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Welcome Back & Moves of All Kinds

By Diane Sustendal

I’m back! Just in time to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the most interesting coverage of the city’s social, smart and savvy scene.

I can’t go back any further than March 2020, when COVID-19 brought closings, fears and total reviews of lifestyles. The social scene went, frankly, to hell, taking the general good spirits of the city that rose up with pride after Katrina with it. Masks were (and still are) required to save lives. Offices and shops were closed, conventions canceled. Parents didn’t know when or on what days schools would open and home schooling became a serious topic. The deb season was canceled, as debs do with no place to curtsy. Carnival finery was put away. Jazz Fest moved to fall. Nonprofits are still hanging on with their bare teeth.

While many found themselves with no place to go except their refrigerators, those on the front lines in hospitals, clinics and emergency care are still working to the bones and beyond through challenges not seen since the polio epidemic. Bravo and salutes to them.

Many grabbed computers and phones and headed to The Pass, Northshore, Colorado, Florida and North Carolina. We learned to Zoom. We watched TV until the news and elections drove us mad. We turned to Netflix, books, home cooking, puzzles and gardening.

For a brief moment the mayor announced we could go out with masks, then without and things resumed. Parties began being planned; Galatoire’s, Clancy’s and Commander’s opened their doors. Distanced by six feet, the sound of tinkling glasses, laughter and reconnection held forth.

Then “BAM,” as Emeril would say, the Delta variant swept across the area with the speed of locusts. We still aren’t out of the woods, but people have made lots of moves and snuck in some travel between the opening and closing of mask decrees.

RVs and private planes have become favorite modes of transportation. Seeing the USA was the destination now. Our Executive Editor Bev and Johnny Church tooled around the West in an Air Stream. Johnny longed to climb Glacier Point. Bev said,“No dice,” and they hiked six miles of it instead. Winston and Barbara Rice also hopped in an RV, but they’re old hands at this. Several years ago, Winston bought an RV for a boys’ trip with his father and son to Alaska; now they’re just roaming around. Stephen Murray is summer sailing in Newport, Rhode Island, living on his Hinckley 55 aptly called Big Decision. The Jason Adriances drove to Maine for lobster feasting and summer camping.

Mary Hines and her sister of H & H Estate sales were too busy to travel. Their client list was booked all summer with barely a pencil left on the last day of the Archie and Olivia Manning’s house sale (they moved to a spacious condo on St. Charles Avenue). Then Steve and Dana Hansel’s Garden Lane manse was cleared. The Richard Freemans moved from a cottage on Esplanade Avenue to a lovely home in the Garden District. Allison Kendrick downsized from a mansion on First Street to Philip Street. The Farwell-LeBretons decamped their St. Charles Avenue condo for a home on Nashville Avenue. Brooke Duncan and Alice Parkerson both purchased townhouses in DeLimon, a preferred destination of downsizing Uptowners. Emily Montgomery and Carroll Gelderman have donned hard hats, first to renovate a house on Harmony Street and second to take on a major project, which includes a bistro at The Rink.

I’ll be back next month. Meanwhile, enjoy our 25th Anniversary Issue! ✦