Thanksgiving, 1997
Inside a holiday weekend with John, Carolyn, and the circle around them.
Happy Thanksgiving week. These photos come from John’s close friend William (Billy) Noonan. Pictured are John, Carolyn, Narciso Rodriguez, and John’s longtime friend Gustavo Paredes, along with Billy’s family and children, including Kiely, at John’s Hyannis Port home in 1997.
In Forever Young, Billy’s book about their years of friendship, he writes about this long weekend.
Friday night was the big gathering. A few of John’s cousins stopped by, even though things were still slightly chilly from an editorial he’d written about them in George. Bacardi, limes, and Provi’s blender did most of the smoothing over. It was cold outside, but inside it was firelight, conversation, and slush puppies that “were going down like a mouse without fur.”
Carolyn kept the mood going with a story about Narciso’s career taking off, designing her wedding dress, then winning the MTV Designer of the Year Award. His mother stole the show, crying and shouting to anyone who would listen, “I knew it! From the time he was a little boy he was a yeen-yus!” And for the rest of the night, that was his name: Yeen-yus.
Narciso responded in the most Narciso way possible. He pulled out a pad and sketched the entire group: Provi in her outfit, spoon in hand; Billy in his Irish sweater holding Tj; Kathleen with baby Kiely; Carolyn in profile; John’s sharp features; Gustavo and Ariel; and himself, pencil poised. Then he colored it in, a small portrait of a circle of people connected through John and Carolyn.
And on Thanksgiving Day, as Billy puts it, things were “warm and great fun.” Football tossed around the yard, long walks, a feast, more football. A familiar weekend, captured before anyone knew it would become a memory worth holding onto.
