I found an anniversary card I’ve saved for years.  It makes me smile every time I see it.

Front of card

Message inside card

I suspect we had our last near-80º day of the season earlier this week (78º).  When November 1 arrived, the weather turned gray and cool, and it looks like it’s going to stay that way.  We had the furnace checked, the irrigation system turned off, and the pool winterized and covered a few days ago, so Ted and I decided it was time to put the lawn furniture away as well.  Ted had already cleaned out the storage shed and washed it down, inside and out, so it was ready for a seasonal change of contents.  Everything looks so bare now.  I guess I’ll start counting down the days until spring returns.

We always leave a few lawn chairs out all winter for firebowl seating and for the few days of 50- and 60-degree weather we get each month when it’s nice enough to sit outside in the afternoon.  Everything else is in storage.

We were planning to rake/blow leaves as well, but we had nearly two inches of rain in the past two days, so the leaves and ground were too wet for that job.  Now we have something to do when things dry out after the next two days of forecast rain.

Ted and I went to a movie at the mall today.  On our way in, I saw this dress.

Yes, that’s real Christmas garland around the hemline.

Even better!

Wings at the shoulder in the back, complete with twinkling lights.  Oooh!

 

Question:  Is it my style for Christmas?

Answer:  Definitely not.

While Ted and I were Christmas shopping today, a brief shower passed over and treated us to a double rainbow.

I love the centerpiece Kathy created for me, using my favorite flower pot, and the table runner Kari made is a perfect backdrop for it.  At this time of year, however, both look out of place (or out of time) on the table–too much like spring.  Ted and I went shopping and found some pretty fall things for our November table.

Tomorrow the pool crew is coming to winterize and cover our pool.  Tonight, the temperature was 60 degrees.  It was a perfect evening for our first firebowl night of the year.  We have a brand new firebowl (the old one wore out/burned out) and new plastic wine glasses (thanks, Thom and Katie), and we enjoyed it all–the pool lights, the fire, the wine, and–most of all–sharing the time together.

Ted has the pool lights on, the fire lit, and the wine poured.

Together–our favorite thing.

Today is National Chocolate Day!  According to the National Confectioners Association, there are actually 16 different made-up holidays for chocolate and more than one has been designated as National Chocolate Day, but October 28 is the most commonly cited day.  Have some chocolate and carpe diem!

This year, PBS partnered with libraries and bookstores to identify America’s favorite novel.  The 100 finalist novels were chosen in a national survey of 7,200 adult readers.  The list was very eclectic and included some surprising contenders and some surprising absentees.  For example, Margaret Mitchell made the top 100, but William Faulkner did not.  There were high-brow and low-brow favorites; contemporary novels to classics; an international selection of authors; gender and ethnic diversity; and a variety of genres.

Book lovers (including me) will tell you that it is very difficult to select a single favorite novel, but Bill Gardner, vice president of programming and development at PBS said, “We’re not trying to tell people what the greatest novel is, and does it really matter who wins?  We’re not doing a vote-you-off-the-island type of thing.”  The mission of the Great American Read, said Gardner, was to promote a positive conversation about books.

The 100 finalist novels were highlighted and discussed in an eight-part series of programs on PBS beginning on May 22.  The reveal of the top ten selections was made on October 23.  I’ve read nine of them (not The Lord of the Rings) and my personal favorite (if I may choose only one) would be Gone with the Wind, followed closely by Little Women and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Apparently, living in a valley (we have steep hills in front and in back of our house) protects us from the wind.  Our weather forecast for today included a wind advisory, warning us of wind gusts up to 40 mph.

 

This is what our anemometer recorded for the day.  Our peak wind gust was only 1 mph over the minimum advisory level of the sustained winds.

 

We had leaves blown down and Ted cleaned a lot of them out of the pool, but that happens in fall whether or not we have a wind advisory.  I hope we’re as well protected when a tornado comes our way!

