Tag Archives: Maplewood-Richmond Heights

Signs of Spring

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Crocuses

Thursday night, Anne and I went to go see the Maplewood High School production of “Steel Magnolias”. This play is about the bonds between a group of Louisiana women, and is set in a hair salon. It was written by Robert Harling, and the story was based on his sister’s death. The title suggests female characters that are as delicate as magnolia flowers, yet as tough as steel. The play was nice. I had never seen this story before. It always seemed a little too girly. There were a few opening night jitters, but the cast and crew pulled it off fine. I must admit that I fell victim, to an attack of “eye allergies” towards its end. You girls know what I mean, so please pass the tissues.

In the movie “Grease” Principal McGee of Rydell High, began each school day’s morning announcements, with the ringing of chimes, “bing, bong, bing”. She then went on to give her daily announcements with unintended humor. That was theater, but sometimes real life is also funny. Maplewood’s morning announcements, has the principal closes with the exhortation, “Hats off, pants up, love yourself.” The first two phrases pertain to the school dress code. No hats are to be worn, and the sagging of pants is not permitted. The third phrase is encouraging self-respect, and not self-love. If you can remember back to high school, no exhorting was ever required for that act. If this doesn’t keep RegenAxe banned at Maplewood, I don’t know what will.

I think that I know the real reason why high school culture is so pervasive throughout American culture. “American Graffiti” is at the summit in the film genre, but there is a mountain of other works available as supporting cast. It is because high school combines both the banal and the sublime. This dichotomy drives straight to the heart of our culture, Jersey Shore versus Carnegie Hall. Each has its place in high school, they seem to coexist under the same roof.

Pictured with this post are crocuses, heralds of Spring. Also pictured are magnolia buds. Both species are early Spring bloomers. Blooming so early in the season requires a certain hardiness, a certain amount of steel. A few weeks from now, any good wind will litter the ground with magnolia petals, but here in Saint Louis, the month of March, will be the belle ball for all magnolias, both for the delicate and steel varieties.

Star Magnolia Buds

Maplewood Soul Food Supper 2012

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New MRH-HS Commons

Anne and I went to the annual Soul Food Supper on Tuesday night at the Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School. This is the school district’s regular celebratory dinner party for Black History Month. The menu consisted of fried chicken, collard greens, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, corn bread and pie, this is a menu that may not be totally good for you, but it is certainly tastes good.

Before we could even go into the cafeteria, for the supper, I had to checkout the high school’s new commons. The first photograph with this post, attempts to capture an overview of the commons area. When Dan and Dave went to this school, this area was a squalid little parking lot. With the second photo, I had some fun with a couple of the lawn artworks. Blue is short for the Blue Devils, the name for the high school’s teams. Retiring superintendent, Dr. Linda Henke‘s administration has never been very comfortable about devil worship. 😉

Blue

The Soul Food Supper seemed at times like a revival meeting. After the MRH Jazz Band finished their intro set, the evening’s program proper commenced. Leading off was Curtis Finch, an American Idol contestant. He had made it into the top sixty of that contest. He sang the Negro National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. We all stood for his song. Calyn Brantley McNeal made a presentation about her father, a Major with the Tuskegee airmen, of WW II fame, the so-called Red Tails. Things really got moving, when the Word of God Christian Mass Choir took the stage. Finally, the audience rose again and we all sang together, “We Shall Overcome”.

Politics was part of the supper’s interstitial conversation. Missouri is losing a US Representative and this has cast redistricting into chaos. Drawing the new map is now in the hands of the courts. The paper that morning, announced that our representative, who is slated to lose his seat, had filed for the only other safely Democratic seat in the Saint Louis area. He would run against the other Democratic congressman in the Saint Louis area. At the supper, our longtime friend, Gina Mitten, announced that she had filed for State Representative. She filed for the neighboring district to ours, but since none of this gerrymandering is as yet cast in stone, you never know how things will end up.

Storms passed through the other night, almost a year to the day of our own storm damage. Here is a link to last years storm photos. This year, the deadly and damaging winds passed to the south of us. Unfortunately, like flowers blooming and birds singing these horrible storms are also harbingers of spring.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

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Swing Low, Sweet Chariot by John McCrady, 1937

“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is a historic African-American spiritual. It was first written by Wallis Willis, a Choctaw freedman in the old Indian Territory, sometime before 1862. He was inspired by the Red River, which reminded him of the Jordan River and of the Prophet Elijah’s being taken to heaven by a chariot (2 Kings 2:11). McCrady’s painting shows mourners hovering over a deathbed visible through the open door of a cabin, while angels descend to take a newly departed soul to heaven in a chariot. The painting is full of rural and spiritual imagery. The song, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”, is sung in choral below.

