In the reading I’ve done over the past several months, I’ve found some ideas that I found very thought-provoking. The first three are rather bleak; the last three are more positive.

This quotation is taken from FDR’s January 1937 Second Inaugural Address during the Dust Bowl years:

I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. . . . The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

In 2022, Louisiana had the highest state poverty level at 18.2 percent and our national poverty rate was 11.5 percent. We still have a long way to go to properly care for “those who have too little,” even while the wealthiest people become increasingly wealthy and legislators look for ways to decrease poverty-directed support programs such as Head Start, free school lunches, Medicaid, SNAP qualifications, etc.

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This paragraph comes from a Jodi Picoult book. I don’t remember which one, but I think it might have been Great Small Things.

Start with the sentence The unborn baby is a person. Replace the words unborn baby with the words Immigrant. African-American. Trans woman. Jew. Muslim.

Jodi Picoult

Ted and I have traveled in 36 countries and have been in all 50 of the United States. While each destination is unique, the one thing we have found that they all have in common is that people are the same wherever we go. Every individual is a person with whom we have more commonalities than differences.

This was made very clear to me when I worked with one of my professors as a graduate assistant. He was involved in a project to develop community schools in the poorest areas of St. Louis City. At those meetings, I heard people say that living in a poor neighborhood (most would call this area a ghetto) was an advantage because you could afford to buy a home. Combined with that, they wished their neighbors would keep their homes and yards neat so the neighborhood would look nicer. Parents were adamant that they didn’t want their teenage sons to be killed by or because of drugs, and they prayed their daughters would not become pregnant in high school. These values definitely align with those in the most expensive neighborhoods.

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In Percival Everett’s 2024 book, James, there is a paragraph where James discusses truth and lies. Pay attention to the last sentence.

, , , “But dey was stealin’ from dem folk. Tellin’ lies lak dey was. He weren’t neber no pirate.”

“Yes, but them people liked it, Jim. Did you see their faces? They had to know them was lies, but they wanted to believe. What do you make of that?”

“Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scares ’em.”

Percivall Everett in his book “James.”

Yes, we all do that. Sometimes it doesn’t matter; sometimes it matters a lot.

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In her 1992 poem, “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver says:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

I’ve never thought of my life as wild, but I love the way Oliver makes me feel like my life can make a difference and that I should not waste it.

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Gilbert K. Chesterton makes the same point.

The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

I think the majority of us feel there is nothing outstandingly special or important about our everyday lives, but Chesterton feels differently about us. When I think about it, he’s absolutely right.

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Finally, just to simplify your literacy life, I’ll close with the words of John Gardener.

There are only two plots in all of literature: (1) A person goes on a journey; and (2) A stranger comes to town.

John Gardener

Now I’m wondering if our lives have only those same two plots. My journey through life has brought me much–love, family, friends, happiness, sadness, education, fun, skills, experiences, and so much more.

The strangers I’ve met have all been interesting in one way or another–sometimes positively, sometimes negatively. Some of them have been important to me for a relatively short period of time; others are lifelong friends. Nearly all of them have added to my experience and to my life’s journey.

I think Gardener is right: our lives and our stories are shaped by those two plots.

I have some wonderful friends, and I’m glad we express our feelings for each other. Recent friendship messages have warmed my heart.

Liz and I met at work and became friends in the middle 1990s. Our friendship has become more meaningful over the years because we know that we can trust each other with our deepest feelings and opinions and receive judgment-free support in return. As co-workers, we had adjoining offices, and because we worked in the same division, we often attended the same conferences at the Lake of the Ozarks–a three-hour drive away. We always looked forward to the drive time together because it was an uninterrupted block of three hours in each direction when we could share laughter, troubles, and everything in between. At Liz’s retirement party, I was talking with one of her friends and the lightbulb came on for her. She said, “Oh! You’re Liz’s Lake friend!” This is Liz and me.

Last September, I was able to see my friend, Eileen. We had adjoining dorm rooms during our freshman year in college and have been BFFs since then. I faint at the sight of blood, but Eileen, a nursing student, convinced me to give blood at a campus blood drive. I did it, and when I got back to the dorm, I knocked on Eileen’s door. When she opened the door, I told her I had given blood without fainting–and fainted at her feet! Does that make us blood sisters? After our September 2024 visit–55 years later–Eileen sent me this message. (Note: we both look much younger than these ladies.)

This sentiment describes me and these two friends–even though none of us has ever been in legal trouble.