There was a pretty sunset today and it was reflected in our pool.  In real life, the sky was pink like the reflection, not yellow, but my camera was apparently thinking more “sun” than “set” when it focused on the sky.

It’s the Hallowe’en season, so there’s a lot of seasonal candy on the store shelves, and a lot of costumes and haunted houses designed to make people say “Eek!”

My favorite “eek” this year comes from Mars, Inc. manufacturer of my year-round candy weakness, m&m’s®.  They made an apparently limited edition of “Ghoul’s Mix” m&m’s® for the 2018 Hallowe’en season.  I assume it’s a limited edition, because Kathy and Annette bought these m&m’s® at the Kirksville Wal-Mart, but I couldn’t find them anywhere in the St. Peters area.  Sensing m&m’s® distress in St. Peters, the girls sent Ted and me a trick or treat package of Ghoul’s Mix m&m’s®.

Eat them if you dare!  Na-ha-ha-ha!  (Evil laugh)

I scanned a few more photos tonight and, as usual, enjoyed the memories.  The kids were so little!  Ted and I were so young!  And, of course, our parents were still with us.

1978 was Kari’s first Christmas.

My mom and dad spent Christmas 1978 with us.

It’s March 1979.  Jeff and Kathy are climbing the tree in the front yard at our first house.  Tommy is standing safely on the ground.

April 1979.  We took the kids to the St. Louis Zoo at least once each year when they were little.  Only big brother Jeff’s feet can (barely) touch the ground.

Tommy, the birthday boy, is 3.  That means Jeff is 7, Kathy is 6, and Kari is almost 1.

In May 1979, we celebrated Kari’s first birthday in WI with our parents.  Ted’s mom and my dad both had May birthdays as well, and we celebrated my dad’s retirement from the U.S. Air Force on this visit.  Party on!

Do I need an appointment or may I just walk in?

 Author’s note:  As an adjective describing the kind of person who seeks a professional service without an appointment, walk-in should be a single hyphenated word and it definitely does not need that apostrophe!  Doesn’t anyone proofread signage before posting it????

Ted regularly waxes his car and mine, and helps Kari wax her car.  They found a mutually agreeable day for the job this week and spent some quality father-daughter time together.

Ted is probably one of a small minority of people (99% of whom are probably meteorologists) who notice and photograph clouds.  I’ve learned a lot about clouds from him over the years, and that knowledge has become deeply imbedded in my brain.  As a result, I’m surprised when I make a casual comment about incoming weather by looking at a cloud and my friends (not meteorologists) ask, “How can you tell?”  Isn’t it obvious?  I guess not, unless you spend time with a meteorologist.

Ted saw this interesting and unusual fair weather cloud on his way home earlier this week.  Naturally, he had to stop to take a picture.

When I was scanning old photos, I found one of Thom, showing how he always chewed his food with his fingers in his mouth.  This week, Katie sent me a photo of Sefton, side-by-side with that picture of Thom.  She captioned it “The apple doesn’t fall far . . . .”

Yes, Missouri will vote on legalizing marijuana in November.  Of course, the propositions are for medical use only, but Missouri is such a red state, it’s hard to believe the issue even made it to the ballot!  We might have to try baking a new kind of Christmas cookies.

Today’s weather was gorgeous, so Ted decided to spend some time in the pool this afternoon.

 

Here’s what a man of leisure looks like.

 

This might be the last good day of the swim season.  The next ten days look more like firebowl weather than pool weather.

 

I’m always sad at the end of the swimming season.  I love the warm (even hot) summer weather, but sitting around the firebowl sipping a glass of wine has its appeal too.

Today, Ted and I drove to Kirksville to visit with Kathy and Annette.  We started the day with a dense fog advisory.  This is how I-70 westbound and the surrounding countryside looked as we drove.

