First off, we would like to wish a happy anniversary today, to sister Jay and brother Carl.  We both wish you both many happy returns.  Anne and I also have our anniversary to celebrate today.  Today is our 29^thwedding anniversary.  Yesterday, we got the best anniversary present a couple could ask for, an unexpected meeting with old friends friends that we have not seen in a while.  I’m speaking of Dave and Jill, arguably the first friends that we made here in Saint Louis.

Anne and Dave worked together in the early eighties, at Environmental Science and Engineering.  We would all bike together on the weekends.  If I remember correctly Dave and Jill attended our first anniversary party.  Work moved them away to Massachusetts.  We visited them there right after the birth of their son, Sam.  Eventually, we lost track of each other.  They returned to Saint Louis and I remember bumping into each other in places like Fire and Ice in Kirkwood.  Saturday we bumped into them in the Compton Hill Water Tower.

The Compton Hill Water Tower is a nineteenth century water tower and was open to the public.  It was a water tower designed not to increase water pressure, but to moderate it.  Saint Louis’ huge piston driven water system of the time was creating tremendous hammer-shocks throughout the water system.  The Compton Hill Water Tower was just a larger form of the six inches of water pipe that is normally installed above a faucet.  Saint Louis still has three of only seven such water towers still remaining.  The other two towers look like columns and are on the north side.

The Compton Hill Water Tower was featured in the finale of the Jon Williams’ science fiction novel, Rift.  In the novel Saint Louis is destroyed by a category nine earthquake.  FEMA steps in and declares marshal law.  Forest Park is turned into a refugee camp and Busch stadium (the old one) is turned into a prison.  The climatic ending of the novel involves a face-off between the protagonists, holed up in the water tower, and a surrounding troop of Apache gunships.  Not to give away too much, but cyber security really is paramount.

After the water tower we met Dave and Jill again at the CityGarden.  This was Anne’s first time to view the park; we have to go back after dark.  We all decamped to Sasha’s Wine Bar in Clayton, for more good conversation.  I got to tell a joke that I had heard on NPR that morning: “Have you heard about the new reality TV show?  It’s called Republican Governors.”

Today’s header is a result of last Friday’s fun in the sun at Johnson’s Shut-Ins, but that is another story.  Did anyone notice that Anne is wearing the same halter top in the picture at the top of this post, from the first year of our marriage and also in today’s header? 

And what is it all about water towers and men??