The Gorilla Man and the Empress of Steak: A New Orleans Family Memoir

Acknowledgments

287 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THIS PROJECT HAS BEEN BLESSED WITH THREE ANGELS THOUGH I PREFER to think of them as my Fates: Rebecca McClanahan, who helped me to spin, Diana Pinckley, who helped me to weave, and Didi Goldenhaar, who helped with the hardest task, cutting. Additional thanks go to Ronni Lundy for a bottom-of-the-ninth gamewinning idea about structure, and to Judy Long for last-minute shaping and refining and for effort well beyond the call of duty. Special thanks to Leila Salisbury and the staff of the University Press of Mississippi for “getting ” the project from the start and helping me make it as good as possible. I have many friends, many in the writing game, to thank for advice, counsel, and encouragement: Christina Adams, Fred Anderson, David“Jellyroll Justice” Averback, Darren Bagert, Lynn Bell, Michelle Benoit, Phil Caputo, Mark Childress, Elizabeth Cooper, Jack Davis, Stephanie Samuel Durant, John T. Edge, Lolis Eric Elie, the late Gloria Emerson, Ham Fish, Tom Fitzmorris, Greg Fleeman, Betty Fussell, Carol Gelderman, Tony Gentry , Paul Goldberger, Ron Grant,Annette Harper, Jessica Harris, Paul Hendrickson , Ellis Hennican, Tom and Dorothy Howorth, Rosemary James, Wayne Karlin, Richard Katrovas, Sally Knight, Daniel Kornstein, Karen Kudej, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Jack Langguth, Virginia LaPlante, Susan Larson, Nancy Lemann, Cynthia Lewis, David Lynn, Bobbie Malone, Martha Nelson, Tim O’Brien, Pat O’Hara, Molly O’Neill, Susan Palo, Ellen Morris Prewitt, Sue Ribnor, Ted Sann, Margaret Sartor, Jonathan Schell, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 288 Eric Schroeder, John Simonson, Frances Smith, Julie Smith, Suzanne Farrell Smith, Ben Sontheimer, Susan Spicer, Pavlina Sudrich, Ben Fong Torres , Justin Vogt, and Chris Wiltz. Judge Jacob Karno (Louis Karnofsky’s grandson) helped with genealogy. James Hillman, James Silberman and Tracy Kidder were kind long before my manuscript deserved kid gloves. Special thanks to the members of Rebecca McClanahan’s Kenyon Review summer writing workshops, who convinced me my wacky stories added up to a book, and to Peter White, who dragged me there. Thanks go also to Patricia Hampl, who allowed me to sit in on her class at the Prague Summer Writing Program. Many others helped in recovering the memories that make up this book: my aunt Helen Garma Udstad Tarter and her son, my cousin Sig; cousins JoAnn Purcell Levert, the late Audrey Jacomine Cascio, the late Stanley Fink, Sydney Fertel, and the late Bluma Fertel Wolfson; my nephew Rien Fertel and his mother, Rosemary Parisi; Terry Bowers Gerosa; the late Marjorie Troxler and her son Dr.William Troxler; Rosemary James and the late Iris Kelso; the late Earner Sylvain and her daughter, Connie; my father’s school chums Lenny Ferrara, Jan Pedersen, and Frank Zito; and mine: Rick Permutt and his wife, Jill, ron caron and his wife, Maury Strong, Susan McLean Welsh, Judy Agular, Elissa Zengel, and Max Begué. Many others told tales of the early days of Chris Steak House, too many to list; special thanks to Lolis Edward Elie, who integrated Chris Steak House, to Jim Polster and to James Quaid, whose father offered my mother the key advice to borrow some working capital. Bill Betcher, Charlotte Mathes, Pia Melody, Terry Real, and Jan Rieveshl for many long years helped me dig deep and to make sense of the muck I found there. Thanks to former head curator of the Audubon Zoo Dan Maloney for his account of the aftermath of Katrina and to Ron Forman for his memories of the aftermath of the Gorilla Campaign (and for remembering Dad so fondly). Thanks to John Sylvest for his expert and energetic curatorship of Port Sulphur memories, and to Ron Swoboda and Garland Robinette for memories of my mom and dad. Thanks to John Pope for his expert help in the TP morgue. My wife, Bernadette, asked the hardest, most incisive, and therefore the most helpful questions. She put up with my navel gazing long past the point of decency. My love and thanks. I wish to thank Adam Fulk,Stephanie Moss,Susan Burke,Marion White, Elizabeth Mitchell, and all the hard workers at Free Gulliver who helped not only in research but also in giving me the essential gift: time non fare ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 289 niente and therefore to create. Thanks to Tripp Friedler and Steve Kupperman , together the project’s most industrious readers and advocates. My gratitude goes to George Schmidt for permission to use his gorgeous painting of a young Pops and the moment...