Anne and I attended the soul food supper at the MRH high school. This is the school districts traditional celebration at the close of Black History Month. In this context the choice of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” seemed appropriate to the season. On a more personal note, Anne’s Aunt Fran passed away last week. So the painting has a personal connection too.

Fran never stuck me as a particularly religious person, but I wouldn’t categorize myself as one either. I found her to be a kind, loving and caring person and if these aren’t religious values, then I don’t what is. My interjection of religious themes is not to be construed as a form of proselytizing. It is just that when the big themes arise, the life and death themes, I find it easier to fall back upon religious tradition. It offers a set of Arthur Murray steps for life to follow.

Fran made our wedding cake. I wish that I could have enjoyed it more than I did at the time. My problem was with the ceremonial feeding of the groom. I must admit that I started it, but Anne surely retaliated. I wonder if she would have been so exuberant then, if she could have seen her husband now. I should have manned up, instead I asked for a glass of water. Fran was rightly horrified. She taught home economics, don’t you know. In retrospect, I blame the server and not the cook. No tip for her! Fran also created an anniversary cake, which I did enjoy, because I served myself.

In later years, she switched from making me cakes to Fran-hattens, which I never had any problems getting down. When I pull up to the Cabin this summer, I’ll look for her, but she won’t be there. I want to pray for her.

She’s gone over before I did, coming for to carry me home. I hope she cuts a hole and pulls me through, coming for to carry me home. Since, you got there before I did, coming for to carry me home. Tell all our friends I’m coming too, coming for to carry me home. God bless you, Fran.

Joe’s Place

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A stormed loomed over our normally tranquil domicile on Saturday morning. This was strange, because both the forecast and the view out of the window looked all sunny and bright. The taxman had come to town and Anne had to deal with him. I however, went biking in the Park. I launched at ten. At not quite sixty, bike shorts and a shirtsleeve were a bit chilly, but a bit of cardio fixed that up. The Park was both beautiful and crowded. The slide show captures some of the springtime sights. Not pictured, were this year’s Muny flags, flapping in the breeze. Also, the Forest Park Shuttle has new brightly colored buses this year, they were tooling around. In order to alleviate congestion at the I-64/Hampton entrance to the Park, traffic is being diverted towards the Muny lots. To my mind, this has just extended the zoo traffic further into the rest of the Park.

I returned home to find Anne still working on the taxes. I showered and shoved off to run errands, library, grocery and hardware, big box hardware. I bought a light bulb to put in the front porch light, a bunch of stuff that I probably don’t need and about 300 pounds of dirt, at about a dollar per twenty pounds. Changing the light bulb turned into a project, 70-year-old wiring replacement may be the result. About all I can really claim as progress is unloading the car.

Joe’s Place is the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District’s group home for students, who find themselves homeless. Saturday night, we attended the première of the documentary about Joe’s Place. It was both moving and uplifting. I found it so, knowing only some of the principles. Anne knew all of the participants and this must have made it especially moving for her. The show is expected to be shown on TV, and is expected to snag, at least, some Emmy recognition. The movie centers on the initial three seniors in the program. All three do graduate and attend college. According to the film, there are 1500 homeless high school students in Saint Louis and 1.5 million nationally, and only a fraction of homeless students ever graduate from high school. I feel proud as a taxpayer to have helped fund such a successful program as Joe’s Place. Anne and I are proud that we live and she works in such an enlightened community.

Crimes of the Heart

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What up, Streif? – A greeting from a MRH High School student

In 1981, a much younger than now columnist for the New York Times, Frank Rich, wrote that paper’s review for the Broadway debut of Crimes of the Heart. Then Mr. Rich had little more than a year on the job, while Miss Henley’s first play, had already won the Pulitzer Prize and New York Drama Critics Circle Award. It was a choice assignment for a then young writer. Now fast forward thirty years. Frank Rich is departing the Times and Maplewood-Richmond Heights High School has produced Crimes of the Heart. Written over thirty years ago, Henley’s characters and words are as relevant now, as they were then. Her words still speak to young hearts and are spoken well by them too.

