after we moved into the neighborhood in 2006, we visited the park. I don't think we walked. The streetcar didn’t make it all the way to the end of the line because of Katrina’s damage to the tracks. The intersection of Carrollton and Claiborne housed a vacant supermarket, a rotting gas station, and a Chase bank that was housed in a doublewide while they determined if they should build a new bank. At the time, despite Phil's warnings, I figured the park on the fourth corner couldn't be that bad. It was a mess. The litter was overwhelming, broken glass and discarded food packages everywhere. The metal play equipment was a wreck. We opted to make the best of the big open space and kicked a ball. There was one other family there, but they were far away and conversation was impossible without a way to focus children's activities. The other dozen or so people at the park, who were sitting or sleeping on the benches circling the war memorial or under the flag, were probably homeless, possibly mentally ill. My street smarts told me that this wasn’t safe. So, we didn't use Palmer Park. Instead, we drove beyond our neighborhood to play at Audubon Park or City Park, where the play equipment was safer and there were people to play with.

Palmer Park in 2006 reminds me of the beloved little house in Virginia Lee Burton's book of the same name. In this book, the main character is a quaint house built on a hill in the country. The little house has neighbors on other hills, but no one next door. The only fences are to keep animals in their pasture. Soon enough, the little house is surrounded by a subdivision of little houses where fences mark gridded property lines and the road in front of the house is a thoroughfare. Next thing she knows, the other little houses are torn down and replaced by row houses, perhaps tenements. High rises loom on the horizon. A streetcar runs on the thoroughfare and on the next page the streetcar is sandwiched between a raised commuter train and a subway. Finally the row houses are torn down to make way for high rises. But just like the widower Carl's house in the movie Up, the stubborn little house remains in the middle of a changing landscape that wants to swallow it. The house is suffocating, falling apart, possibly abandoned. It seems an impossible situation. The city is no place for a sweet little cottage.

Palmer Park is like the little house, a spot of nature that continues to survive in the city. All it wants is to be used and loved. In 1831, the plantation that was where Palmer Park now sits was purchased by investors. Two years later, they divided the whole area into plots of land.  This investment property became the village of Carrollton. The handful of plots where the park is now were designated as public space and named Hamilton Square in 1861. Thirteen years later Carrollton was annexed by New Orleans. I read all about this in Kevin McQueeney's Palmer Park: A History. I imagine the natural, open space of the square quietly observing houses rising on the plots surrounding it. McQueeney details other big moments the little park must have relished: political rallies, croquet games, Mardi Gras parades, Christmas caroling and music concerts. There was an ongoing public argument about how the space should be used, as a promenade or as a park for playing sports and recreation.  Plans for sports fields, pools, and playgrounds were defeated several times over.

Sadly, I imagine the park was aware of the persistent racism woven into its history. The 1902 name change from Hamilton Square to Palmer Park was made to celebrate a Presbyterian pastor best known for his defense of slavery and echoed other New Orleans civic renamings as part of the post-Reconstruction assertion of white supremacy. I hope the park bristled at its new name, knowing it was designed to glorify slavery and cement segregation. For a century, the park observed slaves and later black citizens systematically excluded from basic relaxation and recreation. In 1934 a black-owned shoe shine business was removed from the park while white vendors were allowed to stay. Oral tradition suggested that the land for the park was donated long ago by an African-American but the park's centennial booklet, published by white businessmen, put that "rumor" to rest. The park was most likely integrated after 1958 when the federal government threatened to intervene in New Orleans and force compliance with the Supreme Court's 1954 park integration ruling. Post integration, a group called the Concerned Citizens of Carrollton fought efforts to build a playground. In a 1972 advertisement they placed in the Times-Picayune newspaper, they suggested that building a playground would lead to a rise in crime and white flight. While the white residents of Carrollton fought to keep the park for whites only, the park yearned to be shared with black citizens who passed by it each day.  

After everyone was finally allowed to use Palmer Park, in the 1980s the park fell on worse times. This was a rough patch for the little park. Litter and vagrancy were serious problems. More troubling, assaults and robberies were frequent. I suspect the park's concerned citizens abandoned it at this time. No one gave it the attention it needed. So the park's heart was breaking, trapped like the little house. The park, like the little house, was in a melancholy stupor.

By the way, Burton's little house is rescued. A descendant of the original owners of the house pass by and, feeling a connection to the house, decides to save it. He moves the little house, an effort that makes the whole city, or at least the city's traffic, pause for a moment. The little house escapes the city and finds an untouched hill in the country, much like the one it started on.  

As a child, this book really troubled me. I liked the little house, but I also really liked the hustle and bustle of the city that grows around it. I wanted to leave my hometown and go and live in a place where people were densely concentrated, even if that meant a scarcity of open space and no animals in green pastures. I wanted the exhilaration of the people speeding around the city, but I hated the that little house was orphaned. I wanted to find a way for the little house to make it without have to run to the suburbs.

What has happened at Palmer Park might be the answer to what troubled me about the fate of the little house. Palmer Park was also rescued, but just like many of the shiny, remodeled houses that face the park, it remains right where it always was. A new, brighter lease on life is in the air. In 2007, the New Orleans Arts Council began hosting a monthly art market in the park.  In the first week of 2011, a couple of national charities partnered with volunteers to put in the new playground that we now use all of the time. The vacant grocery was torn down and a new market and drug store filled its footprint; the doublewide bank is gone and an attractive brick one rose in its place; and the rotting gas station became a quick-change oil place. Sumner and Ramona can now walk to the store to get me cilantro or ginger (two ingredients rarely used in Louisiana cuisine) when I need it and I had my oil changed in less than 15 minutes yesterday. Just like the little house, I would guess that most of this "revitalization" was initiated by descendants of people who grew up in or around Carrollton.

What could possibly be wrong about this? Now when I am at the park I can enjoy diversity, which research says is good for my kids. Getting outside to play and exercise is much easier than it used to be. Once a month I can shop locally, buying handmade things from my artist friends. I can bring the whole family to lunch during the market and each of them will find something to meet their discerning tastes. If someone litters, I can play at collecting garbage as a hobby, but I can also let Zola run barefoot on the rubberized playground without concern she'll cut her toes. The city doesn't feel as threatening and oppressive as it did when I first moved here. All of this is good for me, right? This is what appeals about gentrification.  

