MADELEINE MONDAY

She's getting there but becomes frustrated easily. Also learning the coordination skills to play catch. She pulls a ball in better than she throws it. Some effort is required to keep her occupied these with no other children to play with. More will be needed when school finishes next week.

WAITING FOR THE B2 OR MAYBE GODOT

Our wonderful government has been sending military air displays around the country, ostensibly as a tribute to healthcare workers. I think it's Trumpian swagger. Some places got the Air Force and Navy's stunt flying teams, the Thunderbirds and Blue Angels, and I gotta admit they are pretty cool to watch. We got a flyover on Friday by a B2 stealth bomber, one of those planes that looks like the Bat Signal in the sky.

A couple of hundred people and I turned out out under the Arch at the appointed hour, assuming that was the logical starting point. We waited and waited and waited. No luck. The specific location of the flight path had not been released. The plane went much further west, away from the river. People eventually drifted away in disappointment. Unlikely any of them were named Estragon.         

NAKED LUNCH

Another pic from Bellefontaine Cemetery. The writer William S. Burroughs, https://bit.ly/35LWEYM, is one of my cultural heroes. He was born here to great wealth - his grandfather had invented the adding machine and built a fortune on it. He went to Harvard, with degrees in English and anthropology, and later attended medical school in Vienna. Then he went on, with his pals Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, to revolutionize American writing through the course of his sordid life.

I remember reading Cities of the Red Night and The Western Lands when they were published during my 30's. The possibilities of prose would never seem the same to me. Some people left a few coins on the small grave stone in tribute. The fork has to be in honor of his notorious novel, Naked Lunch. The grave is not easy to find but for some of us is worth the effort.  

You can find some audio clips on YouTube of Burroughs reading his work. Most of it is hilarious but not for the squeamish.  I recommend a clip from Naked Lunch about Dr. Benway in surgery, https://youtu.be/7-MF6J9ZFB4 . Someone we know had cancer that required immediate surgery and he was assigned to a Washington University physician named Dr. Benway. We could have feinted.             

MAN EATING TURTLE

Turtle Playground on the edge of Forest Park. The sculptures were designed by STL's late mad genius, Bob Cassilly, founder of our quirky City Museum. Kids usually climb all over these (there are several) but, of course, it's cordoned off now. I wonder if any children have the courage to crawl in the mouth of this one.        

MAKE WAY FOR GOSLINGS

Notes from the six year old entertainment committee: I've whined occasionally about the difficulties of three adults trying to work in a smallish house with a first grader underfoot. The burden is hardest on my daughter, who works for our firm. She has a lot of computer and phone duties, plus supervising the kid's school assignments. It can get overwhelming.

So yesterday afternoon, a beautiful spring day, we drove the kid out to a county park that contains a wildlife preserve. Access is partly restricted - you can do a one-way drive through and have to stay in your car. We saw bison, elk and deer. There was also a flock of geese with many little ones that decided to cross the road right in front of us. Ellie squealed with pleasure.