ANNA MONICA / L’Observateur / September 22, 1999

Friends can use any excuse to get together. It’s especially nice when there is anevent to celebrate, and celebrate is exactly what this group of friends from LaPlace did recently.

Wanting to get some of the details gave me a good excuse to interrupt Mixie Arcuri at work (actually, I believe I stole his lunch hour) the other day. Mixieleaned back in his chair and seemed to enjoy talking about the special association he has with friends Jobe’ and Anne Boucvalt, Harold and Toni Flynn and Phil and Renee’ Kurica. Billy and Leslie Terry are included in the group butwere not with the others the last time they went out to the French Quarter in New Orleans to celebrate events such as Jobe’ and Ann’s 27th wedding anniversary, Mixie and Tru’s 26th and Phil and Renee’s 24th. The couples’anniversaries are very near each other, and Toni’s birthday was somewhere in there. It was really just an excuse to gather again because they like doingthings together, and this has been going on for years among the friends.

Pretty much a low-key affair, the group had lunch at Napoleon House and just relaxed in the company of each other afterwards. Mixie, though, couldn’t let goof his tradition of visiting the Progressive Food store in the Quarter to get muffalettas, olive salad, Italian bread and black olives. He just had to do that,he said, because one of his most pleasant memories of the past is that for most of his life he and his grandfather, Dominick, always enjoyed eating black olives and Italian bread together.

Even though they had a nice lunch, it amused Mixie to tell about the others helping to devour the good stuff he had brought back from the grocery. The bigsurprise came when he didn’t mind admitting that after all of that, they had dinner in the evening at Maximo’s. Yes indeed, we decided, good friends really doenjoy eating together! All the couples have offspring. Mixie and Tru have two daughters, Leigh Ann andLaura; Phil and Renee’ have Daniel and Jenny; Jobe’ and Anne have Christopher, Jonathan, Matthew, Benjamin, Emily and Andrew; and Matthew and Ellen are the offspring of the Flynns. The male members of the friends group also havediverse occupations: Mixie is a banker, Phil is an ophthalmologist; Jobe’ works at Marathon; and Harold is a landscape architect.

When questioned further, Mixie, a man of faith, looked at me solemnly and admitted that he considered his life, especially his marriage, as a “blessing from God.””I have a beautiful wife, beautiful children and dear friends,” he said.

His sincerity told me there would be many more times to come that this particular group of friends would be enjoying black olives and Italian bread.

Our conversation that day was enjoyable. It was like visiting with a good friend.Back to Top

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