Memorial Day Weekend

On Friday Evening, Robin arrived at the hotel and it was like old home week. We have known each other for more than 20 years. We met in Santa Rosa when he came to work at the same office I did. We immediately hit it off and have been very good buds ever since. We have backpacked together for god only knows how many miles in the wildernesses of California. Robin’s only flaw is that he is, and always has been a Cardinals fan. I have tried to convert him be he resists mightily. I hate to admit it but Robin is pretty smart. He speaks a number of languages and can tell the difference between a sculpture by Degas and Milles. This is very beneficial to me because I can’t tell the difference between a sculpture and a rock smoothed by glacial polishing.

Anyway, we decided to get out and about early and go see the Gateway Arch and the Jefferson Westward Expansion Memorial the next day.

Saturday, Our decision to get out and about early was a good choice because we got to the Arch and there were no lines. We got into a tram and went to the top of the Arch with no waiting at all. We went back on Monday and the lines were horrendous. The Visitor Center is underground between the bases of the Arch and on Monday it was packed whereas on Saturday we were almost alone. The Gateway Arch is very symmetrical being 630 feet tall and has a width of 630 feet between the bases. It is the tallest National Monument by far. The view from the top is spectacular and I was so inspired I sent Phyllis a text message from the top. Unfortunately she did not share my inspiration because it was well before 7:00 a.m. Saturday morning in California. Damned time zones. The old St. Louis Courthouse is part of the historical area and it is framed dead center by the Arch. The old Courthouse is the site of the Dred Scott slavery lawsuit that went all the way to the Supreme Court where it was ruled a slave was property and had no right to freedom. When we came down from the Arch we went into the Westward Expansion Museum but it was not well organized. There was no start or finish, it was all middle.

We finally left the historical area and went to the St. Louis Contemporary Art Museum. We decided to walk and joked about walking all the way to this church spire we could just barely make out in the distance. As you could guess, we walked past the church before we got to the museum. The map was deceiving because it only looked like an inch or two on the map. There were three artists featured at the museum and two of them were outstanding. You would have to experience the exhibits to appreciate them because they sound almost silly. One artist found thousands of book titles in the Amazon.com catalog with the word “God” in the titles. He then hand wrote the titles in miniscule script with the word “God” centered on a vertical axis. There were thousands of titles and I guess the message I received was God is everywhere and in everything.

The second exhibit was conceived from You Tube videos of kids making paper guns. The artist created hundreds of very complex guns and displayed them so the observer walked between two “rows” of these guns hanging in the air and sitting on the floor. Her message was like them or hate them, guns are part of our lives.

We also went to the Mildred Kemper Museum of Art on the Washington University campus. This time we were not fooled by the map and took the MetroLink to the museum. The museum was rather small but had some great works by established artists and also works by students which were their theses for their Masters of Fine Arts degree. We were pretty much cultured out for one day and headed back to the hotel to rest up for Sunday.

Sunday was another museum day. We rode the MetroLink to Forest Park which is one of the largest urban parks in the nation. Our goal was to visit the SLAM (St. Louis Art Museum) and we got there early again. Again, a good choice. We viewed three floors of the museum but were both primarily attracted to the Impressionist exhibit. Robin tried to educate me on the genre and the artists but finally gave up and made me buy some books to study. Dang, I only asked him a couple hundred questions. You would think he might have a little more patience. We stayed in the Museum for about four hours and when we came out the Park was packed. It is a beautiful park and it was good to see how many St. Louisans were using it. It has a zoo, a couple of lakes, a theater, two major museums, and a building called the Jewel Box with exotic plants. The Jewel Box must be a major photo-op site because we saw a young man get down on bended knee and ask his girl to marry him while a friend took photos (she said yes) and another young lady who was being photographed in various poses by a professional photographer.

We walked quite a ways in the park before we got back on the MetroLink. We had seen a street which looked quite interesting so we got off the train and explored the street. It had one interesting block and the rest was boring. We decided to walk back to the hotel and on the way we came across the home of Scott Joplin, the jazz pianist/composer. The lobby was open but the rest was closed due to a lecture being given on Joplin. The house was on its last legs before it was saved and restoration began. It is a work in progress and should be very informative when finished.

We got back to the hotel and called it a day.

We must be gluttons for punishment because Monday we logged another bunch of walking miles before we went to the ballgame. It would be interesting to know how many miles we walked over the three days. I think 20 would be a very conservative number.

The ball game was scheduled for 3:15, but we showed up early after a bit of an adventure which included walking on the MetroLink tracks. Busch Stadium is a newer park that is nicely done but has no real unique characteristics that set it apart from other “no frill” parks except it is about the only new park with symmetrical outfield fences, 365’ to the corners, 400’ to center. The seats are all padded which is a nice feature when the games exceed 4 hours, like this one. The game started off being well played with both teams playing solid, fundamental baseball; get a runner on base, move him up with sacrifices, push a run across with aggressive base running, well placed hits, and productive outs. At the end of the third inning the ground crew came rushing out onto the field and started rolling out the tarp. The National Weather Service was predicting severe weather and potential lightning. They were right and just about the time the tarp was in place, it started raining, big time. We were very lucky because we were under an overhang and stayed nice and dry. The other folks went scrambling for cover. The rain fell, the sky flashed with some great lightning bolts and the heavens thundered for probably more than an hour. The rains slackened to a slight drizzle and the ground crew removed the tarp and the game restarted at 5:20.

The Cincinnati Reds thought the game was canceled because they went back to Cincy and were replaced by a Little League team dressed up in Reds uniforms. Dusty F. Baker, the “manager,” remained in St. Louis so he could practice making stupid managerial moves, not that he needs more practice by any means. He has perfected the art. The game went from a great one to a sad display of how not to play ball. Long story short is the final score was 12-4 in favor of the hometown Cards. There were 25 hits, at least 5 intentional walks, a bunch of unintentional walks and two errors. The game went on forever before the players and umpires conspired to end our misery. I think the funky white ball caps worn by both teams caused them to play like they looked; bush league.

Oh, well, on to Kansas City!