St. Louis Blues Week

We were lucky enough to have our hotel a short walk from the St. Louis Blues week. It was sponsored by Jack Daniels, so they were selling Jack with various combinations.  They had Jack Daniels and Diet Coke. It is very good. I just had the straight stuff followed by beer and lots of pulled pork. Lucky we could walk back the hotel. It wore off some of the food and avoided a drunk driving experience.

Making good barbeque is a real art.  People work on it. They have special recipes and techniques. I am not a connoisseur of pulled pork but I do like to try the different types.  I ate too much and went back the next day. I can admire the artists of pork.

I love the variety of America.  Above are perhaps not “typical” but they are picturesque.

I was vaguely aware of St. Louis, but didn’t really think much or know much about it. It is a really nice city.  It is much like Milwaukee, probably because of the German influence on civic pride, but (excuse my hometown) a little nicer in many ways.  If it had Lake Michigan it would beat Milwaukee.  Speaking of German heritage in St Louis, above is a statue of the great German poet & philosopher Frederich Schiller.  Below is the great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.  Germans made great contributions to America and our country. Our universities are based on German models; much of our civic culture was cultured by German immigrants; of course we eat hamburgers and frankfurters (hot dogs) and drive on highways inspired by the autobahns.  The experience of two terrible wars has made us forget how much our country was affected positively by Germans. It is useful to recall, even in this, that our American armies and navies in those wars had lots of German Americans, including leaders such as Eisenhower, Chester Nimitz and John J Pershing. On the 2000 census 58 million Americans claimed to be primarily of German ancestry.  It is still our largest ethnic heritage.