School Selection Frenzy: A Letter to My Two Selves

Sumner on his first day of kindergarten.

Dear Emily (a parent dizzy from the kindergarten admissions process),   

I get it. It feels like the weight of the world is on your shoulders. You are unsettled because in eight short months you will drop off Zola at a yet-to-be-determined school where she will be molded and nurtured. You hope you will get lucky and make a decision that will stick for the next six to thirteen years. The pressure is on to get it right.

In the midst of the madness, it is hard to remember the lessons you’ve painstakingly learned. Don’t fret. You know better. Do not get swept away in school-selection madness. It’s mania and you know it. So snap out of it.

It will be okay. Zola will be admitted to a public school in New Orleans and it will be acceptable. At times, it will be exceptional, inspiring. You have never, not ever, heard of a child whose parents wanted them to go to a New Orleans public school, who ended up without a seat in August. If somehow she doesn’t get a spot in a public school of your liking, it may not feel like it, but you have other choices. You can cut corners and send her to a private school. You can homeschool her. You’re lucky like that. You have choices. It will be okay.

Until it isn’t okay, because nothing is ever perfect. This human truth applies to education. Zola will be excited and tentative on her first day. She will probably love it. On some days, she will be bored or insecure or both. She will make life-long friendships, yet there will be times when she has no one to play with. She will have magical teachers and she will encounter a terrible teacher or two, but most of her teachers will fall somewhere in between because no one and nothing is ever perfect. School will help Zola discover things she is passionate about and it will quell her enthusiasm for other things.  She will have classes that are too hard and classes that are too easy. You will agonize over all of this. Some days she will be in tears about what happened at school and she will cry very hard. After she is asleep, you will cry harder. Other days she will be bright and fulfilled and you will feel blessed. If you homeschool Zola, all of these things will be true too, only you will be the only one to blame.

Remember: nothing is forever. Children change, you change, schools change. When Sumner was four, you were looking for an open-admission Boston public school and a challenging, individualized curriculum was a bonus. You stood on high moral ground and refused to move homes or look at private schools or apply to so-called “test-in” schools. Later, when Sumner was six and you moved to New Orleans, you compromised. While diversity and open-admissions were still priorities, art, challenging curriculum, and proximity to home rose to the top. Still later, you paid (gasp!) to send Ramona to a school because there was a teacher she clicked with, no homework, lots of outdoor time and art, and space for her to recover her health and her confidence. And now look at you, someone who poured a career into public schools, homeschooling your teenage son. Watch what you proclaim, because priorities change, people are dynamic. Nothing is forever.

Finally, stop judging everyone. The Lusher parents aren’t all elitists, the Newman parents aren’t all rich, the St. Andrew’s parents aren’t all saints, the homeschooling parents are not all introverted radicals, the dual-language parents aren’t all bilingual and dress like the French, and the Bricolage parents of five, six, and seven year-olds don’t have it all figured out. In fact, these parents are your friends and they are just like you. How a family educates their children is very personal and sometimes born out of accident or circumstance. Everyone takes it very seriously. And just like you, most people harbor some degree of insecurity about their choices. So stop judging. Just listen and support your friends.

Everything will be okay.

Sincerely,

Emily (the parent of children who have been to and through kindergarten)

P.S. Good luck choosing a high school and visiting colleges this year.

New Orleans, Bike City

“Go medium speed, Mom,” four-year-old Zola requested as we pedaled to school, “I want to have time with you.” The ride is short, a little over a mile and a half, so I dialed down my pace. Zola was wearing pink cowboy boots and a pink helmet; my boots were tan and my helmet green. We talked about how the story of Rapunzel could be different if she had a twin sister who stayed with her real mom and dad while "Rapuzey" was shipped off to live in a tower. Separated at birth, a new concept for her. Her tag-along bike, a wheel with a seat and handlebars attached to my bike, jingled with leftover Mardi Gras beads and a gold pine cone dangling from her crossbar, while she wondered aloud how the sisters could be reunited.

We biked over potholes and passed cemeteries. We crossed St. Charles, listening for the clatter of the streetcar while avoiding cars going in both directions. We even rode by a movie filming on location. We greeted people every couple blocks and noticed how the cold morning was warming. I love biking in New Orleans. We’re not a hard-core biking family. We have two cars and drive when we need to, but we bike when we can.

New Orleans bikes when it can too. The city wants so many things. It believes it already is so many things. I think it especially wants to be a bike city. When New Orleans imagines itself Bike City, it envisions something different from what the rest of America sees.

New Orleans is naturally bikeable. It's flat, and there are ways to zigzag the city without being blocked in by major highways and stuck biking on six lane mega-avenues. Part of the reason it is so horrible to drive in New Orleans is why it is to bikeable. Potholes can be easily avoided on a bike. Quiet residential streets, where parked cars make it impossible for two cars to pass in opposite directions, are easily navigated by bike and link to bike arteries.

This summer thirteen-year-old Ramona stood at the windows of Portland's science museum on the banks of the Willamette River, watching bikers zip by on the paved path along the river. She called me over, "Mom, there's some sort of bike race going on. Do you see all those bikers?" I peeked out the window. Sure enough, there was a steady flow of bikers racing by on expensive bikes, wearing fancy bike helmets and special biking outfits. Even their water bottles screamed screamed high-end. But they weren't racing. These folks were headed to work.  When I shrugged and told Ramona they were just daily commuters, she didn't believe me, "Mom, that's impossible. So many people biking to work? And look at their outfits." Who would be caught dead at work in spandex with a padded butt?

My dad jumped into the conversation, ready with a statistic and sunny fact about perfect Oregon. "Portland is the number two biking city in America. Guess what number one is?" It's Minneapolis. I wondered: How do they determine that? Raw number or percentage per capita of commuters? Miles of paved bike paths? New Orleans will never be Minneapolis or Portland. I bet there’s a ranking somewhere of excellence in biking by state and I am sure that Louisiana is at the bottom, 48 or 49. And, as my son says, Mississippi probably “has our back” at 50. We suffer from an inferiority complex down here.  

