Luci Baines Johnson\r\n\r\nI first met Luci in 2001. I didn\'t so much meet Luci as encounter her. I was on a marathon swing through Texas for Cornell, Austin, San Antonio, Waco, Dallas, back to Austin all in one week.\r\n\r\nThere was an alumni event during the day, the topic genetic decoding. There was an alumni dinner that night. In between, Jane a Cornell alumna, who had lived in New Orleans for a time, and I decided to hang out at the LBJ Library.\r\n\r\nWhile there viewing an exhibit featuring all of LBJ\'s descendents, Jane asked what ever happened to Luci. She would hear things about Lynda from time to time, but what ever happened to Luci. No sooner had she said that, we turned a corner, heard the voice and there she was, Luci Baines Johnson Nugent Turpin. She was giving a tour to house guests from England, but she said if we followed along, even though it was near closing, the guards would not kick us out.\r\n\r\nSo, we followed her as she revisited the highlights of the Johnson administration, the beginning of head start, the civil rights movement, the JFK assassination, her wedding, her father\'s office, her mother\'s exhibit, and her loving memory of her father.\r\n\r\nWe relived the LBJ years through the eyes of his youngest daughter. She said she was the first person to be married in the White House in 50 years, but no one remembered that. I said I did. She said that\'s because we were the same age. Actually, Luci wasn\'t married in the White House. A newly converted Catholic, she was married at the Catholic Cathedral in DC. The reception was at the White House. \r\n\r\nShe read a letter from Jackie sent to her family after the funeral. She said, does that sound like a letter from a member of one family who didn\'t get along with another family? She refuted the adversity between the JFK\"S and the LBJ\'s. \r\n\r\nShe told a story of traveling from DC back to Texas by car, the family of four and the housekeeper. They stopped in some unidentified Southern state for the night only to be told that there was a room for them but not for their housekeeper. Lady Bird said, then we won\'t be staying here either and off they drove into the night.\r\n\r\nThe night of the Tete Offensive, alone the two of them in the White House, she and the president, she knew something of some magnitude was underway, but no one would tell her what, because as she would admit, if they had, she couldn\'t keep a secret. When her father asked her to find a place to pray, Luci got the Catholic Cathedral opened for them. \r\n\r\nI related to this strong willed woman. I had known her name since I was a child. We were daughters of the south, a changing south, the same age. Our mother\'s were the same age. We were both Daddy\'s little girl. But, hers was a life of privilege and mine was the life of the average. Yet, I recalled in 1965 after Betsy, her father declaring New Orleans a disaster area from my mother\'s front porch.\r\n\r\nThe day came to an end, but I cherished the memory. When I moved back to New Orleans from New York after 9/11, the following year, I became involved with the Lindy Boggs Literacy Center and Lindy herself. When it came time to find a national chair for a campaign to endow the center, I talked to Lindy about who to ask, hoping that she would suggest Luci. We wanted someone of national repute, someone close to the Boggs, someone with an interest in literacy. Not only were the Johnsons interested in early childhood learning, Luci had struggled with a learning disability. Later, she would tell me although she learned to read, she didn\'t read to learn until she was 17. Because of this, she has an incredible verbal capacity. But, then she is her father\'s child. The Boggs and the Johnsons had come to Washington at the same time and quickly became close for a lifetime. Lindy and Lady Bird spent summers together on Cape Cod.\r\n\r\nLindy suggested the Robbs. So, I wrote and called Chuck to ask if he and Lynda would serve at national chairs. He determined quickly that along with their other projects this one would not fit in their schedules. I ask whom he might suggest, perhaps Luci. His answer was, yes, Luci would probably be the right person to approach, but just don\'t mention that he suggested it. So, Luci when approached agreed, saying that she and Lady Bird had talked about it and determined that never in the history of the friendship between the two families had anyone in the Boggs family ever said no to anyone in the Johnson family and she wouldn\'t be the first to betray the friendship. \r\n\r\nLuci became the chair for the campaign to endow the Lindy Boggs Literacy Center in New Orleans where 40% of the adult population was considered illiterate. She visited.\r\n\r\nI picked her up at the airport with a police detail provided by Harry Lee and a dozen yellow roses. Luci loved her years in the White House and loved reconnecting with the type of consideration she received during those years. at St. John\'s. During an interview, a child from the Head Start program also housed at St. John\'s grabbed Luci\'s hand and said to her, come play with me. Luci vacated her seat, abandoned her interviewer and was off to the playground. She went down the slide, swung on the swing, and climbed into the playhouse, teaching as she went. She did an interview at the library for a documentary about Lindy. She attended a reception at the home of the Millings and she had dinner at Commander\'s Palace with the incoming President of Loyola. We attended a concert in the French Quarter featuring Shades of Praise. It was an action packed two days. We continued to communicate and work on a plan to find appropriations money from Congress. We succeeded.\r\n\r\nIn the stunned rush of the aftermath of Katrina, days were filled with figuring out life gravely disrupted, Several days after, I still had not located my mother. My hopes were high that my evacuation plan for her had succeeded, but I had no confirmation. And, without confirmation, I had no way of knowing not only her fate but her location. \r\n\r\nThe phone rang. It was Luci, tracking me down on my cell phone that only worked intermittantly. Darleen, are you alright? Yes, Luci, I\'m fine. What can we do for you? Luci, I can\'t find my Momma! You\'re Momma! Why, Lady Bird knows someone on the Red Cross Board. We\'ll find your Momma. And so, within 24 hours and the help of an administration from 40 years ago, in the wake of the worst natural disaster in the history of this country, I found my Momma.\r\n\r\nThat\'s why after I lost my job with Tulane and I got on the road to find another, it wasn\'t so much that I wanted to move to Texas, but I wanted to interview at the University of Texas, so I could get to Austin, so I could thank Luci face to face. \r\n\r\nI arrived at the LJB Holding company office in downtown Austin on a work day as I had before. But, today way Lady Bird\'s birthday, so Luci was upstairs at home setting the table for Lady Bird\'s birthday dinner. \r\n