 

We had a great time with Kathy and Annette.  Kirksville was cool and rainy and, as we were approaching Kathy’s house for lunch, I found myself hoping she and Annette had decided to make baked potato soup for lunch.  What a happy surprise when we arrived and saw baked potato soup on the stove.  An apple crisp was heading for the oven to round out a perfect comfort meal for a day of dismal weather.  We all enjoyed the soup and apple crisp so much, we decided to have the same for dinner instead of going out to a restaurant.  It was a meal so nice, we had it twice.

Kathy and Annette have been working on remodeling their bathroom.  The house is vintage (sounds better than old), and some of the floor joists beneath the bathroom were rotted.  The girls ripped up the floor and replaced the rotten joists.  They previously replaced their shower stall with tile walls and put in a tank water heater.  Instead of storing 40 or more gallons of hot water, the tank heater heats water as it is used.  The house has no basement–only a crawl space–so the water heater is in the bathroom.  The tank heater takes up much less space than their old 40-gallon tank.  Below, Annette is standing on two of the new floor joists.

 

Here’s Annette in front of the tank water heater.  The girls are almost ready to begin replacing the bathroom floor.

 

We had a great day together and were sorry it had to end.  We took a group picture that looked fine on the camera, but it was actually blurred.  Oh well, we all know who we are and how much fun we had together.

 

Ted and I went to our motel with another dense fog advisory in effect.  It was a fall day filled with fun and book-ended with fog.

When you really need auto-correct.

 

This reminded me of a tractor-trailer truck I once saw.  The company name (which I forgot) filled the entire side of the trailer and included the word “Ohoi.”  Close, but not quite one of the 50 states.

Our first family computer was an Apple IIe–a 1982 family Christmas gift.  It’s 36 years later, and for the first time ever, I wrote code in the root directory to change my PC’s operating system.  I’ve always been told to stay out of the root directory.  This hasn’t been a problem because I have extremely limited knowledge of code.

Jeff set up my new PC (July 2018) with two operating systems, and I wanted to change the default start-up OS.  Jeff sent directions for me to get into the root directory and to make the necessary changes, and I did everything correctly until the end.  I couldn’t make it save the changes.  I gave Jeff a call, he told me what to do, I shut down the computer and re-booted it to make sure the changes took effect, and . . . everything works.

Obviously, the computer industry has little to fear from me, since I ultimately needed help to make the changes effective, but I feel powerful for even daring to get into the root directory and for making changes (very minor) at the operating system level.  Yea for my sense of accomplishment!

Purchase:  1 bushel of apples

Personnel needed:  1 person to operate the apple peeler/corer (Ted); 1 person to cook the apples to perfect chunky-style applesauce (me)

Equipment:  4 kettles of apples cooking on 4 burners; cookie sheets to cool applesauce while cooking more apples; freezer containers to store applesauce

Result:  Applesauce!

Ted and I went about 35 miles west to Warrenton’s Fall Festival today.  The weather was perfect–sunny and dry, with temperatures in the upper 70s.  Neither Ted nor I was overly interested in the festival as a whole, but there were two good bands we wanted to hear–one in the afternoon and one in the evening–and we thought it was a good day to sit outside, listen to music, and hang out with some country folks.

Butch Wax and the Hollywoods played 50s, 60s, and 70s pop music from 1:00-4:00 p.m. on the east end of Main Street.  They’ve been together a long time–well over 30 years, I think–and they play a lot of St. Louis venues.  Ted and I had never heard them before, but the word on the street said they’re good.  They were named one of the three top “Best of Rural Missouri” bands in the rural electric co-ops’ 10th annual survey.  Yep!  They’re playin’ up country in Warrenton.

A clue to the Warrenton culture might be the oversized bail bondsman’s ad on the left side of the stage.

If the bail bondsman’s bandstand sign struck a chord with you, Dan the Man had a booth on Main Street where I presume you could hire him, or at least get his business card.

