My Dinner at the White House

03/09/2016   Reposted  Nov, 18, 2020, because I'm citing this event and the dress below during the Worcester Historical Museum's celebration of the Little Black Dress.

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My mother always pointed to Nancy Reagan as the ultimate Lady, one who knew exactly how a lady should behave and never raised her voice or appeared inappropriately dressed. Sadly, my mother passed away in January of 1985 (of congestive heart failure, the same thing that took the former First Lady Nancy last Sunday) so she never got to hear about our first meeting with President Reagan and Nancy in October of 1985 and our second one—at a White House state dinner—the following March.

It was the Reagans’ U.S. Ambassador in Charge of Protocol, Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt, who introduced us to the Reagans after Nick’s book Eleni was published in 1984—about the life and death of his mother during the Greek civil war. Eleni was tried and executed by Communist guerrillas because she had organized the escape of her children from their mountain village. In 1985 Eleni became a film starring Kate Nelligan as Nick’s mother and John Malkovich as the adult version of Nick, who, while a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, researched the details of her death.

Lucky Roosevelt gave a signed copy of Eleni to the Reagans, who both said in interviews that it was the best book they read that year. They also enjoyed the film. In October of 1985, Lucky invited us to a glamorous dinner party given by her and her husband, Archie Roosevelt, a grandson of Theodore. The guest list included actress Glenn Close, author Jerzy Kosinski, and Abe Rosenthal, the editor of The New York Times. I could not tell you what we ate, but here are some things I remember from that party: Lucky had to install $10,000 worth of new draperies in her house to satisfy the security people. On the night of the dinner, her street in Georgetown was closed, and behind every heavily draped window stood an armed guard. Nick and I both sat at the President’s table where he regaled everyone with anecdotes and funny stories filled with details—facts and figures rolled effortlessly off his tongue.

One thing I remember is that, between the main course and dessert, the First Lady took out a compact to re-apply her lipstick. This was something that my late mother had insisted was not proper behavior, so I sent a silent mental telegram to heaven, telling her, “If Nancy Reagan can do it, then I can do it.”

As the dinner ended, both tables of guests moved toward the living room. I found myself walking beside the First Lady and I exclaimed to her “He’s such a marvelous story teller!”

I quickly forgot my comment, but Nancy remembered it, because she noticed and remembered every detail and everything that anyone said.

A few months later, early in 1986, Nick and I received an invitation to a state dinner at the White House to be given by the Reagans on March 18 “on the occasion of the visit of the Prime Minister of Canada (Brian) Mulroney and Mrs Mulroney.” I began an arduous search for a dress and, with Nick’s help, I settled on one with a long black skirt and a pleated white bodice, folded like a fan. We discovered it at a store called Sumiko, in Framingham, MA. It cost $700.00--more than my wedding dress--but Nick loved it and insisted I buy it.

On March 18, 1986, in Washington, we inched forward to the White House door in a rented limousine and finally were welcomed by military aides who checked our passports. We were led down a long hall and into a room where the roped-off press waited and our names were announced. The aide with the microphone whispered to me “I like your dress”. I was in heaven. At the top of a staircase, aides handed us our table assignments. Nick was at table nine, I was at 11. Little did I know what a significant number it was.

The U. S. Marine Orchestra serenaded us to the East Room, decorated with white tulips and flowering cherry trees strung with tiny white lights. We began to recognize celebrities, including ballerina Cynthia Gregory, Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli, columnist William F. Buckley and Prince Karim Aga Khan with Princess Salimah Aga Khan, who was wearing a double row of diamonds interspersed with emeralds as big as marbles.

The orchestra broke into “Ruffles and Flourishes” as a voice announced the Reagans and the Mulroneys. The first lady was wearing a floor-length Galanos gown in wide horizontal stripes of sparkling gold and silver.

They formed a receiving line which we were directed through, husbands first. (Unattended ladies, like Kate Nelligan that night, were provided with a military escort.) Then we headed toward the State Dining Room with tables decked with gold candlesticks, gold flatware and gold bowls of red and white tulips. And of course Nancy’s famous Reagan china service that cost $200,000 (but from private, not taxpayers’ funds.)

