respublica

Speaking of December...uh...October..

I am so ready for the time change which comes this weekend. It is currently 7:12 and it's still dark. It's dark in the early evening anyway, nature does what nature does, but oh for more light in the morning.

The weather today is disrespectful

It's early morning on Halloween (also Reformation) and the weather is dark and the temperatures are just above freezing. And it's windy. We're in a state of flux around here while we try to decide what to do about trick or treating on campus. So many of our seminary kids are quite young. Toddlers and pre-schoolers. This makes having them out in this weather debatable. So until things are decided there's this bit of truth:

St. Louis decided to dress as December for Halloween.

Raising the star

I have to say, yesterday was excellent timing for us to raise the Christmas star on top of Luther Tower. Today is cold and miserably wet with rain. Every year some of us climb up to the roof of the tower to crank up the star. It isn't turned on until after Thanksgiving, but it's preferable to do this on a fairly decent weather day. That climb is really something. There are three sections of circular, winding stairs and a pretty tight squeeze between the old stone walls. The last section begins where the bells are and the stairs are iron. That part is what gives many people pause. But, we did it! First Christmas item up and ready.

The view from up there is spectacular, you can see 360 degrees of St. Louis. This is a shot of the brand new Big Amoco sign which recently replaced the old, faded, BP sign which at some point replaced the original Amoco sign.

The main quad looks great and we could see that tree is getting huge, maybe too huge.

The first thing our student helpers, Geordie, George and Alarik had to do was tie on the rope lights. The star is on a crank system which can be raised or lowered easily.

Jacob and Gayle test the line before it goes up and then a watchful eye to see if it's going to do straight.

It worked perfectly

Then the climb down beginning with the iron stairs.

By the time we got to earth, our knees really felt the effort.

These have to go away

TV commercials are a fact of life, we either ignore them and use that time to get something to eat or use the bathroom. Or resume a game on the iPhone. But, one company's commercials just can't be ignored and they are part of every news, sports, regular programming all day and all night and I have to say, I just can't tolerate them. It's the Liberty Liberty Liberty gang. That jingle is the most aggravating.

I wonder how much business the Liberty company is getting after spending what must be a ton of money on shows and sports every day. They've annoyed us so much we automatically turn the sound down when the ad begins.

Strike zone unhappiness

It's the World Series and every pitch is overly important. It seems many on the Washington Nationals team are not happy with the pitch calls and are now wanting computerized balls and strike calls.

So what does Major League Baseball consider a strike?

"The strike zone is defined as the volume of space above home plate and between the batter's knees and the midpoint of their torso. Whether a pitch passes through the zone is decided by an umpire, who is generally positioned behind the catcher." Generally behind the catcher? Have you ever seen a game where the umpire wasn't at that point?

A question I have right off the bat is how is the torso defined? Shoulders to waist? Some spot lower than the shoulders? Are the letters on the uniform considered the high point?

Actually it might be interesting to see a game where balls and strikes were called by a computer. I'd bet it would open a new can of worms and probably have the game going longer. The computer or whatever tech gadget was used would probably have to be adjusted for each batter's height or stance.

Some umpires aren't against this, but they claim the pitches we see on tv aren't as accurate as what is really happening. It may be that one of these days this idea will be tried out in spring training or in the minor leagues, it's all about tech these days.

Here we go again

A ladder on SB 55 near Herculaneum.

Mattresses 107

Ladders 109

On top of this there seem to be crashes all over the area during this morning's rush time. Including one deer hit near Troy, Missouri. I'll confess that heading over to Collinsville for church yesterday I drove through extremely thick fog which was especially blinding on the Illinois side. While I carefully watched that I was at least inside my lane lines it suddenly occurred to me that this is the time of year when deer are jumping across highways and roads in early morning and at dusk. That made me head over to the middle lane and have to watch the sides of the road as well as trying to see straight ahead in the fog. I was relieved to get to the Collinsville exit.

Dale's says I'm a bit too paranoid, but following traffic reports as I do rather obsessively, I don't think he's correct. He's hit a deer several times over the years.