"New Orleans is a biking city too," I offered.  Ramona and my dad scoffed. They weren't having it. I defended New Orleans, "Sure it's not the thousand-dollar bike capital of the country and the roads suck and the drivers don't know how to share the road with bikers and it's very difficult to protect yourself from punctures. I had three flats tires in one week last year," I admitted, "But there are no hills and people bike. Lots of people bike. Some do because they don't have another way to get where they're going and bikes are more reliable than public transportation. Some bike to be hip. Some bike to prove a point. In fact, I bet if New Orleans shunted all its commuters onto one path, it’d be busier than that rat race down there.” And less self-conscious too.

For a second, I considered if maybe I was projecting my feelings on my city's psyche. I am prone to unbridled optimism. Maybe it is just me who wants New Orleans to be a bike city? Nah, I decided. New Orleans is just a different kind of bike city.

After I dropped Zola off, I traveled a few blocks to a coffee shop and set up my laptop to write. I forgot my lock again, so while I worked at an outside table, I kept a close eye on my bike and that dangling pine cone, which sat a few feet away, just out of arm’s reach. Bike theft, like other more violent crimes, is a real problem here.

Using twisted logic, I am convinced that this proves that the city yearns to be a cycling metropolis. Everyone who lives here knows a couple wild theft stories. Sumner's best friend Joe had his bike stolen in broad daylight while he stood on the porch of his teacher's house, selling her a coupon book for his football team. The month we moved into our house, my bike was pilfered from our open garage on the day our gate was rebuilt. Were both Joe and I to blame for leaving our bikes unsecured? Partly. While cynics may see this as a knock against determining New Orleans as bike friendly, I see something else. Why would so many people steal bikes if they didn't so badly want to be biking? I believe New Orleans is hungry for bikes.  If a hungry person steals a loaf of bread, who can blame them? At least that’s what I got out of Les Miserables.

I don't condone bike theft. I once pulled over and chewed out a teenage stranger for stealing a bike. He was about six feet tall and no older than fifteen. He was riding a pink dirt bike that just didn't fit. His friend was walking next to him. When they hit Claiborne, he ditched the bike in the gutter. Driving by, I stopped, rolled down my window, and called out to him in my middle-school teacher voice, "Why did you steal that bike if you are going to dump it? Take it back. Tell me where you got it and I'll take it back."  He and his friend picked up their pace and moved away from me, shouting over their shoulders about how it was their bike. "I'm a little sensitive about this," I shouted back, cupping my hands around my mouth and leaning out the window, "My bike was stolen a few months ago. Don't. Steal. Bikes," I crescendoed. I felt a little bad that I might have scared them, so I added "and God bless you" for good measure. There was a chance they could run as fast as my mini-van.

After my fancy “hybrid” bike was stolen, I rode a three-speed bike that had been gathering dust in Philip's grandmother's garage. A few years later, Sumner harvested a mountain bike from the same stash. New Orleanians don't need to outfit themselves with a bunch of special stuff to climb on a bike and get somewhere. All of the Skeldings have been caught in an afternoon downpour while riding, but that didn't send us to REI to buy rain gear. We just learned to read the clouds and the breeze and weather.com's radar better. Sure, over time Ramona added a rack and a crate to the back of her bike so she doesn't have to carry her overloaded school bag on her back and after five years or so I upgraded to another fancy bike that I love.

I often see riders on bikes that don't match. An eighteen-year-old boy in his house slippers on a sleek road bike. A old man, upright and smiling on a hipster's yellow cruiser. A hipster with a big skirt around her ribs on a mountain bike on Saturday night. And most people don't wear helmets. I rant about this often, but I know it is part of an easy attitude towards biking. Bikers here think: no need.

Excepting the helmet part, I like this attitude. We don’t need a big budget or lots of stuff or a training schedule to get out of our cars and bike. This also applies to the actual endeavor of cycling here, not just gear. New Orleanians don't need to paint or pave a perfect path to get where we need to go. It is possible to just climb on a bike.

When we landed here I puzzled at the flatness of New Orleans. It appeared easy: no steep climbs or burning thighs. I worried that biking here would be too easy and condition me to laziness. In New Orleans, the pace is slow and steady. Sometimes my native children have to remind me to slow down. We don't move furiously like we did when we lived in New York or London or Boston. We rarely sprint. It's predictable. It's pleasant, but it’s not without risk.

This morning Zola and I had to pull over when an over-zealous carpool mom in a Suburban rode too close to Zola’s little wheel, begging us to get over, instead of waiting to pass us when the road widened. Maybe she had been trapped in her car for a while, poor thing, driving in from the burbs to drop children at various schools around the city. Who knows? We stopped, smiled, and let her pass, hoping that our calm gentility would provoke kinder road sharing in her hurried soul. I’ve been her. I get it.

Two years ago, when they were fourteen and eleven, Sumner and Ramona convinced me to let them take our bicycle-built-for-two, also procured from grandmother's garage, for simultaneous haircuts and then lunch. On this maiden duo-voyage, they were hit by a truck.  They were crossing St. Charles at Broadway on a green light. A man on his phone turned into them, crushing their front wheel and hurting Sumner's toe. The driver barely pulled over and never hung up his call. He shouted to see if they were okay before moving on. Still, we want our children to bike. It gives them freedom of movement, teaches them street smarts, and gives us back the hours of our day that we spent shuttling them places.

Despite their brush with death, Sumner and Ramona take opposite approaches to sharing the road with cars. Sumner believes he owns the road and that no one will dare hit him. He is aggressive: weaving between cars without regard for protruding side mirrors, taking over the width of the street when things narrow, and shouting at drivers who text while pausing at a stop sign. He figures out his route out as he goes. He's a confident rambler; he knows the road and he owns the road.

Ramona on the other hand is careful. Very careful. Her confidence comes from planning. She sees every car as a threat and instinctively imagines the worst-case scenario. I rode with her to school at least ten times before she was comfortable taking the journey alone. The journey is one mile on one street, a right turn, and three-quarters of a mile on another street. Still, she wanted to know and be able to articulate exactly how to navigate each stop sign, light, bike lane, and construction zone before she felt safe.

