What’s something surprisingly “cool” about your parents or grandparents?
Scott Renshaw: I always liked the mental image of my great-grandmother—who died in 1993 at the age of 97—as a cigar-smoking college graduate in an era when women were generally neither.
Derek Carlisle: One grandfather was an Irish detective during Prohibition who drank, and the other was a stone-sober moonshine smuggler; they lived 10 miles from each other in the backwoods of Georgia.
Rachel Piper: My mom converted to the LDS Church when I was wee, but before that, she lived a much more exciting life than I ever will. In the ’60s, she moved with a few friends from North Dakota to Hawaii, where she worked as a hostess. Her job was to dance with male patrons for tokens at a nonalcoholic club that served only soft drinks and soft-boiled eggs. She later became a bartender, and at one point was hit on by a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. If she’d gone out and partied with them, my life would be totally different (and possibly nonexistant).
Lindsay Fenton: My parents are literally the coolest people I know. They live in Los Angeles and own a downtown loft. If I need to know the best new restaurants, the current must-see museum exhibit or the best places to travel, they are my go-to sources. One day, I want to be my parents.
Pete Saltas: My dad (and many others of that generation) managed to walk uphill both ways to and from school. I’ve seen Back to the Future, so I would have thought a car or even a bus was accessible at that time.
Ivy Smith: My great-grandmother went to college in the late 1920s, and graduated, before she got married or had babies. My hero.
Scott Renshaw: I always liked the mental image of my great-grandmother—who died in 1993 at the age of 97—as a cigar-smoking college graduate in an era when women were generally neither.
Derek Carlisle: One grandfather was an Irish detective during Prohibition who drank, and the other was a stone-sober moonshine smuggler; they lived 10 miles from each other in the backwoods of Georgia.
Rachel Piper: My mom converted to the LDS Church when I was wee, but before that, she lived a much more exciting life than I ever will. In the ’60s, she moved with a few friends from North Dakota to Hawaii, where she worked as a hostess. Her job was to dance with male patrons for tokens at a nonalcoholic club that served only soft drinks and soft-boiled eggs. She later became a bartender, and at one point was hit on by a member of the Harlem Globetrotters. If she’d gone out and partied with them, my life would be totally different (and possibly nonexistant).
Lindsay Fenton: My parents are literally the coolest people I know. They live in Los Angeles and own a downtown loft. If I need to know the best new restaurants, the current must-see museum exhibit or the best places to travel, they are my go-to sources. One day, I want to be my parents.
Pete Saltas: My dad (and many others of that generation) managed to walk uphill both ways to and from school. I’ve seen Back to the Future, so I would have thought a car or even a bus was accessible at that time.
Ivy Smith: My great-grandmother went to college in the late 1920s, and graduated, before she got married or had babies. My hero.