This guy literally stood head and hips above the crowd.  He danced on stilts while Butch Wax et al played.  Yes, Warrenton’s got talent!

This little guy isn’t into rock ‘n’ roll, but he was happy for a long time making a pile of stones in the gutter.

 

When Butch Wax left the stage, Ted and I walked down Main Street to check out the booths, the food, and the car show.  There were a lot of vehicles on display, but two were my favorites.

Read the rear window.  Humorous Warrenton attitude present here.  See Dan the Man for your bail bond if neccessary.

Aaahhh, memories.  I went steady with David for two years in high school and he had a car just like this (even the same color)–except for the engine.  David had a factory-installed engine and a normal hood on his car.  

The bars along Main Street were open, and many had live music on the sidewalk for those not wanting to hear the headliners.

 

The evening show featured the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.  Some of the members have been replaced over their 50+ years, but the new guy was Bob Carpenter’s son, and the next newest had been with the band for 30 years.  The music was good and the people-watching was even better.  There were so many people smoking, I wondered if the few clouds overhead were atmospherically generated or a result of all the cigarettes around us.  A lady next to us kept her matches in her bra where they were handy for her chain-smoking habit.

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band performed on the west end of Main Street–right at the corner of City Hall and the jail.  Handy for Dan the Man, right?  I assume the people on the roof work at City Hall or at the jail or know someone who does.  They had a bird’s eye view of the concert.  Some of the prisoners peeked out of the windows before the music began, but that’s the last we saw of them.  I suspect they didn’t want their friends and neighbors to recognize them.

When you literally perform on the street, you get speed limit signs beside the stage.

 

I repeat, the weather was beautiful, both bands did a great job, and Ted and I had a wonderful time.  We can tell that summer is officially over tomorrow–it was dark before the concert started at 7:30, and we needed jackets for the cool evening.

Whew!  I found out today that I’m not the Lone Ranger of the Grammar Police Squad.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo differs from his boss, President Trump, when it comes to writing.   According to CNN, while President Trump tends to forego standard guidelines for punctuation and capitalization in his tweets, Pompeo has apparently “had it up to here” with improper comma usage among State Department staff.  As a result, two emails have been circulated among State Department staff in recent months with detailed instructions pertaining to the proper use commas.

According to the emails, Pompeo prefers the Chicago Manual of Style writing guidelines.  Personally, I prefer the American Psychological Association (APA) style because I think it’s far more straightforward than Chicago style, but I guess Mike likes a challenge.  Here are two excerpts from one of the staff memos–one for including commas and one for removing them.

 

Attention to writing detail might come with the Secretary of State job.  CNN alliteratively noted that Colin Powell “famously focused on font and font size,” and Condoleezza Rice was picky about margins and “cramming too much into the regulated length for memos.”  Maybe I should consider becoming Secretary of State.  I already have the grammar skills.

We had brunch this morning with Tom, Jo, and Andrea.  Andrea works seven twelve-hour days, then has seven days off.  We were fortunate this was her week off so that we could see her while we were visiting Tom and Jo.  We had a window booth at the restaurant, which provided some good people-watching while we ate and talked for two hours.  The window made a group photo impossible, however, unless all of us became shadows.

On one side of the table (without the window backlighting), we have Tom, Andrea, and Jo.

Ted and I sat on the other side of the table.

Was the food good?  I think Jo’s waffle says it all.

 

We had an uneventful trip home from Tom and Jo’s house.  There was some heavy rain as we approached the St. Louis area but, except for a little sprinkle, it was south and east of us.

We saw a cumulus cloud developing into a thundershower as we drove.  During a period of light rain, we could see both ends of a strong rainbow, but couldn’t photograph it from the car.

 

We stopped at a rest area that had a small park attached, complete with a bridge over a little creek.  It was so pretty, we went for a selfie.

These two people just spent an enjoyable week visiting with friends and family in WI and IL.  The selfies still need practice.  I included my extended arm as a reflection in my sunglasses.