These two approaches embody New Orleans. Sumner's the rambling person who enjoys Mardi Gras by walking down the Avenue with a (vegan) drumstick in one hand and a drink in another, unsure where he'll end up or how he'll wipe his hands, but knowing that he'll run into people he knows and it'll all work out. Ramona is the tailgater who is aware of all of the potential hazards a Mardi Gras parade can throw at her. She is the person who packs enough food for herself and everyone she may see (including her brother), she maps out area bathrooms, she figures out exactly how she'll get to and from the route with minimum hassle, and she knows the start time and number of floats in every parade. She enjoys the triumphs of the city only when she is protected from its trials. If you know New Orleans, you know the ramblers and the prepared patrons. They both bike.

I tend to be more of a rambler, but the vulnerability of biking with kids caused me to consider being a bit more thoughtful when I set out on a ride. After getting those three flats in rapid succession, I decided I don't really need to travel with a pump and a patch kit. The reason is that I learned that anywhere I bike, I am only a few blocks from a friend. I will always be able to walk my bike (and maybe a bike trailer and small children) to a friend's house or porch or business and get help. And people will love helping us, hosting us. They did three times last year. One day my flat didn’t slow us down, as Zola, Opal, and I ended up dumping our bike at a friends’ and borrowing her double stroller to continue to our destination. After another flat, we rode along with a different savior on her errand to the farmer’s market before she dropped us at home. That acquaintance became a friend. The last time, our friend just fixed our flat and sent us on our way.

Whenever I drop Zola off, I wind my way to the coffee shop or home on a different path. When Zola is on the bike with me, I chose quiet streets so that I can hear her when we talk. I hardly ever bike to and from somewhere in New Orleans by retracing my steps. One-way streets can be an obstacle to tidy routes. New sinkholes force me to discover new courses. Sometimes the flow of school traffic confounds a there-and-back pathway. Even the foot traffic between classes at Loyola or Tulane can send me on a winding route home. There's always a chance that I might opt to go home a different way just so I can ride under the trees on South Carrollton or to take advantage of half the loop at Audubon Park.

It doesn't matter what course I take to get there. How I get there is what matters. I bike as much as I can, at a medium speed, in this Bike City.

Local

Moved here at age four. Local? Maybe.

In the summer of 2001, my husband's eighty-seven-year-old grandmother, Momoo, took my husband and I out for a special meal at Galatoire's, one of New Orleans oldest "standards," right on Bourbon Street. You used to have to wait in a long line for a table, but Momoo had special powers.  She "knew a waiter."  On the way there, she told us about going to Galatoire's through the years.  Waiting in line was part of the experience, chatting with the people in front or behind you, meeting strangers.  I loved hearing her stories.

She told us about New Orleans before air conditioning.  On the weekend, she and her husband and another couple would ride the streetcar downtown.  The movement of the air on the streetcar, which today seems impossibly hot during the summer, cooled them down.  Once they arrived downtown, they would go for drinks in one of the few air-conditioned hotel lobbies.

Momoo also matter-of-factly told us about meeting her first cross-dresser.  In the 1950s, she was shopping at a fancy women's boutique.  She was in the back, trying on clothes, which a shop girl was bringing to her. A different shop girl was bringing dresses to another customer, a quiet patron, uttering a few words at a time, who was trying on big sizes and remained out of sight.  The discretion of the situation made her curious, and she kept a keen eye out, wondering if the other shopper was well-known. "Finally, I saw it was a man.  That was the first time I saw that." I am sure it was not the last.  Anyone who lives in New Orleans for seventy years sees a few drag queens.

Another time she told us about an encounter with David Duke at her local hardware store.  He lived in Momoo's parish, and she'd campaigned against him, standing on the neutral ground waving signs, saying something like, "Vote for the crook, it's important." Years later, she saw Duke loading a bunch of lumber at Ace Hardware.  At first she thought it was strange that he was doing it himself. She looked over and saw several black men, employees of Ace, watching Duke struggle.  Their refusal to help him touched Momoo. She made eye contact with these men and she said they seemed like "brothers" in that moment.

On the afternoon we bypassed the line at Galatoire's, Momoo ran into someone she knew. I'll call her Miss Martha.  Miss Martha was also an octogenarian, also Jewish, and she was lunching with a friend. Momoo and Miss Martha seemed so alike at first. Momoo stopped for a second to say hello, introduced us, and took a moment to brag about Philip's recent accomplishments.  Phil and I noticed Momoo was a bit deferential, taking a moment to remind Miss Martha how they met. In the first years after Momoo had emigrated from Germany, she sewed seer-sucker suits for Miss Martha's husband. These ladies nodded and smiled at one another and then we moved along to our table.

This interaction stunned me. Momoo built her life in New Orleans. Her children and grandchildren were born here. She remembered a time before air-conditioning, was the only elderly person I knew who was comfortable with transvestites, fought to keep the KKK out of politics, and could get a reservation instead of waiting in line. Her first apartment was on Exposition Boulevard on Audubon Park and she told us she used to skate around the park with a dachshund who had immigrated with her. Brocato's spumoni was in her freezer and a banana tree was in her backyard. She loved to entertain and it seemed she knew most of New Orleans, certainly all of Jewish New Orleans.  To me, she embodied New Orleans.

Still, in her interaction with Miss Martha, it was clear that she was not from here. She could never really be a local. I asked Phil, "Does your family tree have to extend to pre-Civil War New Orleans to really be "from" here?"

I have often wondered how long I will have to live in New Orleans to be a local. How many children born in Orleans Parish legitimizes me? How many books do I need to read to understand the complexity of its people and its pain? How many costumes do I have to hoard to make myself a real parader? Why do I want to be rightful citizen? Can't I accept being naturalized by marriage? Will my Northern brashness every go away? I just don't know.

I've come to the conclusion that I want to be a real New Orleanian because with that title comes a rich understanding of the city. I don't have that yet.

Through the wonders of Facebook, I saw (after I began writing this post) Miss Martha turned 100. In order to fact check this story, I checked in with my native mother-in-law. I didn't want to get it wrong. Miss Martha is wonderful, warm, philanthropic. My mother-in-law told me was that Miss Martha wasn't "from" New Orleans either. She was from a small town in another part of Louisiana. She probably had only lived a few more years in New Orleans than Momoo. So, maybe I had misread the scene.

Or maybe Momoo's deference was just her posture, the way she was. She was humble and respectful, confident and keen, but not showy. That sort of gentility is very New Orleans. Local New Orleans. I'm still working on that.