I was led to a table in front of the fireplace and when I saw Mila Mulroney led to a seat across from me, I began to realize—yes there he was! I was at the President’s table—an incredible favor to a non-famous person like myself.

In retrospect I think it was the remark I made to Nancy about the President’s storytelling that won me that place, because I later learned that the First Lady herself handled every detail of the seating for every event.

The others at the President’s table were: Walter Payton, the famous running back for the Chicago Bears, Allen Murray the chairman of Mobil, Donna Marella Agnelli, Burl Osborne, president and editor of the Dallas Morning News, and Pat Buckley, who sat next to the President, smoking throughout the meal.

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Once again President Reagan kept us entertained with non-stop stories. I was so rapt that, when a waiter stood behind me holding a bowl, the President had to gesture to me, saying, “You’d better take some salad.” He was telling a series of stories about ghosts his family had encountered in the White House—stories that I like to repost every Halloween on my blog.

I remember every detail of that evening—both the embarrassing ones and the glorious ones. Embarrassing: after dinner ended and everyone headed to the next room for demitasse and after-dinner liqueurs, I sidled around our table to see if I could snitch the President’s hand-lettered place card. As I closed in, the majordomo, a genial white-hair gentleman, handed me the place card. “Somebody always comes to get it for a souvenir”, he said, smiling.

Glorious moment: after a concert in the East Room, the Reagans danced to tunes from Broadway musicals, played by the Marine Dance Band. Before the clock struck midnight, they started to head off toward their private quarters and, as they passed, the First Lady suddenly stopped and seized my hand and Nick’s saying, “We must have a photograph with the Gages before we go.” I lost the ability to speak. Nancy pulled Kate Nelligan and Walter Payton into the picture. Flashbulbs popped and then the Reagans were gone. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, at the stroke of midnight, I turned into a pumpkin.

Here’s what I know about Nancy Reagan, who is now reunited with the love of her life: she noticed every detail, she was the power behind the throne, and my mother was right, she was a great lady.

A Photo Tribute to Two Dads and Two Grandpa's

I first posted this on Father's day in 2011, then updated it in 2015, when granddaughter Amalia was 3 1/2 and grandson Nicolas only 11 weeks old.  By then, I wrote, my husband Nick had proved himself a super Papou (Grandfather), even to changing the occasional grandchild's diaper, something he never did with his own kids.

                                                                  Nick &; Christos 1972 
When our three children were born in the 1970’s, my husband Nick was not the kind of dad who'd change diapers, take a kid to the park or coach them in sports. But as these photos suggest, he was always an important presence in their lives, ready to offer support, advice and unconditional love when they needed it.

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                                                               Nick & Eleni circa 1976

This past week, President Obama launched the “Year of Strong Families” to do something about father absence, which he experienced growing up without a father.  Nick experienced it too, because, as he wrote in “A Place for Us”, he never knew his father, a short-order cook in Worcester, MA, until he and his sisters arrived in the U.S. as refugees in 1949 after their mother was executed during the Greek civil war.  Nick was nine years old.  His father, Christos, was 58.

                                                         Nick & Marina, circa  1979

My father, Robert O. Paulson, was born in 1906 and died in 1986.  Because my parents lived far away, he was not a real presence in our children’s lives, but when we visited California in 1973 I took these photos of him showing our son, Christos, his first view of the ocean, and reading to him at bedtime.

I only met my paternal grandfather, Par Paulson, once.  He was stern and completely deaf and the only way to communicate with him was by writing on a blackboard in chalk. But my step-grandfather, John Erickson, my grandmother’s second husband, had a special relationship with me during the years I lived near their small town of Monticello, Minnesota. 

 I still have a small garnet ring that once belonged to his mother. I remember vividly how he taught me to shoot his rifle across the wide Mississippi river, and in the spring, when it was time to get new baby chicks for the chicken yard, he would take me down to the hatchery, pull open drawers of chirping chicks and let me pick out the ones I liked.