The first one he hit was on the country road leading into Venedy where we lived. He had Lizzie in the car with him and she was about 3 or 4 years old. After he got home and settled down a bit from the shock of the deer hit, he decided that was a good evening to read her the book, Bambi.

A beautiful surprise in the mail

Most of Saturday I spent with a Comfort Dog regional conference being held here at Concordia Seminary. It was a pretty miserable weather day for dogs, rain and more rain which meant they couldn't get out to have some fun in the quad after lunch as they had in previous years. It is always amazing to be in a room with those beautiful dogs. Before lunch the regional director pulled a chair into the middle of the room and made me go sit in it and then he asked all the dogs to come circle around me in honor of, and comfort for, our Ferdie who died a month ago. It was a tearful moment.

But then when I got home I saw a package which had come from one of our former students now in Wisconsin, who worked on landscape with us when he was here. Here is what was in the package.

This is beautiful enough, but even more in his letter that accompanied it. He wrote: "For decades a tall old Basswood tree overlooked the chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus on the seminary campus. In 2013 the tree needed to be cut down for the safety of students. As part of the grounds crew I helped cut it down but wanted to preserve a bit of its history by making a cross cut from one of its limbs. I've saved this slab of wood since then for a special purpose. Since you two have been an inspiration to me in life and ministry and since my time with you at the seminary meant so much, I pray that the memory of our beloved Ferdie will last on with the rich history of the Sem, and the warmth of your home and office."

Dale and I both cried. We will treasure this as we do the memory of our most loved dog.

These constant updates

It's just hard to believe or even tolerate all the updates for computers and devices like phones and ipads. What bugs me the most is the updates which show up on my laptop. The update for could be anything and something or other wants to update every day. They even show up when I go to turn off the machine for the night. I have a choice of 'update and shut down'. Maybe I don't want all those updates. Not everything is for safety and a lot of it, especially for phones, will suck up more of my available space.

Collinsville shows up in the news

This past week two stories showed up with Collinsville at the center.

The first came from The Onion, a satirical website and took on President Trump's use of the word lynching. He said what the democrats were doing to him as a modern day lynching...or something to that effect. The Onion then wrote: "Acknowledging the hurt he had caused, President Donald Trump apologized Tuesday for describing the House impeachment inquiry as a “lynching,” saying he had been unaware of the term’s association with the 1918 murder of Robert Prager, a German American immigrant killed by an angry mob. “I realize now my remark was insensitive, and insulting to the memory of Mr. Prager and those impacted by his tragic death,” said the president, who asked the American people to forgive him, emphasizing how disturbed he had been when a member of his staff told him how Prager had been singled out and killed by coal miners in Illinois during a wartime wave of anti-German sentiment."

The Onion is satirical remember, Trump was not told of this most likely.

This actually did happen and for most of its history city hall has kept the ancient jail cell in the basement of that building. I got to see it some years ago but I don't know if it was demolished during recent renovations. I took a picture of it back then but have no idea where it might be.

The second Collinsville story is one I have never heard told. "Richard Albert Lauchli of Collinsville, Illinois, was an arms dealer who had supplied Fidel in the late 1950's. Richard Lauchli was co-founder of the Minutemen in the St. Louis, Missouri, area until September 1962, when he parted company with Minutemen co-founder Robert DePugh. CIA Office of Security traces on him were heavily deleted. The Minutemen was organized in June 1960 by right-wing paramilitarists whose goal was to become a partisan guerrilla force after the Soviets took over the United States."

This picture is of federal authorities digging up his Collinsville property and finding quite the arms cache, weapons, grenades and rocket launchers. I am still surprised I've never heard this.

Scooter litter

Earlier this month I wrote about the electric scooters which have become as common as sparrows these days. They end up being left by people who rent them in all kinds of odd places. Last night we came across one on the campus and it's still here this morning. We really doubt it was left there by a seminary person so the question is who left it and why here? Did it run out of current?