We’ve had beautiful–even unusually warm–weather every day on this trip–until today.  We drove to St. Charles, IL under gray skies and through several rain showers to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Tom and Jo.

Lunch was ready when we arrived, and included what I’ll call a “heritage recipe.”  It was a perfect example of the discussion Donna, Nancy, and I had at lunch yesterday about the imprecise nature of our grandmothers’ recipes.  Hershey Bar Pie is one of Jo’s mom’s recipes and it includes a “5-cent Hershey bar” as one of the ingredients.  I remember 5-cent Hershey bars, but I have no idea how many ounces of 2018 melted chocolate equals a 1950s 5-cent bar.  Tom said he looked up images of 5-cent Hershey bars on Google and read the weight of the bar.  The pie was delicious!

The four of us spent the afternoon catching up on family news and telling family stories.  We have eight grandchildren and Tom and Jo have four, so there were a lot of good stories to tell and lots of memories to share.  Tom and Jo treated us to dinner at a restaurant recommended by a friend.  They had never been there before, but we decided to live on the edge and try it.  We all agreed that we’d enjoy a return visit any time.

L>R:  Tom, Jo, me, Ted

Today, Ted and I had lunch with my cousins, Donna and Nancy, and Donna’s husband, Jon.  We went to Pier 17 in Sheboygan for a delicious lunch, caught up on recent events in our families, and shared lots of good family stories.  I’ve almost had a Girl Cousin Reunion on this trip:  I saw Lara and Linda in Holmen, and now Donna and Nancy in Sheboygan.  Judi (Milwaukee) is cruising in South America, so I couldn’t get together with her this time.

We laughed a lot at lunch as we talked about how our grandmothers cooked with ingredients only–no measurements written down–making it difficult for us to replicate old family recipes.  I told Donna and Nancy how I cracked the secret of Vienna Torte.  They admitted they have not yet mastered their Grandma Drott’s Christmas ribbon cookie recipe, but their mother could make it perfectly.  Ted and Jon had little to contribute on this particular topic.

L>R:  Jon, Donna, Nancy, Ted, me.

After lunch, Ted and I had a very nice visit with Uncle Gibby.  He has bladder cancer and is living in a facility that provides the nursing care he needs to remain comfortable.

In my photo gallery at home, I have a picture of my great-grandpa, George Washington Dexheimer, sitting at a table with “Eddie.”  I’ve always heard the photo described as “Grandpa and Eddie,” but I never knew who Eddie was, so I asked Uncle Gibby.  He told me that Eddie was one of Great-grandpa’s four brothers, all of whom were born in Germany.  Eddie moved to one of the Dakotas and bought land under the Homestead Act.  He farmed the land until he died in an accident with a plow, after which his body was brought back to Ada, WI to be buried in the Dexheimer family plot.

L>R:  Ted, Uncle Gibby, me.

Next stop:  The Oostburg Bakery.  When Ted and I come to Wisconsin, we make sure to buy some hard rolls to take back to Missouri.  When we lived in Maryland, we shopped for hard rolls, but the grocers and bakers all thought we meant stale buns.  Unless you’re from Wisconsin, I can’t explain hard rolls (which are not hard) to you.  Ted and I now have hard rolls, some of my favorite Danish pastries, and some filled coffee cakes to take home and share with Kari.  A stop at the cheese factory in Gibbsville, just a few miles up the highway from Oostburg, provided us with some awesome Wisconsin cheese to take home as well.

The other side of the sidewalk sign says “I am in shape.  Round is a shape.”  There is a chalk drawing of a doughnut beneath the text.

We ended the day by playing sheephead and sharing dinner with Gary.  Ted won the pre-dinner game and I won the post-dinner game.  These were not high stakes games–together, we made 16 cents.  Gary won’t have to skip a meal to pay his debts to us.