White Knight

Ed School Graduation

Ropes Course with Students

As my parents sat in Oregon watching relentless Katrina coverage in the first weeks of September 2005, my dad saw a silver lining, "Well, at least they won't move there now." My mom probably shook her head and laughed, "Are you kidding me? This seals the deal. They will definitely move to New Orleans now." She meant that as a compliment.

My mother-in-law used to tell people, "They like to help people." It was such a sweet way for her to explain what Phil and I did. I taught and he doctored.

All but one of our academic and career advisors in Boston advised against the move. "Go in a few years," they suggested. Wait and see.

We moved to New Orleans.

Don't worry. We weren't naive. Phil is a local: born at Lakeside Hospital, grew up in Broadmoor, and went to Newman for 13 years. We just graduated from Harvard, for God's sake. We recognized our privilege and read all about institutionalized racism. Education and good heath could fix all that. We were brave, we had a minivan, and in our move from Jamaica Plain to New Orleans tripled the square footage of our home.

I just knew I knew all about post-Katrina New Orleans: I followed the media coverage obsessively (before the storm the students had to carry their own toilet paper to school!), wrote papers about Katrina for school (thesis: the teachers need a voice, a union!), and I had visited two(!) times since the storm. We were ready.

The Times-Picayune even called and interviewed me for an article about people under thirty who were relocating to New Orleans. When they realized I was thrity-one, they wished me well. This was promising. But it wasn't about the glory and accomplishments anyway.

In August of 2006, I started a job at Lusher Charter High School. Lusher is a nearly one-hundred-year-old public elementary school, the first in New Orleans to peacefully integrate. It added a middle school in 1990. The school was diverse racially and social-economically.  Kids tested to get in. The weekend of the Katrina evacuation the school submitted an application to become a charter and add a high school. Sumner would be in second grade at the Little Lusher campus and Ramona would join kindergarten the year after. I was building something for them.

My initial to-do lists were all facilities related. Lusher was moving into the former "failing" Fortier High School. We needed desks, clocks, keys for the intercoms, and phones and internet in the building. Items were procured. People were happy to be working together, downright energetic. The mood was hopeful.

Later that semester, I met with every student who was in danger of failing a class. A third of the students were in that boat. We were tasked with making a plan to turn around their performance. Student after student sat down with me and explained their living situation; it was hard to study when your whole family was in a tiny FEMA trailer or living only in the upstairs rooms of a house with another family. Action plans that named flashcards and tutoring as next steps seemed a little silly.

I loved working with teachers and students. I loved everything from making vocabulary powerpoints to remediating reading skills to discussing Flannery O'Conner to reading freshmen literary analysis. I even enjoyed the Homecoming Dance and taking student leaders to city-wide leadership council meetings and the odd kids who ate lunch in a corner of my room.

At some point during these first few years in New Orleans, a writer came to visit us at our house. He asked us a lot about what were had done before moving to New Orleans and what we were doing then. He was excited about our potential, but left us with a reminder that it was just that. We had capital. What were we going to change with it? But it wasn't about the glory and accomplishments anyway.

After two years at Lusher, I moved three-quarters of a mile down Freret Street, to an open-enrollment charter, Samuel J. Green. I realized at Lusher that I tried to solve problems too soon with things that I had seen work elsewhere. While my ideas were not invalid, I needed to listen and learn. At Green the pace of work quickened as our students were in more desperate circumstances. We were data-driven and constant, collegial feedback was the norm. Over the summer, we became a tight team.

My first year at Green, I was a mess. It was as bad as my first year teaching even though it was my eighth. Class time was spent just trying to gain their attention. Yelling and making my persona really big no longer worked. I developed strong individual relationships with most of my students, but when class started, varying degrees of chaos ensued. Nearly every day erasers were thrown and students were sent to the TOC (Time Out Center), but when I read aloud to them, the class was silent, rapt.

I was the head of the literacy team at Green. When we tested our eighth grade students at the beginning of the year over half were reading at a fourth grade level. My highest reading group read at a sixth grade level. In the reading world, two years behind is usual considered dire. In this case, those students were my stars.

My second year at Green, I became more skilled. My classroom management was acceptable. The students knew me and we could get more done.

That year I went to a Fountas and Pinnell Literacy conference with several of my colleagues. Quite by accident, my partner at the lower school and I ended up in a shuttle with Irene Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell, the creators of the program. These two are highly respected and well-regarded in education. We found a opening to talk shop and described our situation to these women, hoping for a silver bullet. These women just kind of looked at us; it was as if they had never heard of such deficits and they certainly gave us no solutions.

The students toiled, I toiled, and our team did the best we possibly could. I tried hard to listen, follow the lead of my bosses, and yet share what I believed works for kids. Test results were not epic, but they were respectable. That was supposed to be our accomplishment. It wasn't about the glory.

And then I got tired. My kids were tired. Ramona once asked, "Aren't doctors supposed to work more than teachers?" Phil, my mother-in-law, a series of beloved babysitters, and I juggled the kids. Phil and I rushed home and through dinner. He fell asleep on each page of night-time reading and I would zip through it like I was on speed. Around nine, we settled into our laptops and worked until midnight.

So, I decided to take a break from work, be with my family, have another baby (I know, is that really a break?). I just knew I would go back into teaching; I love the classroom and my students. I know a lot about literacy too.

But then, I began to have lots of troubling questions. The questions were always there, but they grew louder. What if schools are perpetuating institutional racism instead of dismantling it? Can schools and sheer perseverance and hard work overcome poverty? What if all my time, drive, potential, and privilege were mis-invested? And what can I do about it now? Work with young mothers? Move into early, early education? Teach sex ed? Post recipes for other hippy-wanna-bes who order the local "box" from Hollygrove Market?

Well, I can take a break, regroup, dabble in writing. Most of my former students are not so lucky.

A lot has changed in New Orleans since 2006. There are more yoga studios, Subarus, and most businesses now update their websites regularly. Brutal statistics about poverty also keep getting updated. More children and their families are living in poverty than before the storm. How can that be reversed? People of color are being displaced from this city--a story that is very difficult to untangle from the statistics. What is happening to these folks?

White knights rescue. They save damsels in distress. Much of New Orleans is still in distress. How will it be saved?  

