GayNewOrleans.COM SouthernDecadence.COM Dec. 20, 2011-Jan. 2, 2012 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM 21

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1 GayNewOrleans.COM SouthernDecadence.COM Dec. 20, 2011-Jan. 2, 2012 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM 21

2 22 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM Dec. 20, 2011-Jan. 2, 2012 Official ficial Gay Mardi di Gras Guide GayMardiGras.COM

3 GayNewOrleans.COM SouthernDecadence.COM Dec. 20, 2011-Jan. 2, 2012 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM 23

4 A Very Beary Christmas... on the prowl by Rory Wright I asked about where he came from originally. I was born in Detroit, Michigan but I fell in love with New Orleans. I met my partner, Cornel Jeansonne here so I moved here and we have been together over 26 years now. He explained how the bear tours got started. we moved to this house 21 years ago and have done the bear tours for charity for years now. We decided to do it up big this year because the house itself is one hundred years old this year. Also this year I made it to over ten thousand bears. In fact a lady came by yesterday and donated over a hundred bears that had been in her mothers collection, and her mother had passed on in She found out about the tours and dropped all of them off. And I got a call last week from a production company from New York who are coming to do a video of the Bears for German television so we seem to be getting on the radar after all these years. The fundraising tours are presented by the Krewe Of Armeinius of which they are members and Ricky has been king. This year 8 non profit groups will be led through the bear stuffed bear cub. He put it in his shop window and called it Teddy s Bear. The toy became an immediate success and is the origin of todays teddy bear. The company that manufactured them sold over one million teddy bears in 1903, and it has continued to be a children s favorite ever since. Each room has a theme and some of them are just packed with collectibles. There is a classic Christmas room, a Mardi Gras room, Goldilocks and the three bears, a Sherlock Holmes style study and much more. There is more to see than is possible to put in the article. One of the children s favorites is the bubble bathroom full of bears. I asked about what occurred during Hurricane Katrina. It seems like everyone got some kind of damage from Katrina, but we were fortunate that the flooding stopped about six block s from our house. We had roof damage and the pool was a mess but all of the bears survived! He continued: People have been leaving notes and dropping of thank you's for the Christmas display and all the bears. I asked if every room in the house had bears. Oh yes, we started preparing for this years tours this last May, so it has expanded quite a bit. We are doing tours all throughout December for various charities and on December 30th we are doing an event for the West Bank Arts Guild. Any one or group interested can call me at or just stop by th house at 1525 Dufossat Street in New Orleans. You can also access the tour information online at teddybeartour.webs.com. Santa Appears in City Park On December 10th, Victor (Bear) Vest, who was interviewed in the last issue of Ambush, arrived as Santa by police escort to the delight of hundreds of small children, and assisted by other members of the New Orleans Bear and Bear Trapper Social Club he listened to children s toy requests, handed out candy canes and it should be noted that this is the sixteenth year that Victor (Bear) Vest has volunteered as Santa. Ricky Lenart Alot of members of our community are known to be collectors of some kind of object or art. It seems bred into our DNA, but; Ricky Lenart, has taken collecting to a level unsurpassed locally. His Teddy Bear House in New Orleans is an amazement and is both entertaining and used for charities every year. I met up with Ricky last Friday evening on a night that was promoted and designated as Bear s night out. He and his partner were hosting a Christmas party that crisp and cold December evening with their l-shaped swimming pool all heated and warm and the back yard decked out for a celebration. The view from the front yard was spectacular and I could see all of the bear collections in the lit windows. He greeted me at the door with a smile and invited me in for an informal tour of the bears. I asked him how he had gotten started collecting what is now over ten thousand bears and bear related collectibles. Back in 1976, a friend of mine decided to buy me a bear as a gift and others started to give me bears, but prior to that in high school and college, I was called Rickybear or Rickypoo as nicknames and so it kind of got started that way. I guess it was just a sort of endearment, but then everyone got serious about it. I worked at the World s Fair Christmas store and the collection of bears has really exploded since I moved here in I was working in Knoxville and they asked me to move to Vancouver, Canada, but my partner was here in New Orleans so I said no and moved here instead. At first it was just family and friends sending me bears. Back in 1976 during the disco era, I had about 25 bears, people started sending me disco bears, so it started kind of slowly and then after awhile it just got crazy! (Laughter). house. According to the Krewe of Armeinius, the house was built originally in 1911 by the Reverend B.K. Weed, an Episcopal Priest who ministered in the prison system and his wife, Lucy Peachy Evans. It was built in the Colonial Revival Style which was very popular at that time. The house was sold to his son, Dr. John Weed and his wife Alice Lemann in It remained in the Weed family until 1991 when it was sold to to the current owners Cornel Jeansonne and Ricky A. Lenart. The term Teddy Bear actually has a history that is little known to those who may have a teddy bear or two. The term comes from one of President Theodore Roosevelt s hunting trips to Louisiana and Mississippi in While he was hunting in Mississippi, he came upon an older American black bear and he refused to shoot it. It soon became the topic of a political cartoon. Morris Michton, a Brooklyn store owner saw the cartoon and created a little 24 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM Dec. 20, 2011-Jan. 2, 2012 Official ficial Gay Mardi di Gras Guide GayMardiGras.COM

5 GayNewOrleans.COM SouthernDecadence.COM Dec. 20, 2011-Jan. 2, 2012 The Official Mag: AmbushMag.COM 25