We’re near Elkhart Lake.  Those are all Road America race pictures on the walls.  P.S. Ted does not have a good sheephead hand.

Smokey and the Bandit, Burt Reynolds’ most popular movie, is showing in theaters around the country for one week in remembrance of Burt.  Neither Ted nor I had ever seen the movie, and we’ll be traveling during the week it’s playing, so we invited Gary to see it with us.  I thoroughly enjoyed the show.  It probably holds the record for “longest chase scene,” since the entire movie is about Smokey (the police) chasing Bandit (Burt Reynolds) for transporting Coors beer from Texas to Georgia.  In 1977, Coors was only sold west of the Mississippi.

Bandit was well-known and popular, so people all along the five-state route used creative ways to detain the police.  That made it possible for Bandit (in his Trans Am) and Snowman, his partner in crime (in the 18-wheeler loaded with 400 cases of Coors beer) to meet the delivery deadline and collect the $80,000 fee.  That wasn’t much different from the kid who played hooky from high school for a day with help from what seemed like the entire city of Chicago in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

It was a PG-rated movie and good entertainment.

After lunch with the Spencer family, I was talking with Lara.  She said it meant a lot to Ruth and Ken that Ted and I made time to visit with them.  I told her that both of them have always been special to me.  She said the same was true of my mother for her.  In fact, Lara said, when she was pregnant with her first child, she and Jim had decided that, if it was a girl, they would name her Cassidy Vi for my mother.  Lara said she didn’t want “Violet” because Mom was never Violet; she was always Vi.  They had a boy and named him Jake, but I was deeply touched that Lara held my mother in such high regard.  Mom was Lara’s sponsor, and Lara always held a special place in Mom’s heart too.

This is Mom and her siblings–probably in the 1980s, judging by the eyewear.  L>R:  Mom, Gibby, Shirley, Ruth.

Ted and I met the Spencer gang at a local restaurant this morning.  All of us had afternoon plans, but we caught up with each other for several enjoyable hours over brunch, courtesy of Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ken.  The food was delicious, and the company was better.  I’m already looking forward to the next time we get together with this group.

Around the table L>R: Tim Bena, Ted, me, Dave Spencer, Bev Nelson, Ruth, Ken, Lara Hines, Jim Hines, Linda Bena.

 

When our group reluctantly parted, Ted and I headed across the state to our next destination:  Kiel, WI.  We’re farther north than St. Louis, and it’s evident in the landscape.  The trees are already changing to their fall colors in this area.

 

We had a beautiful drive on a warm, sunny day.  After dinner with Ted’s brother, Gary, the three of us spent some time coordinating dates for an October trip to Nebraska for all of us and time in Colorado for Ted and me.  Working around previous commitments Gary, Ted, and I had, we passed our information on to Jeff and La (CO) and to Mutzie (NE).  If their schedules can accommodate us, Ted and I will have a chance to spend time with Jeff, La, and Zaque in CO, and Ted, Gary, and Mutzie will have a sibling reunion in NE.  Ted can’t remember being with more than one sibling at a time since his mother’s funeral in October 2000, so we hope the dates will work out.

Ted and I spent the afternoon and evening with my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ken and took them out to dinner to celebrate their 63rd wedding anniversary.  Ruth told us they have been married longer than anyone else in their families.  It’s Ted’s and my goal to celebrate at least as many anniversaries as Ruth and Ken have.  There were lots of good stories and happy memories to share during the hours we spent with them.

During my senior year in college, I shared a house with five other women.  Four of us met each other in the dorm where we lived during our freshman and sophomore years; the other two were friends from outside the dorm.  The six of us had a blast!

I’ve seen Eileen and Leila several times over the years, and the three of us had a roommate reunion in Madison with Lin in 2014.  It was so much fun, we had another one today.  In the past year, Eileen “found” Carol and might have found Barb–we’re still waiting to hear if her message went to the right Barb.  Today’s lunch was even more fun than our 2014 get-together, so we decided to make this an annual event.  I hope next year, there will be six of us at the lunch table.