                                                                                                   Ida & John Erickson circa1952

 In the current "People" magazine President Obama wrote, “I grew up without a father around. I have certain memories of him taking me to my first jazz concert and giving me my first basketball as a Christmas present, But he left when I was two years old.”

 As he knows, even a one-time memory—choosing chicks at a hatchery, showing a grandson the ocean, reading a bedtime story or unwrapping a first basketball can be a gift that a child will cherish for a lifetime.

Now that we're celebrating Father's Day 2019, I have to add  one more Dad to my tribute:  Emilio Baltodano, the father of our grandkids Amalia, now 7 and Nico, 4.  Emilio is definitely a SuperDad, like many young fathers today.   He attends every school performance, and takes his kids somewhere virtually every weekend--fishing in Central Park at the Harlem Meer, the Brooklyn Zoo, Governor's Island, the Natural History Museum, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  Of course every SuperDad has a SuperMom beside him, and the photo above shows Emilio and Amalia at the Father's Day Brunch Eleni put together today to honor  Emilio and her dad, Nick Gage, complete with goat cheese and zucchini frittata, lox, bagels and cream cheese, mimosas, and her famous Strawberry Cake. Papou Nick loved it!

Forgotten Family Photos from 1983

 The other day, going through some files in my husband’s office, I came across these three photos that were taken by a People Magazine photographer early in 1983.  My first thought was “Were we ever that young?”  The second: “Was my hair ever that curly?” (Clearly that was a perm!)

 The photos were taken shortly after Nick’s book Eleni --about his mother’s life and death in 1948 during the Greek civil war-- was published and then sold to become a movie.  The film Eleni was released in 1985, starring Kate Nelligan as Eleni and John Malkovich as the adult Nick.  (Secret: you can watch it on Youtube for free.)

 People published a six-page article about the book and Nick’s attempts to find his mother’s killer. These three photos were never used in the magazine, which is probably why we have them.  They were taken right here in our house in Grafton, MA, which still looks much the same 34 years later, but we sure don’t.  In the photos son Christos is 11, and daughters Eleni and Marina are 8 and 5.  Nick is 43 and Joan is 42. 

 It was poignant but also exciting to rediscover those photos from so long ago, when the children were still small.  We had been living in a suburb of Athens, Greece from September of 1977, when Marina was only a few months old, because Nick was sent there by The New York Times to be a foreign correspondent.  We returned to the U.S. and our house in Grafton in 1982, a year before the book Eleni was published. 

After I discovered the photos, I dug out of the files the People magazine with the article.  The opening spread is above.  You can read the whole article on line here:  http://people.com/archive/a-sons-quest-for-revenge-vol-19-no-21/ but it doesn’t include any pictures.

At the same time I discovered the People photos, I came across two amazing shots of Nick on the job in Iran in 1977 when he was covering the Iranian revolution and almost became a hostage in the American embassy in Tehran.  But I’m saving those for a future post.

Dining with Nancy Reagan

 The Reagans with Nick and me, actress Kate Nelligan and football great Walter Payton at the White House

My mother always pointed to Nancy Reagan as the ultimate Lady, one who knew exactly how a lady should behave and never raised her voice or appeared inappropriately dressed.  Sadly, my mother passed away in January of 1985 (of  congestive heart failure, the same thing that took the former First Lady Nancy last Sunday) so she never got to hear about our first meeting with President Reagan and Nancy in October of 1985 and our second one—at a White House state dinner—the following March.

It was the Reagans’ U.S. Ambassador in Charge of Protocol, Selwa “Lucky” Roosevelt, who introduced us to the Reagans after Nick’s book “Eleni”  was published in 1984--about the life and death of his mother during the Greek civil war.  Eleni was tried and executed by Communist guerrillas because she had organized the escape of her children from their mountain village. In 1985 “Eleni” became a film starring Kate Nelligan as Nick’s mother and John Malkovich as the adult version of Nick, who, while a foreign correspondent for The New York Times, researched the details of her death.

