Persephone, a Greek goddess and Daughter of Zeus, was betrothed to Hades by her father. Hades decided to skip the whole wooing thing and simply abducted her down to his underworld. Persephone’s mom, the goddess of the harvest, did not take kindly to this shotgun marriage and made her displeasure felt. Zeus was forced to relent and entreated Hades to release Persephone, but by this time she had grown rather fond of her king of the underworld and rather liked being his queen. Still, she missed seeing her mother. Before she left Hades, she chose to eat seven of eleven pomegranate seeds offered her. These seven seeds represent the seven months of the growing season, the remaining four represent winter’s months. There were only eleven months in the year back then. Legend has it that Persephone spends seven months of the year above ground and four months underground with Hades. Such was how the Greeks explained the seasons. Pomegranate seeds have lost some of their potency in the intervening years and Anne could only get her hands on six of them. Consequently, her escape from the Lou is scheduled to last only six weeks. Have no fear though, I am sure that even after six weeks, it will still be hotter than Hades here in Saint Louis.

Friday, Anne’s first day on the road, had her, Jay and Carl driving to Jeff City, TN. There they met Rey, Jay and Carl’s son. Rey is working for a minor league baseball club called the Smokies, but since the Smokies are on the road they went to go see another neighboring team play, the Greenville Astros. It happened to be teacher appreciation night there and Anne was able to get in free, on the strength of her substitute teacher free lunch card. Saturday, they all head to Knoxville, dinner and Shakespeare in the square.