Fall 1968–dinner in our Orchard Street kitchen.  L>R:  Lin, Leila, Eileen, me.  Carol took the picture.  Aren’t we the healthy Dairyland girls–all drinking milk for dinner.

 

Christmas, 1968.  We put up a tree in the living room.  Look how happy we are to be together!  L>R:  Leila, Carol, Eileen, Lin.  It was my turn to take the picture.

 

June 1969–graduation day at the University of Wisconsin.  L>R:  Eileen, me, Kathy, Lin.  When Barb got married during our senior year, Kathy took her place in the house.  She was already a registered nurse, and didn’t attend UW.  Leila got married two days before graduation, so she wasn’t at the commencement ceremony.  (I got married five days after graduation.)  I don’t remember why Carol isn’t in the picture.

 

Zoom forward to September 2018–49 years after we graduated, and still having fun together.  Back row L>R:  Eileen, me, Carol.  Front row L>R:  Lin, Leila.

Ted and I drove to Madison, WI today.  There’s only one rest stop on I-39 between Bloomington, IL and the Illinois-Wisconsin state line, bu-u-u-t, . . . at that rest stop, there’s a playground.  Ted and I took a break and enjoyed the swings.  Everyone else at the rest stop drove in, parked, used the rest room, and drove out, so there was no one to take a picture of both of us in the two swings.  I went almost high enough to break the tension in the chains.  Whee!  Ted was more cautious.

 

We spent about ten minutes on the swings and felt great when we finished.  Surprisingly, all of our muscles seemed looser.  We discovered, however, that with these new-fangled sling swings, you can’t jump off the swing–you have to stop and remove yourself safely from the sling.  It was more fun to jump off the old-fashioned board swings.

The free outdoor summer concert season is winding down.  Ted and I made a return visit to Beale Street (our least favorite concert venue) in St. Charles tonight for our second-last concert.  The street is a boulevard, with tall plantings in the center.  Marquis Knox was playing and singing the blues at one end of the block, centered on the street.  With all the plantings and the light poles, it’s hard to see the band.  Even worse, the venue is like an outdoor bar scene where people come to meet each other, have some food and drink, and talk, talk, talk.  Because the band’s volume didn’t burst our eardrums, it was difficult to enjoy the music over the noise of the chattering crowd.  What we could hear was our #2 favorite concert of the season.  (#1 was Dogs of Society.)

Marquis Knox is the soloist (center) and the others in the band are his back-up.  He learned the blues from his grandma, and she taught him well.  We would like to hear him play again, so we checked his website.  He has a lot of dates scheduled in the St. Louis area, so we’re not the only ones who think he’s good with the blues.

 

It was a perfect evening to sit outside, listening to music.  The outdoor seating at the Beale Street restaurants was filled.

 

Here’s Ted, ready for some blues.

 

Unfortunately, most people seemed to have come to visit with each other, rather than to hear the band.  Look at all of them standing in our line of sight to the stage.  This is during the concert.

 

The people ahead of us came prepared to amuse themselves.  The wooden slats on the ground were rolled up in the orange case under the man’s chair.

 

Attach four legs and two support pieces to the unrolled slats.

 

Presto!  A table!

 

With a beer for each of them and their Ultra Pro Dice Tray, they were ready for the concert.  They rolled dice for the entire two hours.

 

The concert was scheduled for 6:00-8:00 p.m., and sunset was at 7:14 p.m. tonight.  Surprisingly there were no floodlights for the band.  They performed with only the streetlights to showcase them in the dark.

 

Here’s Beale Street after dark.  It’s a great entertainment complex (stores, restaurants, bars, residences, movie theater, hotels, etc.), but not a great concert venue.  After the concert, Ted and I had dinner in a restaurant in the complex.