Lucky Roosevelt gave a signed copy of “Eleni” to the Reagans, who both said in interviews that it was the best book they read that year. They also enjoyed the film. In October of 1985, Lucky invited us to a glamorous dinner party given by her and her husband, Archie Roosevelt, a grandson of Theodore.   The guest list included actress Glenn Close, author Jerzy Kosinski, and Abe Rosenthal, the editor of The New York Times.  I could not tell you what we ate, but here are some things I remember from that party: Lucky had to install $10,000 worth of new draperies in her house to satisfy the security people.  On the night of the dinner, her street in Georgetown was closed, and behind every heavily draped window stood an armed guard.  Nick and I both sat at the President’s table where he regaled everyone with anecdotes and funny stories filled with details—facts and figures rolled effortlessly off his tongue.

One thing I remember is that, between the main course and dessert, the First Lady took out a compact to re-apply her lipstick.  This was something that my late mother had insisted was not proper behavior, so I sent a silent mental telegram to heaven, telling her, “If Nancy Reagan can do it, then I can do it.”

As the dinner ended, both tables of guests moved toward the living room. I found myself walking beside the First Lady and I exclaimed to her “He’s such a marvelous story teller!”

I quickly forgot my comment, but Nancy remembered it, because she noticed and remembered every detail and everything that anyone said.

A few months later, early in 1986, Nick and I received an invitation to a state dinner at the White House to be given by the Reagans on March 18 “on the occasion of the visit of the Prime Minister of Canada (Brian) Mulroney and Mrs Mulroney.”  I began an arduous search for a dress and, with Nick’s help, I settled on one with a long black skirt and a pleated white bodice, folded like a fan.

On the day in Washington, we inched forward to the White House door in a rented limousine and finally were welcomed by military aides who checked our passports. We were led down a long hall and into a room where the roped-off press waited and our names were announced.  The aide with the microphone whispered to me “I like your dress”. I was in heaven. At the top of a staircase,  aides handed us our table assignments. Nick was at table nine, I was at 11.  Little did I know what a significant number it was.

The U. S. Marine Orchestra serenaded us to the East Room, decorated with white tulips and flowering cherry trees strung with tiny white lights.  We began to recognize celebrities, including ballerina Cynthia Gregory, Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli, columnist William F. Buckley and Prince Karim Aga Khan with Princess Salimah Aga Khan, who was wearing a double row of diamonds interspersed with emeralds as big as marbles.

The orchestra broke into “Ruffles and Flourishes” as a voice announced the Reagans and the Mulroneys. The first lady was wearing a floor-length Galanos gown in wide horizontal stripes of sparkling gold and silver.

They formed a receiving line which we were directed through, husbands first.  (Unaccompanied ladies, like Kate Nelligan was that night, were provided with a military escort for the evening.) Then we headed toward the State Dining Room with tables decked with gold candlesticks, gold flatware and gold bowls of red and white tulips.  And of course Nancy’s famous Reagan china service that cost $200,000 (but from private, not taxpayers’ funds.)

I was led to a table in front of the fireplace and when I saw Mila Mulroney led to a seat across from me, I began to realize—yes there he was!  I was at the President’s table—an incredible favor to a non-famous person like myself.

In retrospect I think it was the remark I made to Nancy about the President’s storytelling that won me that place, because I later learned that the First Lady herself handled every detail of the seating for every event.

The others at the President’s table were: Walter Payton, the famous running back for the Chicago Bears, Allen Murray the chairman of Mobil, Donna Marella Agnelli, Burl Osborne, president and editor of the Dallas Morning News, and Pat Buckley, who sat next to the President, smoking throughout the meal.

Once again President Reagan kept us entertained with non-stop stories.  I was so rapt that, when a waiter stood behind me holding a bowl, the President gestured to me, saying, “You’d better take some salad.” He was telling a series of stories about ghosts his family had encountered in the White House—stories that I like to re-post at Halloween.

