respublica

Balanced Diet

Facebook has a page named, Vintage St. Louis which posts great old photos from the city's past. Yesterday they put up an old newspaper ad for White Castle in which a beauty contest winner made the claim-"Miss Georgette Norris recommends balanced diet of White Castle Hamburgers."

One a year or so I get a sack of White Castles because for some reason they hit the spot like nothing else. But I'd probably not consider them a balanced diet.

Forest Park Flags of Valor

5 years ago a St. Louis man, Rick Randall, with the help of a few hundred of his friends and acquaintances, placed flags in Forest Park for each person who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks. The sea of almost 3000 flags on Art Hill was a breath taking sight. This year, on the 15th anniversary of 9-11, an organization called America's Heartland Remembers will fill Art Hill with almost 7000 flags, one for each military person who died fighting the war on terror since then. The flags will be in place from September 6-11 and each will have a name. I can only imagine what this will look like.

Here is a photo from the tenth anniversary flags in Forest Park.

Frying in the state fairs

It wasn't enough that state fairs created the fried Twinkies, fried Oreos, fried lots of stuff, even fried bubble gum, but this year the Texas state fair offered Fried Jello which actually won the Most Creative award.

A classic cherry-flavored Jell-O in a panko-crusted breading is flash-fried to perfection and then dusted with powdered sugar. Prepared with a tasty topping of whipped cream and a cherry garnish.

Battery style

Are double A batteries for things like remote controls slightly different than the usual double A's? It looks like the ones in our remote cable tv remote control are electronic AA batteries. When it looked like our remote needed new batteries last night I put in the normal duracel AA's and they did nothing. No red light flashed.

Last winter our thermostat stopped working and it turned out the batteries were dead and that device needed the electronic ones which our maintenance people had and replaced. But before turning to them I had gone out and tried to find these on my own with no luck. Who does sell AA's for electronics? Maybe Radio Shack if they're still in business? Or Best Buy?

A political photo which makes you think...What?

You look at this picture of Lyndon B. Johnson and his family watching the 1968 Democratic Convention proceedings on TV and wonder how they ever agreed to have it taken much less published. This may be one of those pictures which was never meant to see the public light of day but it's fascinating. I just keep looking and looking at it.

I have no idea who took it, probably the White House official photographer or maybe another family member. At that time LBJ had decided not to run for re-election after living through the chaos of the Vietnam and peace protests but he was probably interested in just who the candidate for the dems would be. It was Hubert Humphrey and Nixon was the GOP candidate year and eventually won.

A hot day for soccer

Yesterday afternoon Christian's 5th grade soccer team had a game at Francis R. Slay Park just off McCausland. It was very hot, temperatures hitting 96 officially, but higher in that hot sun. This particular park is named after the current mayor's father and is a space squeezed into an industrial area of sorts. I pass this place a lot and have often wondered who used it and how it came that such an odd spot was named for a Slay.

Anyway, the game went on as did games before and after Christian's. It seemed more like a beach without a lake what with all the umbrellas used to keep the heat off.

Here's Christian. At one point he got hit in the face by a kicked ball and that hurt.

Surrounding this park and behind the playground are huge orange steel things which must have something to do with power maybe? Behind them is a huge electrical tower. Very odd.

On the other side of the field is a roadway trestle, an old trestle.

In any event, it was really hot.

 

Maybe someone else needs to do the cooking

This story popped up and you have to wonder if the woman in the center of it will be forbidden to do anymore cooking. Confession time, I'm paranoid about food poisoning, I obsess over temperature, how long something has sat out, how old are the leftovers. As soon as we're finished eating, I am quickly getting what's left in the fridge. Two days in there is long enough before it's tossed. So this story is my worst nightmare.

"A family in the northern province of Tekirdağ is once again recovering from food poisoning, after a dinner party they threw to show gratitude to God for helping them get over their earlier illness not only made them sick, but their guests as well."

25 Members of this extended family spent a week in the hospital with food poisoning after the first dinner.  Then: "Upon returning home they decided to hold a “gratitude dinner” with their neighbors for recovering their health, as well to get over the negative incident they had experienced. They sacrificed an animal to God and invited their neighbors over for dinner. 

However, the family started to suffer from the same symptoms, as did the neighbors who attended the dinner. 

A total of 25 people were hospitalized for food poisoning, 21 of whom were discharged from the hospital after receiving treatment."

The woman of the family who had done the cooking both times said, "that she would be more careful about preserving food. She also said they had become more selective of their food after the incidents."

For sure. And, maybe someone else should take over the duty.

 

Can the Cubs win it all?

The season the Cubs are having is mind-boggling. All they do is win, which is crazy considering their history. At the moment they are 14 games ahead in their division, the Cardinals in second with no real hope of ever catching them. Their record today is 82-45. They're breezing, man are they zipping through the season.

But as often happens, the playoffs bring a different mindset. Each game means everything and players can lose that looseness that comes from having fun winning. Everyone in the playoffs begins even-0-0. Actually, I'd get a kick out of seeing the Cubs in the World Series, but only time will tell if they can keep on winning.

I grew up in Chicago, but have always been a White Sox fan, but this year I'd love to see the city get another championship.

Aisle roadblocks

I'm telling you it's getting harder and harder to get down the aisles in most Schnucks stores. That company is having its issues with unions and not for profit groups after they outsourced their warehouse and then put an end to allowing girl scouts sell cookies and the Salvation Army collect money in their kettles at Christmas.

But boy they make it hard to shop normally. At one time Schnucks stocked shelves over night, but since they stopped that, there are stockers with carts and big boxes blocking most aisles all the time. Today there was only one aisle that was free and that was the one that had the odd stuff like distilled water and shoelaces. Some aisles allowed one shopper at a time to squeeze through, others the boxes and stocker left no space.

And, with a few exceptions, the men doing the stocking act like they don't notice anyone trying to get a product or get through. I just don't get this.

Here's one lane this morning.

There is much more stuff and carts in front of all those boxes which extend to the check out area, over half the right side of this aisle was blocked. There was no one working it at this point, I guess he went back for more, so I was able to get to the canned nuts.

A night at Ballpark Village

Last night we went to the Cardinals game and sat with a group in Ballpark Village. The view of the field from this area is great and where we were, Rooftop 2, food and drink was included in the ticket price. That's a perk. When we went to this same spot two years ago, my favorite part of the experience was listening to the radio play by play which is piped in. The same was true last night. You get pieces of information about the game and players which helps follow along. Also, two years ago there was no excruciationingly loud music playing between innings unlike in the actual stadium which means we could actually carry on a conversation.

But this year, last night, Ballpark Village included terribly loud music between innings and to me, this is the one negative about going to these games. I'm not sure why they do this, probably all teams do this, but it is more irritating than exciting.