Toni Morrison said: "All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was." I can't help but think that there is something in this story from Gisele Perez of Pain Perdu Blog that keeps her heart flowing back to the roots of her childhood home. New Orleans has mythical allure, once its waters flow through your veins–  dams and levees are pointless. Keeping Cool on St. Anthony Street.

Many of my childhood summer vacations were spent in New Orleans- the city my family left when I was 6 years old- visiting my father’s family. All of my mother’s family had already moved to Los Angeles. When I asked her why they left, she responded “I was the last one in my family to go.”

We stayed between the two houses my grandfather built next door to each other almost 100 years ago in the Creole section of the city. My Aunt Leticia and her family lived in one, and my unmarried aunt, Nanny Marion lived in the other.

Aunt Leticia married the boy across the street, my Uncle JuJune, and after their wedding he moved into the house where she had grown up. Uncle JuJune’s sister stayed in his childhood home with her family, so in the evenings, after washing the dishes, Aunt Leticia would sit on the front porch, cooling off with a glass of lemonade and talking across the street with her sister in law and the other neighbors.

The people I admire most in this world are people with a strong point of view. These people are often called “creative types”. Which should be the ultimate compliment. But I have often noticed that there are some people who use the term in a semi-derogatory way. Of course it’s the verbal quotation marks that transform the phrase from it’s literal into a mass-market form of name-calling.

Creative types are not the only folks who have gotten formerly positive descriptors turned into a mean-spirited stereotype.

Remember when “liberal” meant to give freely or generously. Don’t get me started on the term “progressive”. How has progress gotten manipulated into a dirty word?

I bring this up because I was recently in the company of some wonderfully talented creative types bringing progress to the Los Angeles consumer.

Because I attended the opening of a new shop in town this past Friday. Actually it’s a new kind of shop. It’s called Studio Root66, which is a rather creative play on its location. Because historic Route 66, running through Highland Park, is where this store is located.