I remember every detail of that evening—both the embarrassing ones and the glorious ones   Embarrassing: after dinner ended and everyone headed to the next room for demitasse and after-dinner liqueurs, I sidled around our table to see if I could snitch the President’s hand-lettered place card.  As I closed in, the majordomo, a genial white-haired gentleman, handed me the place card.  “Somebody always comes to get it for a souvenir”, he said, smiling.

Glorious moment: after a concert in the East Room, the Reagans danced to tunes from Broadway musicals, played by the Marine Dance Band. Before the clock struck midnight, they started to head off toward their private quarters and as they passed, the First Lady suddenly stopped and seized my hand and Nick’s saying, “We must have a photograph with the Gages before we go.”  I lost the ability to speak.  Nancy pulled Kate Nelligan and Walter Payton into the picture. Flashbulbs popped and then the Reagans were gone. I wouldn’t have been surprised if, at the stroke of midnight, I turned into a pumpkin.

Here’s what I know about Nancy Reagan, who is now reunited with the love of her life:  she noticed every detail, she was the power behind the throne, and my mother was right, she was a great lady.

  

Who Wore the Turkey Hat?

 Last week we had the best Thanksgiving ever.  We say that every year, but this was really the best for several reasons:  There were two new baby faces at the table—our seven-month-old grandson Nicolas Jose Baltodano Gage, and Efro and Sy Suire’s six-week- old son Stone.  (Efro is the daughter of Eleni Nikolaides who lives with us and she grew up like a sibling to our kids.)

Here is a picture of the two new moms comparing their babies’ weight to the 15-pound turkey.  Stone, at nine pounds, was out-weighed by the bird, but Nicolas, at a pudgy 18 pounds, took the prize.

And Efro and Sy posed for a family shot with baby Stone and new grandmother Eleni Nikolaides.

Another new face at the table was Carmen Oyanguren, mother of Emilio, mother-in-law to our daughter Eleni, and co-grandmother of Amalia and Nicolas with me.  She’s at the left in the photo above.  We remarked on the fact that there is no word in English for our relationship to each other except for the non-specific “in laws”, but in Greek, Carmen is my “sympethera” and in Spanish my “consuegra”.  In the photo, daughter Marina looks dashing in the coveted turkey hat which has become part of our Thanksgiving tradition.

Another reason this Thanksgiving was extra special is that everyone pitched in and used their talents for the holiday table. Granddaughter Amalia made the turkey place cards from a kit…

and her little brother Nicolas tried to eat his.

Amalia also decorated the pumpkin pie with candy corn, while her Aunt Marina fixed her hair.

Eleni cooked a Spinach Gratin, while, in the background, “Big Eleni” Nikolaides is making her famous chestnut stuffing.

And Marina made a persimmon salad with toasted almonds.

Early in the morning, Big Eleni and Amalia set up the Christmas village in the kitchen’s bay window.

Later that night Nicolaki practiced standing up by himself….

And his Abuela Carmen taught him to play the maracas.

And although he couldn’t eat a turkey leg, because he only has three teeth, Nicolas had his moment of glory wearing the turkey hat.

Next Thanksgiving, we promised, both he and Amalia will get a drumstick.

Weird and Wonderful New York

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      It makes sense that the streets of New York become weird, mysterious and scary around Halloween.  That’s the case all over the country, but especially in the brownstones on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, people seem to be competing with each other to create the scariest haunted houses and yards complete with lights, sounds, and moving parts of the life-sized mummies, witches, skeletons and zombies. Walking Amalia to her school around Halloween begins to feel like being an extra in “The Walking Dead,” but now that she’s four, Amalia is happy hanging out with the neighborhood ghouls.

      But what I love about New York is that it’s full of weird, bizarre and unexpected sights all year round.  Every time I turn a corner I encounter something so strange that I pull out my camera to prove I really saw it, while the real New Yorker's don’t even blink or slow their stride toward the subway entrance.

"Everyone attending is guaranteed a message"

Above and below are  signs that I encounter every day on my way to pick up Amalia from school.

