Art Show Sailing Benefit

One of the best things about living in the city is getting out of the city.  An hour away by car or train you can sail or go to the beach.  

I have donated one of my oil paintings to benefit Oak Cliff Sailing Center.  Please come see the show and enjoy a champagne brunch at the sailing center on beautiful Oyster Bay!

Nancy Reagan's Birthplace

http://www.ny1.com/nyc/queens/news/2016/03/7/before-she-was-first-lady--nancy-reagan-s-roots-began-in-flushing.html

I would like to go back and lay flowers and a flag, with friends in case the man jumps out of a box on the porch and yells at us again.

There is even a homeless person at Nancy Reagan's birthplace.

When I opened the newspapers after she died to see beautiful photographs of Nancy and Ronald Reagan, I didn't expect to learn reading the New York Post that Nancy Reagan was born in Queens, New York.  I drove right out there to look at the house.

The grape vines and cedar trees may well date back to when she lived there.  I haven't read her book, so didn't know that she and her Mother overcame real adversity.  She got out of Queens, the hard-working middle-class community with such American treasures as the Steinway piano factory.  Nancy Reagan's Mother had to go back there to find her ex-husband who had abandoned them, the only way she could marry the man who would adopt Nancy.

From her new life in Chicago, Nancy went on to Smith College, became an elegant 1940s movie star, then First Lady of the State of California and the United States of America.

I knew from President Reagan's book that his early life was fraught with challenge, yet I didn't know that Mrs. Reagan's was, too.

What I remember about them in person was their warmth and energy filling the Superdome as they spoke at the Republican National Convention before Vice President Bush got the nomination to run for Presideht.  The youth caucus got to run out and stand right in front of the stage.  It was very exciting.  

As was working on that campaign in California my Freshman year of college, which was so strong economically compared to my home state of Oklahoma, one of the few in a slump due to the low oil prices that helped the American economy overall.  I really got to live in "a shining city on a hill" called The University of San Diego.

While this wood frame house in Queens is not the side to Nancy Reagan many people knew, I think the Reagans could be proud that it is under renovation in an entrepreneurial community of new Americans.  

I don't know what they'd say about the "greeter" on the front porch.  I don't know what their homeless policy would be.  Where it would fall between leaving the guy alone and the private property rights of the owner.  They would want him to have a job and own a home, yet they wouldn't want to force anyone to hire him.  So a business?

The RNC recently announced plans to open an office in Queens.  The former First Lady's birthplace would be a great location if they haven't already picked one.  However, the real estate price of such a gem would be prohibitive.  Then again, after "The Big Short", who knows, the owner might donate the place (which I don't think is legal for a campaign, but a  charity, fine.)

Though it may not be the glamourous monument we'd imagine for them, it is the heart and spirit of the Reagans to inspire people to work hard and pull themselves up from the boot straps, visibly alive in the community around Mrs. Reagan's birthplace.  The Reagan Democrats in New York helped turn the whole country around.  If a little patch of Reagan soil could be preserved here in their memory, to continue their ideals, whether it be for small business, for children, or for "Just Say No", New York would be a better place.

Thank you for all that you did for our Country, Nancy Reagan, Rest In Peace.