New Orleans "Whut" Moments

Thanksgving 2005

I've been spending a lot of time considering why our family lives in New Orleans. Most things I read about New Orleans, especially this week, don't capture the layers of the city. Maybe I need to start a scrapbook of the writing that meets my approval, capturing hundreds of voices, picking what speaks to me and ignoring the rest. Others are doing that.

I'm tired of the rah-rah-New-Orleans descriptions that ignore the trap of poverty that leaves so many stuck. Instead, optimistic writers wave their hand at the flavors and the sweaty climate and assume the outsider-reader understands the down-home feeling we get most times we eat together.  I'm sick of the reports and opinion pieces that disregard nuance and history and claim they hold expert answers. I don't believe that we have to decide that the city either has made progress or has not. It's not a guilty/not guilty paradigm. I'm tired of people from other places asking me if I really still like it here. As if my affection for the city is going to wear off.

Everyday I discover something in New Orleans that makes me ask myself, "whuuut?" Some of these things are delightful and others are mournful. The city shouts at me everyday, begging me to figure it out.

This week, there are hundreds of tiny lizards everywhere. In my backyard, on my walk to the grocery, while I bike down the street, 2-inch lizards dash out of my way, hiding. It's as if the bigger lizards from early summer shrunk.  Whut?

We incarcerate people in Orleans Parish more than any other parish in Louisiana. We incarcerate people in Louisiana more than any other state in America. America incarcerates people more than any other nation. We jail people here more than any other place in the world. Whut?

Our house is raised three feet off the ground. Nearly every house on our street is. Just a bunch of houses perched in a row, groundless. The year after the storm, four-year-old Ramona hypothesized that our house was up-high so that the lost cats could live under there.  Whut?

Tonight, thirteen-year-old Ramona and I stood in the newly renovated band room at Lusher High School, learning about the school's arts programs. She's going to high school in a year.  Whut?

On the first anniversary of Katrina, I started my day in the same band room. The room was tidy, but the paint was peeling.  Squatters had lived there months before. At the high school's morning meeting that day, all of the teachers and students observed a moment of silence for the dead and displaced. I stood in the doorway, looking at my feet. I expected the silence would lead to a solemn dismissal. Instead the students erupted into whoops and cheers. They were home. Whut?

One of my students was chronically tardy to school that year. His family was living in their car. I see his mom around town all the time; she's well and her son is in college. Whut?

Friday night Philip and I went to dinner at Ye Olde College Inn, a restaurant a few blocks from my house. Years ago, maybe twenty, it used to be just a po-boy shop, the kind of place you left smelling like french fries. Last week, their special was a local fish served on a bed of quinoa. Quinoa. Whut? (We opted for the fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade and an oyster po-boy with melted cheese and bacon bits, but our clothes couldn't have told you that.)

On the wall of Ye Olde College Inn, local athletic heros' photos are posted. One photo is of "Coach Taylor," a woman who started coaching in high school girls in the 1950s; she taught Philip to swim. Twenty-five years later she taught Sumner and Ramona to swim in her same backyard pool, half a mile from our house. Whut?

Our next door neighbors rolled into the restaurant a few minutes after us; we all moved into our houses in the summer of 2006. After living at his house for a week or so, our neighbor came home to find his yard had been cut. Later that night, a Mr. Christmas came by to meet the new owner. Mr. Christmas explained that he did many of the yards on the block and had been doing this one too. Our neighbor paid him and the pattern continued.  Mr. Christmas and his two sons do most of the yards on the block.  They did before the storm and they still do. Whut?

The thing is, this place is really messed up. The summers are too hot and there are lots of pot holes. We're sinking. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Racism is alive and well. Poor folks are being displaced rapidly and systematically. Still, I feel like New Orleans can't lie about itself as much as other cities do. This is part of the complicated equation that equals me living here.
   

Hogwarts 2014, The Yearly Howler

13 June 2014

Dearest Ramona,

Just when I thought you would make it through a complete term at Hogwarts without me having to send a HOWLER, I woke up this morning, stumbled into the bathroom, and saw in the mirror that MY HAIR HAD TURNED BRIGHT GREEN.  

I hear from your professors that you are quite skilled at changing the color of people’s hair  - and I am very proud of your talents - but it seems this particular spell went amiss.  Perhaps you were practicing at home last night and thought you were aiming the spell at one of Zola’s stuffed animals but you got me instead.  

Apart from the green hair I discovered that MY CHEST HAIR IS BRIGHT ORANGE.  And while that’s easy enough to cover up, the green hair is presenting a bit of a problem.  For of course it’s not St Patrick’s Day, or Mardi Gras or even Halloween.  It is simply June 13th and people are wondering about the green hair.  I certainly can’t say I did it in honor of the 1191st birthday of Charles the Bald, known for being a late Roman Emperor, can I?  

My sources tell me that today is, it turns out, World Okra Day, and so I guess I will just have to tell people that I really, really, love okra.  I just don’t know if they’ll buy it, especially when it was just two months ago I had to pretend it was World Extra Limbs Day when another of your mishaps gave me an extra left arm for the day.  So I may lose my job or get shipped off to the loony bin.  When you visit, please remember to have ready the counterspell.  I tried everything and so far nothing has worked.  

Love,

Dad

PS - Hunca Munca has a frugal mind.

Happy New Year

About a month ago Ramona asked me what I would be if I couldn't be a teacher. I told her I would be a coach or a youth leader at a church or a camp counselor. She told me that all of those things were the same as teaching and that I needed to choose some thing different. So, I told her that my back up to teaching would be writing. She ask what I would write. Unsure, I told her that I'd write it all. "Young Grown-Up books," she inquired, having seem Sumner looking in the Young Adult section at the library. "Sure," I told her. And picture books and essays and novels and other stuff--like a blog.

In the month since Ramona asked me that, we had a baby. Zola Lily was born on November 30, 2010. Her first month has been wonderful. So why re-start blogging now? Shouldn't I just log into Facebook every once in awhile? Or open a Twitter account? Or just call a friend so that catching up with me isn't so one-sided?

Why is blogging appealing again?
Is it because I saw "Julie and Julia" on Netflix?
Is it because Marroni called us "everyone's favorite family" on Facebook and I owe the world some news?
Is it because Zola's birth has out me in a reflective state of mind?
Is it more time on maternity leave?
Is it that I am focused on the family and need to process it all?

