From the Facebook Page of Waterloo Gardens in Exton, PA: https://www.facebook.com/waterloogardens . Their website is here: http://www.waterloogardens.com/
And I CAN'T resist, another picture here:
>>> FIRST, LET ME SALUTE CEO Linda LeBoutillier, her siblings, her parents Linda senior and Bo LeBoutillier (whom I remember well), and her Italian grandparents, James and Anna Paolini, who founded the business in 1942.
Today, this Italian family (now under a French name -- and I say ITALIAN family because Linda SENIOR was the true matriarch who at the age of 15 HAD to get married as Linda junior was developing inside her, and eventually took over management of the firm from her parents, doing all the groundwork for what exists today) has developed the HANDS-DOWN BEST NURSERY in the Philadephia area -- maybe even the Mid-Atlantic states!!!
And for 7th & 8th grades, Linda junior and I were classmates at Saints Phillip & James grade school in Exton, PA WITH KEVIN HOLLERAN who can be seen here: http://scottkenan.blogspot.mx/2012/07/waiting.html .
In those days, the three of us DOMINATED the class intellectually, and in fact, ALL Linda's five (?) siblings -- and Linda too -- tested well over genius in the tests their ambitious mother made sure they got -- and got good service from the teaching nuns as well!!!
Back then, Linda was a rather nervous, foot-tapping person who chewed her hair. Kevin Holleran and I were TOTALLY SARCASTIC, ridiculing the nuns -- especially our eighth-grade teacher "Mother" Mary Austin, (whom I now credit with inspsiring me to love arithmetic -- in 9th grade Miss Altemose/Mrs. Funk -- as blogged about earlier -- inspired me to love higher maths) making fun of her inadvertent farts during FORTY HOURS DEVOTIONS and making up some HUGE story about the nun driving around in a beat-up, old foreign compact car that had been left in the church lot for several months -- her "BRIGHT RED FARINA" as we called it -- and this was LONG before I knew Farina (as the car was badged), was an Italian wheat flour.
In any case, I went on to North Junior High with Linda, while Kevin went to a good Catholic prep school. The Philadelphia diocesan high schools, then, were just training grounds for Irish and Italian mafia thugs -- with NO academic standards to be found. Bishop Shanahan which we would all have attended, was noted for high pregnancy rates and occassional murders at sporting events. In fact, the Catholic Church in GENERAL in the Philadephia area was completely choked in superstition and mafia control compared to the PROGRESSIVE Catholic Church in Louisville, KY where my family had moved from right before President Kennedy's assasination (due to complications with my parents' involvement in the planning of that assassination).
The LAST time I saw Linda was when she was wholesaling jewelry before joining the family firm. She simply walked into the store I, with Hilary Russell and Chuck Pritchard, started in Cape May, NJ in 1974 -- and which Chuck, Hilary, Sue Hobbs, Karan Packer -- and I have to also mention Ellie (Nowicki) O'Donoghue (allegedly of West Palm Beach) -- developed into the BEST GIFT/CRAFT STORE on the Jersey Shore, see: www.whalestalecapemay.com (mostly after I sold out MY interest in 1978).
With only 15 minutes remaining in my "challenge" to my family (see: http://scottkenan.blogspot.mx/2012/07/rap-wrap-and-call-for-some-to-make-call.html ), I need to prepare to take the NEXT ACTION with THEM now. But before leaving THIS post, let me THANK Linda's brother Bobby LeBoutliere for being THE BIGGEST SMART-ASS AND TROUBLE-MAKER at Sts. Phillip & James School!!! I eventually found the CONFIDENCE to make a little trouble myself.
And as for Kevin Holleran, although our classmates called us "queers" and jeered us all the time, the ONE TIME I tried to get him to drop his drawers, he REFUSED!!!
Kevin's a lawyer, so I KNOW that HE knew I did not ACTUALLY accuse him of being gay in the earlier post -- and I wish him well (as well), BUT, although his mother embodied the 1960s California SUNSET magazine mystique (like Hilary Russell), his father REALLY WAS involved in my parents' NAZI SCHEMES -- and, in an unrelated matter, used to REFUSE to call me by my first name on the occassions the two of us were alone -- BECAUSE SCOTT IS NOT A CATHOLIC SAINT'S NAME.
LOL!!!
Italian Sweethearts -- in a Garden.
Scott
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