We attended a gathering this morning, in Millennium Park, Creve Coeur. There we met with Ron and DJ. It was a modest gathering, with just the four of us. We hadn’t seen each other in about a year, last meeting for Don’s memorial services. Dorothy brought some of her latest quilts to showoff and Ron drove his Model A. We talked for over two hours. Anne is now hoarse from speaking so much. It was great seeing them both again and this is something that we should do again.

Millennium Park was founded on the grounds of the old Tappmeyer farm. The farm was first homesteaded when this part of Saint Louis still rural. Back then the city was almost fifteen miles away. Their house, with its Victorian Italianate architecture was built in 1880 and has only recently been moved from nearby onto the park’s grounds. For over a hundred years, four generations of the Tappmeyer family worked this farm. Although little more than oasis from the past, it was still a going concern thirty years ago when I worked in Creve Coeur. Even then the area had been almost completely overtaken by suburban sprawl.

I think that the four of us were reasonably safety conscious. We spread-out along a ten-foot picnic table and wore masks around other people. There were other parties around, some quite large, larger than what is allowed by local ordnance, but we never interacted with them. The morning paper reported that yesterday Missouri reported it largest single day number of new Coronavirus cases. Most of these new cases are coming from outstate, outside the Saint Louis and Kansas City metro areas. There people still act as if the pandemic can’t come into their small towns and observe no safety precautions, even though it is already there.