     
 Today I’m featuring some New York strangeness that is not necessarily seasonal.  In my next post I’ll focus on Upper East Side Halloween décor. (And on Halloween night itself, many of these elaborate, scary haunted houses -–decorated multi-million-dollar brownstones-- open their doors to all comers!)

     I found myself standing in line at a Dunkin Donuts behind this tattooed shoulder and arm.  I recognized those columns!  They’re from an ancient Roman temple in Baalbek, Lebanon, that I once photographed and later painted.  So I tapped the guy on the shoulder and said, “Is that Baalbek?” and he said it was.  Then I asked if I could take a photo.

       In September my friend Mary and I traveled by subway to Brooklyn to visit the Morbid Anatomy Museum, which describes itself as “Exploring the intersections of death, beauty and that which falls between the cracks.”  Besides being an avid collector of early and Victorian photographs (which often explore the same territory) I’m morbidly interested in traditions and superstitions surrounding death, so I found a lot to photograph there—reflecting the histories of taxidermy, medical practices, mourning customs, and just plain weird stuff. 

 Every table in the cafe held a bouquet of dead roses.

Two-headed duck and friends.

A devil (I think) and friends.

Taxidermy and pickled body parts.

       Don't know the purpose of this spooky doll in a suitcase.

       And on my way back from the Morbid Anatomy Museum, I couldn't resist photographing this Brooklyn front terrace, with a crowd of lawn ornaments that totally eclipses the single garden troll on daughter Eleni's balcony.  (But he does change his hat and garden pickings with the seasons.)

 Manhattan garden troll dressed for fall.

Next post: The Ghouls of Manhattan!

Photo Tribute to a Dad and two Grandpa’s

I posted this for father's day four years ago, but now, while traveling in Greece with daughter Eleni, her husband Emilio and our two beautiful grandchildren--Amalia 3 1/2 and Nicolas, only 11 weeks old, my husband Nick Gage has proved himself a super Papou (grandfather.) Although he still doesn't change diapers.  But he's great at telling stories to Amalia until she falls asleep.

                                                                  Nick & Christos 1972

When our three children were born in the 1970’s, my husband Nick was not the kind of dad who'd change diapers, take a kid to the park or coach them in sports. But as these photos  suggest, he was always an important presence in their lives, ready to offer support, advice and unconditional love when they needed it.

                                                               Nick & Eleni circa 1976

This past week, President Obama launched the “Year of Strong Families” to do something about father absence, which he experienced growing up without a father.  Nick experienced it too, because, as he wrote in “A Place for Us”, he never knew his father, a short-order cook in Worcester, MA, until he and his sisters arrived in the U.S. as refugees in 1949 after their mother was executed during the Greek civil war.  Nick was nine years old.  His father, Christos, was 58.

                                                         Nick & Marina, circa  1979

My father, Robert O. Paulson, was born in 1906 and died in 1986.  Because my parents lived far away, he was not a real presence in our children’s lives, but when we visited California in 1973 I took these photos of him showing our son, Christos, his first view of the ocean, and reading to him at bedtime.

I only met my paternal grandfather, Par Paulson, once.  He was stern and completely deaf and the only way to communicate with him was by writing on a blackboard in chalk. But my step-grandfather, John Erickson, my grandmother’s second husband, had a special relationship with me during the years I lived near their small town of Monticello, Minnesota. 

 I still have a small garnet ring that once belonged to his mother. I remember vividly how he taught me to shoot his rifle across the wide Mississippi river, and in the spring, when it was time to get new baby chicks for the chicken yard, he would take me down to the hatchery, pull open drawers of chirping chicks and let me pick out the ones I liked.

                                                              Ida & John Erickson circa1952

 In the current "People" magazine President Obama wrote, “I grew up without a father around. I have certain memories of him taking me to my first jazz concert and giving me my first basketball as a Christmas present, But he left when I was two years old.”

 As he knows, even a one-time memory—choosing chicks at a hatchery, showing a grandson the ocean, reading a bedtime story or unwrapping a first basketball can be a gift that a child will cherish for a lifetime.