The scene is Hazlehurst, Mississippi, where the three Magarth sisters have gathered to await the news of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last hours in the local hospital. Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried at thirty and facing diminishing marital prospects; Meg, the middle sister, who quickly outgrew Hazlehurst, is back after a failed singing career on the West Coast; while Babe, the youngest, is out on bail after having shot her husband in the stomach. Their troubles, grave and yet, somehow, hilarious, are highlighted by their priggish cousin, Chick, and by the awkward young lawyer who tries to keep Babe out of jail while helpless not to fall in love with her. In the end the play is a story of how its young characters escape the past to seize the future, but the telling is so true and touching and consistently hilarious that it will linger in the mind long after the curtain has descended.

In 1986 a movie was made from the play. It starred Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek, as Lenny, Meg and Babe respectively. At about 10:30, I happened upon the complete movie on Hulu and started watching it. I soon got Anne sucked in too. Around midnight, I couldn’t stay up any longer and left Anne to watch the rest of the movie. In the morning, I asked if the movie had ended the same as the play and it had. Anne liked the play better, when pressed, because she knew the actors, but thought comparing the two works was unfair.

Anne and I took Friday off from work. I rode in the Park in the morning. Because she stayed up late, Anne elected to sleep in. I noticed that the ice rink’s ice has been allowed to melt, another sign that winter’s grasp is slipping. I also saw a man who had dreadlocks down to his heels. When you go round and round and round again on the same bike trail, it is the other people who make the ride interesting. I also stopped by and paid my respects to Charles, the Great Horned Owl. I got 26.2 miles, a good workout, but on the start of a long day.

In the afternoon, Anne and I took MetroLink downtown to see the home and garden show. We’ve got all that insurance money that is burning a hole in our hands. We solicited bids for a new awning over the front door, a new tree to replace the fallen one, gutters, roofing work and masonry work too. All I had to say to the different reps was “storm damage”. I could practically see them begin to salivate. Now mind you, we have not seen any of this insurance money, but at least our insurer is starting to take action. We’ll just have to keep prodding them.

Livin’ la Vida Loca

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On Thursday, Anne was working in the middle school.  It has been a while since she has worked this one of the four schools in the district.  In addition to working in a relatively novel environment, she also found the time to do some looking around too.  And look at what she found displayed in a case there, this somewhat fuzzy photo pictured below.

This photograph commemorates the 2004 Maplewood-Richmond Heights (MRH) High School team in the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering (WYSE) Missouri Regional Competition.  This competition was held at McKendree College, in Lebanon, IL.  Why Illinois?  Pictured are twelve students and über science teacher, Mrs. Dwyer.  What really caught Anne’s eye though, was the fuzzier than normal student standing next to Mrs. Dwyer.  That of course would be our David. 

Dave medaled in that particular WYSE competition and in several others too.  Dave is now working at the National Institute of Health and working in auditory research.  More importantly, at least to him, he looks way more handsome and debonair now than then.  Mom and I have always found him all that and more. 

Last week, Anne was shopping in Containers & More, for containers yet, when she spied the above pictured bungee office chair.  She iPhone photographed it and then emailed the picture to Dan with the twin epitaphs, “You were robbed!” and “They totally stole yours and Vickie’s idea!”  She was referring to Dan’s and art project partner Vickie’s exploding bungee couch, which is pictured below.  Although the initial design had some structural issues, the finished design has survived many winters and is still functioning, I can still sit in it.

Next week in LA, at CalArts, Dan is putting on his first west coast art show.  He has titled it, Halley’s Brief and Uncharacteristic Apparition and has also subtitled it, The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’ (An Exhibition of Astronomical Proportions).

The two freaks referred two are Halley’s Comet and Mark Twain.  Mark Twain is the pen name for Missouri native son, Samuel Clemens.  Sam Clemens was born in a year that Halley’s Comet appeared and he died in the year of its next appearance, some 76 years apart.  Our son, Dan is also a Missouri native son. 

Showtime is next Thursday, the 20th.  It you happen to find yourself in the LA area then and haven’t made arrangements with Dan, feel free to contact us.  We’ll help to get you there.  We are also looking forward to the opportunity of sharing pictures of his show with you, after the fact of course.

I thought to call this post, A Stroll Down Memory Lane, but thought better of that and Anne gave me Livin’ la Vida Loca, livin’the crazy life, and went with that instead.  A 1999 Ricky Martin title.  Are we really living the crazy life?  I hope so. At least I hope that that our children are.