I can't really tell you everything anymore. Sumner's a nearly 12-year-old middle schooler and Ramona is a nearly 9-year-old with a reputation. So I can't reveal all their dirty little secrets. Zola doesn't do or say much yet. Phil's pretty private. So that leaves my mom to pick on...and me. And blogs seem so self-indulgent.

But I feel like putting my toe back in. I'm testing the water.

Happy New Year

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Lessons Learned

Alex wants me to blog. She says, "The great thing about blogs is it just takes a couple of minutes to write."

Suzi says, "You can have it all. Just not at the same time."

So even though it just takes a couple of minutes to write on my blog, I have twenty things that just take a couple of minutes to do. Thus, I have not been blogging. I stop putting "blog" with a few apropos subjects/titles on my To-do list. To-do lists need to be Able-to-do lists, not Guilt lists.

But now, I think, I can blog a few minutes.

The Parts of Me

Ramona: Mom, I am a little bit of you, a little bit of Dad, and a whole lot of me.

Sumner: Mom, I have your body and Dad's brain.

Literal Bob

is what we are calling Sumner these days.

I said, "Sumner, can you please go and pick up your room because your cousins are coming and we don't want them to think we are messy."

Sumner, without a hint of irony, puzzled, "But, we are."

What is it?

For the twenty-two months that I have lived in New Orleans, I have been searching for an answer. I keep asking myself: Why do I want to make my home in New Orleans? When someone asks me what I like about the place there are some obvious answers: We live near family. I like the food and the music, the flavor and the costumes. I like how all it takes to make a party is people and simple food--you don’t really need a house or decorations or invitations or even a planned menu. In fact, before I ever set foot in New Orleans my friends knew me as flavorful person who liked to dress in costumes and throw spur of the moment parties. I fit in here. I also like dilapidated, old stuff that other people want to throw away. New Orleanians like old stuff; they prefer refurbishing things to getting new ones. They’d rather renew than redo. Perhaps that’s why this whole rebuilding thing just might work out.

But all that is not why I like to live in New Orleans. I could live by family, eat well, dress up, have parties, and pick up furniture from the curb in a number of different places and avoid the crime, the litter, the poor public services, and the ever-imminent hurricane. So the question remains: Why do I want to make my home in New Orleans?

My Uncle Kent, who was visiting from Oregon, articulated the answer for me this week. While I haven’t spent a lot of time with Uncle Kent mulling over my life’s big questions, it was clear when he visited our home that we come from the same people. I felt connected by much more than old photo albums and unique Christmas gifts he had given to me when I was a child. We are connected by a shared sensibility—an openness to make your life something that is grounded in what you really want to do, not what anyone or anything has told you, you ought to do. My relatives on that side of the family are painters and senior-citizen motorcyclists and letter-to-the-editor writers and dairy farmers and world travelers and adoptive parents and so on and so forth. We share a confidence that we can do just what we want to do, no matter how odd.

So Uncle Kent talked with the kids, saw the house and shared a meal of crawfish and a bowl of gelato. Then he and I sat and visited over a cup of tea. On the drive to his hotel, as we approached a decrepit housing project that pains me every time I drive by it, he asked me if we planned to make New Orleans our home after Phil finishes his residency. Like an apologetic, I began to tell him why, yes, we planned to make our home here. I mentioned the art and the food and the friendly people. I think I probably was trying to tell him that there is good here, even though it doesn’t look like Oregon. Halfway through my homily, I realized that he wasn't my mother and didn't need convincing. He likes New Orleans and began to explain what he finds enchanting about the city. He reminded me of the neighborhoods. Yes, most neighborhoods are close-knit communities, I confirmed. He talked about the writers and musicians. I talked about how for an urban public school teacher and a doctor interested in community-based primary care, this is the place to be: it is Boomtown, a great experiment, the possibilities are endless. I tried to continue my ongoing brainstorm about why I am here, now. He listened and simply stated, “There’s something about living here that is like facing reality.”

That’s it. Living here is like facing reality. You cannot get away from it. You don’t have to watch a documentary or read a “If the world was 100 people” email to remind yourself that you are part of the broken world and that there’s work to be done. Don’t get me wrong, it still is easy to hide in your hobbit hole in comfort and warmth and fill your time with meaningless worries of thinner thighs and undone homework and who the last Lost survivor might be. It is just a little harder to stay there if you live in New Orleans.

At Home

When I lived in NYC I ate lots of take-out and it seemed normal. After living in Phoenix for a while having a tan and spending a lot of time in malls seemed like a good idea. In Oakland I was the second one of the parents in our parents' group to ween my baby (at 18 months), I felt like an outsider because Sumner slept in a crib, and Phil was one of three stay-at-home dads who's wives and I worked together. In Boston, I felt self-conscious that my winter coat wasn't big and puffy (until I bought a new one).

So what next? I think of this stop as much more than a layover. We are within spitting distance of the two year mark. I've always said that it takes two years for a place to be home.

Here's what's happened so far:

I no longer feel like giggling when I say that I am going to the Winn Dixie.

I feel naked if my toenails aren't painted (even when I have shoes on).

I always wear earrings.

I wear ironed clothing. Often.

Costuming is a verb.

50 degrees outside is very chilly.

15 minutes is a commute.

Recycling is no longer reflexive--it is a disciplined project.

I think of summer as a rainy season full of indoor activities.

Basementless houses are no longer an oddity to me.

Popeye's isn't a treat.

Seeing rotting, flooded houses with overgrown yards everyday no longer gets me in the gut.

Book Covers

Dad actually emailed this true story to me:

Here is a quote from a GC [Grinnell College] applicant I found yesterday:

Q: How did you first learn about GC?

A: I spoke with 1 of your representatives at an otherwise disappointing college fair. The booth caught my eye on our way out. Not being familiar with GC, it was solely the man’s attractively unique personal presentation that drew me to your college; a balding head, thick black glasses (not unlike my own), and a pair of fiery orange eyebrows—a smart guy, a real character. Our exchange was, obviously rewarding. For once, the cover was an accurate representation of the book!

