Postcards from Mid-MO
by chuckofish
Our quick trip to Mid-Missouri–although the drive there was in a rainy/snowy mix all the way–was short but super fun.
We went to the state capitol, Jefferson City, which looks like a movie set of a small town.
We toured the capitol,
which was deserted on Saturday. We wandered around and saw our favorite murals.
Some nice guy unlocked the House lounge so we could see the Thomas Hart Benton murals.
Daughter #1 used her secret code to get us into the Supreme Court building and we checked out her office.
It was much nicer than she had led us to believe. I was glad to see that my favorite elephant planter had found a nice home there.
I was also happy to see that the 10 Commandments are still outside.
And also these guys.
It was a rather cold and bleak midwinter day.
But the sun came out and it cleared up around three o’clock. We took the OM back to daughter #1’s apartment to chillax (nap) and then we headed into bustling Columbia to check out a nice shop and the wine bar.
When we finally packed up and made our way home, daughter #1 made pesto and we watched those favorite Simpsons episodes I wrote about last week. We watched some Olympics and then turned in around 9:30 pm–par for the course.
We headed home on Sunday morning.
I finished re-reading Dead Man’s Walk by Larry McMurtry–not as good certainly as Lonesome Dove, but a good adventure story which held my interest. Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae fighting off hostile Indians is quite diverting in 2018 and I may read more in that genre. I need diversion.
Also diverting are the wee babes who came over on Sunday night. The wee laddie was a little under the weather with a cough and runny nose,
Pappy has a grip on the wee laddie.
but that didn’t slow him down much. He reunited with his old friends the handles on the highboy.
Who said, “The vandals took the handles”?
Little Lottie was on the go as well.
They chased each other around the dining room and under the table. They ate meatloaf. We listened to their favorite song–“In the Bleak Midwinter”–such nascent Episcopalians.
Good times. Now we’re off to the salt mine again. Have a good week!
Here’s a little 
I am pretty excited to see the old river town. I have not been there since I accompanied daughter #2 and her fourth grade class on a field trip to Jefferson City back in the day.
Jefferson City is on the northern edge of the Ozark Plateau on the southern side of the Missouri River in a region known as Mid-Missouri. The Jeff City website proudly announces that Jefferson City was chosen by Rand McNally as “America’s Most Beautiful Small Town!” However, it does not say when that was. [I searched around the internet and it was 2013!]
Miss Lottie slept on my shoulder after arriving, but perked right up once she awakened. She is a speed demon on all fours and can crawl the circuit of our first floor in under a minute.
The wee laddie can take up to six steps on his own and is swiftly gaining his sea legs.
I saw something online about this emotional-support peacock and I thought it was a joke! Imagine my surprise reading 
There is no pick-me-up like laughing babies.
The Ethical Society of St. Louis was organized in 1886 under the leadership of Walter L. Sheldon. Meetings, services and Sunday School were conducted in the Museum of Fine Arts at Nineteenth and Locust streets, where social and settlement work projects were also instituted. Under Sheldon’s direction the Self-Culture Hall Association came into being. (“Self-Culture”?) After his death, members of the Ethical Society erected the Sheldon Memorial in his name in 1912 and it served as the society’s meeting place until the move to the new Mid-Century Modern structure. In its heyday speakers such as Margaret Mead, Thurgood Marshall, R. Buckminster Fuller, Norman Cousins and Martha Gellhorn spoke from its stage and the St. Louis Chapter of the League of Women Voters was founded in The Sheldon’s Green Room. The Sheldon is now a concert venue and art gallery.
Today the Ethical Society, located in an upscale neighborhood in west county, offers “Sunday School” and nursery school for children and adult education classes on various topics including a book of the month club, chorus, discussion on current events, ethical circles, ethical mindfulness meditation and other discussion groups. A Humanist congregation, they “affirm human dignity, celebrate reason, and work together for social change.” It is a “place where people come together to explore the biggest questions of life without reference to scripture, religion, or God.”
I went to church on Sunday and read the Prayers of the People. The temperature got up to 63-degrees (not a record) and everyone in town was out and about. It smelled like spring! The old January Thaw.
And here’s a song from ol’ Tom Petty that I like:
dual personalities 