Mike and Mary Jane like history and so do Ted and I, so we had an “historic” day together. We met for lunch at Blueberry Hill, a St. Louis landmark restaurant and music club that opened in 1972.

Blueberry Hill has rooms for eating, for parties, and for weekly live musical performances. One of the rooms is named the Elvis Room; another is named the Duck Room in honor of Chuck Berry’s duck walk. Chuck Berry, the first person inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, inaugurated the Duck Room and played 209 consecutive monthly concerts there–doing his duck walk, of course. Many famous musicians have played at Blueberry Hill, and the walls have hundreds of framed pictures of the owner with each of them, as well as with four U.S. presidents.

The owner of Blueberry Hill started collecting things as a child and displays his collections in (again) hundreds of showcases throughout the building. His collections feature every kind of pop culture memorabilia imaginable, including Howdy Doody, the Simpsons, Chuck Berry, Star Wars, jukeboxes, lunch boxes, toys, and more.

Today, the four of us came to Blueberry Hill for lunch. We plan to come back on another day to explore the restaurant’s museum-like rooms and displays. You can’t always get a level photo with a selfie, but Mike managed to fit all of us in his picture.

These are the walls in one of the restaurant’s rooms.

Here’s a wall in the room where we were seated. In case you missed it, I added an arrow to the picture of Elvis for your convenience. 🙂

The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors people from the St. Louis area who were either born here or who spent their formative or creative years here. The more than 170 honorees are from all walks of life and areas of achievement and have made major contributions to the city’s cultural heritage. The Walk of Fame sidewalk passes Blueberry Hill, so we saw some of the stars as we entered and left the restaurant. Below are stars for Chuck Berry (musician), Bob Costas (sportscaster), and Stan Musial (baseball player).

Our primary destination today was the Missouri History Museum, housed in the original 1913 Jefferson Memorial building. The memorial was constructed with proceeds from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair and stands at what was the main entrance to the fair. This was the first national monument to Jefferson. (Why would St. Louis build the first monument to Jefferson? Think Louisiana Purchase.)

A replica of Charles Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis airplane hangs over the atrium area. The original airplane is housed in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. and is one of that museum’s most popular attractions.

Our main interest at the museum today was the updated 1803 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, commonly referred to as the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair exhibit. (The Exposition wasn’t finished in time for its scheduled 1903 opening.) The fair was held from April 30-December 1, 1904. The model of the fairgrounds in the photo below is built on a 1:400 scale. The fairgrounds covered 1,200 acres of the present-day 1,300-acre area of Forest Park, with the Palace of Agriculture alone covering approximately 20 acres. The fair featured over 1,500 buildings connected by 75 miles of roads and walkways. Over 19 million people attended the event.

Many of the fair exhibits focused on themes of racism and imperialism. This 2024 update of the museum’s exhibit includes information about those themes, rather than “sweeping them under the rug” and focusing only on the entertainment, new consumer goods, and architecture featured at the fair.

Here are some statistics about the 1904 World’s Fair.

There have been many claims that the ice cream cone was invented at the 1904 World’s Fair, but that’s not true. Several places claim that invention in the late 1800s, but the 1904 World’s Fair greatly contributed to the popularity of the ice cream cone.

Ted and I saw a wall like this in North Dakota. Just as in North Dakota, these stories and comments were fun to read.

So what makes St. Louis unforgettable? Read on to discover four writers’ opinions.

History can be fun. We all had a great time enjoying Blueberry Hill, a bit of the St. Louis Walk of Fame, and the Missouri History Museum.

Ted has been in a clean-up mood and has gone through all kinds of things in our storage room, including old photos. He found these two, and the memories they brought us were so-o-o-o good.

Kyra looks like she’s about three years old in this picture. I sent her a copy of the photo and she mentioned that she has some strange-looking bangs. I think it’s a rite of passage for toddlers to cut hair. Hopefully, they don’t run with the scissors.

I think this picture was taken in 1995. Ted and I took Kathy and Kari on a road trip that included Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in Michigan.

I don’t know where the other photos of that trip are, but maybe Ted will find them. I found these images online for any of my readers who have not been to Sleeping Bear. The lake is 450 feet below this sand dune. Look at the tiny people on the dune for a perspective of its size. The girls and I went down to swim in the lake.

This is how we went down to the lake. If you take long steps, the drop is so steep that each forward step + gravity = a lot of distance downward. The airborne time gives a sensation of flying, so getting to the lakeshore was a blast. Climbing back to the top was harder, although we saw some cross-country teams running up the dune for practice. I know we went other places on this trip, but Sleeping Bear is the only one I remember.