Ramona on Commercialism

Ramona likes to keep up posted about products that she learns about on T.V. Whenever I am fumbling through my purse to find my keys she reminds me that I can buy a purse that has a place for everything, "You can even find things blindfolded for $ 29.95." The other night at dinner she told us about the Evert-Fresh "green bags." She flatly told us what she had witnessed (on T.V.), "Bananas in the green bag stay fresh for 10 days, bananas out of the bag get black and spotted."

We follow-up these info-sessions with anti-commercialism rhetoric. We talk about need and want and the fact that a purse with more pockets won't magically organize me and that we eat our bananas in less that 10 days so we don't need another thing to keep our bananas fresh (although that banana hook I got at Target years ago does help). She listens without a word. We talk at her about marketing and how people who make ads want to convince you to buy stuff.

The other day she and I stopped by the drug store to pick up a few things. We meandered into the shampoo aisle and she jumped to attention. "Mom, I know that all of these are from advertisements," she reported, using her whole body to indicate an entire shelf of one brand of shampoo. "I am sure they are from advertising," she repeated and pointed with concerned big eyes and raised eyebrows.

"Should we get that one Ramona?"

"No, Mom. They are trying to trick us into buying it," she mimicked.

Lesson learned. Neurosis born.

What I Learned from Amy's Labor

My dear friend Amy labored for over 60 hours last Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday and had a beautiful boy on February 19. I was with her and husband Marlow for about 50 of those hours. Amy and I have been there (or nearly there) for the major milestones in our lives from the time we were about 13. Those 50 hours are one of the greatest gifts she could have possible given to me.

Many things happened in that time and most of it will only be of interest to those of us who were there, but I know that part of my job is to remember this birth so that I can tell Elijah about it when no one else remembers, because I will.

I learned...

Patience is a virtue.

You can't get a six-pack of normal size Diet Cokes (they sell the little ones) at Rouse's and Amy's mother-in-law, Mimi, is being so careful as to not offend us-Louisianans about our ass-backwards ways that when she asked someone about why she couldn't get a regular sized six-pack, she didn't use the word normal.

Brittany thinks that Kevin slept with her mother, but she didn't. Brittany is paranoid.

Marlow eats a lot of sausage and tic tacs and prefers sausage to bacon and toast to grits.

Naomi was in labor for 36 hours, as was Anna. Mimi was 12 with the first, 6 with the second. My mom was in labor for 4 hours with her first. We should not mention these stories to Amy.

Labor can go one for more than 2 days and still not make the world record.

Rolly stools are for hospital staff.

Mimi prefers to call Rouse's Rouse because she doesn't like all of these commonly-misspelled possessive store names.

Marlow thinks that's fine as long as she realizes that that's not what the sign will say.

Marlow is not dogmatic about how to make a tuna melt, but Mimi and I agree he is about other things.

Drugs can make a contracting, tired lady sleep.

You can die of pants.

You can be beautiful in labor. Amy was not only graceful in pregnancy, but after 52 hours of labor she was still composed.

Bubba burgers don't have to be defrosted to be cooked.

Cannons is not crowded on Monday nights.

Marlow is really committed to Bikram yoga.

Mimi wants to be called Mema and CNO (Chief Nutritional Officer).

4 of the 5 Happy Baby S's are shushing, swaddling, side-jiggling, and swinging, but not in that order. The guy who invented these S's gets them right, but need to tear up a few phone books.

How to make a hearty sausage-squash-kale (minus that kale) soup and it is easy to make German brick bread.

Mimi likes to know what's going to happen next in a movie.

Marlow gave up sweets for Lent and I gave up giving up alcohol for one day during labor.

You can get warm muffins at 6AM at Oschner.

Amy is a champion. So is Marlow.

The cleanest place to sleep in a waiting room is under the T.V.

"Eye of the Tiger" and "I Would Walk 500 Miles" are good labor songs.

Labor is labor.

Childbirth is one of the only things that makes Erika effusive and quick to return calls.

I want to write.

I am one of Amy's people.

Pinewood Derby

This one is for you, Alex.

Today was a beautiful day. There were sibling spats and family members grouching on each other because they can, but it was also full of friendship, familiarity, and possibility. I like that.

The best moment of the day was this afternoon at the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. If you ask me how Sumner did, I'll tell you that he won the Pinewood Derby for his den, which has about 10 kids. If you ask Sumner, he will tell you that he came in third place for his pack, which has about 50 kids. He will also tell you that he made friends with the kid who won, Josh. Josh happens to be the newest kid to the pack. He happened to join one week ago just in time for this event and he happens to be an orthodox Jew, wearing a yarmulke and out on shabbot to race cars. The Pact Leader, who I like to call the Den Master because it rhymes with Zen Master, called Josh his "sleeper."

The Pinewood Derby is a rite of passage for many boys in America. There is a lot of family lore surrounding the Pinewood Derby in our family. There was my cousin Matt, who built his car with Grandpa Art, because his mom was a single mom. The story goes that he worked tirelessly on his car, doing most of it himself. Grandpa Art helped him with one aspect of the design, as the rules specified he could. When the big day arrived, Matt was crushed because his car didn't match up to the father-built cars his cohorts raced. He cried. There was my brother, who built his car with his Grandad A.J. because our dad hardly prefers newspapers to sandpaper. His car looked good, but it was slow. And, of course, there was Phil's cars. He won the Pinewood Derby two years in a row, because his father paid careful attention to every aspect of the car and made it without much help from Phil.

Sumner knows these stories. So this week, as Phil scrambled to find the time to help Sumner finish his car between two hospital on-call cycles, Sumner was trying to make sense of the family legacy. They were up early in the morning--sanding and painting--and working on it before bedtime--planning the detail work. Sumner and Phil were determined to make this car Sumner's work, but Philip was also determined to support Sumner to have a competitive car.

Last night when Phil and Sumner were putting the final touches on the car just before the weigh-in Sumner told Phil not to be such a perfectionist, "It's going to be just fine, Dad."

Today I was snapping some pictures of Sumner posing with the five den winners and I could see that he was trying to smile, but that he wanted to cry. As soon as the photo shot ended, he made a b-line for me and said that he wanted to go "right away." I was pretty sure that he was going to cry because he didn't make best in show. As we walked out of the cafeteria, I asked him is he felt like crying because he came in third place. He shook his head and said, "No. I'm just so proud. I made this car myself."

That's a good day.