This series of family stories are about the experiences Coco and I had raising our family. It may include a few stories about us before we had children. As I think about it, there were four or five significant factors that played a particularly important role in the life of our family and how we raised our children. (I expect to come back and rewrite this page several times as I work through the stories.) Ones that seem relevant to me now include:
- We were close to our parents and most of our siblings both geographically and relationally and our parents were friends. Unfortunately, Coco’s father, Bob, died in a car wreck before our children were born. My two parents and Coco’s mother all spent ample time with and “marked” all of our children in their own special ways. And, each side lived on “places” not just in houses. Melva lived at Silver Dew and my parents lived at Valhalla. Those places afforded some special experiences and memories for our children.
- I was determined to be self-employed and to do so in the field of commercial real estate – and mainly brokerage, not development. I don’t plan to include stories here about my business life. Just pointing out that commercial real estate brokerage is a “feast and famine” business. On average, closing four deals a year met our financial needs; more than that we feasted, less than that we struggled. There were periods when I went over two years without closing a single deal. So it was a stressful way to make a living.
- I am bi-polar. We discovered that something was wrong when the commercial real estate brokerage world came to a screeching halt in Louisiana in 1987, the company I co-owned went busted, and I went into a deep depression and could not function.
- For the most part, Coco was able to be a stay at home mom. She set up a studio in our homes and did most of her architectural work there part time while raising our children
- We were blessed with four extra-ordinarily healthy children – physically, mentally, and emotionally. God designed and wired all of them to be well adjusted high achieving people. Coco and I were given the privilege and responsibility of parenting them in such a way that we didn’t screw them up.
So, let me start sharing some of our family’s stories.