DRINKING O’ THE GREEN

 

As I’ve noted here in the past, St. Louis likes a chance to drink in public. Budweiser, the local famous brew, markets heavily on St. Patrick’s Day. The can labeled High Noon in this person’s right hand, is nominally vodka and fruit juice. The chap in the Scots tartan has a fat cigar in his left hand. (Calling Dr. Freud!)                       

HOW THEY FLOAT

 

Most of us have seen the big helium-filled balloons at parades or other events but I’ve never seen how they get their lift. I came up from the train station downtown and found this. Those cylinders must be three by three or maybe four. I could not see an outlet and, try as I might. I could not see a connection point to the balloons themselves. Then there is the question of how the helium is produced and compressed into the tanks.                  

WELL, WHY NOT?

 

There is a delicious silliness about someone riding a Harley tricycle with a Santa hat and beard in the St. Patrick’s Day parade. It’s all about gesture, the show, the image and a laugh. I like it.                 

GREEN

There is a huge parade downtown on the Saturday before the official St. Patrick’s Day. I sometimes wonder why the just the Irish, since we have sizable German, Italian, Jewish and many other populations. (There is a vibrant African-American parade later in the spring.)  There are roots far back in U.S. history, but it really got going in 19th Century New York, arising from massive immigration and reactionary discrimination.  https://tinyurl.com/5n7j59ev                 

We will arrive in Ireland in a month,  but not until after an international detour in the opposite direction.

DECK THE HALL

A simple but striking floral ornament in the central great hall of St. Louis Art Museum. We can’t see the details when zoomed out to get all of it, but the blossoms are delicately and subtlety woven into the greens.

Hoping to shoot our big St. Patrick’s Day Parade today. However, as I write this early Friday evening, we are expecting severe thunderstorms and likely tornadoes later tonight. Mrs. C and I are topping up our phone chargers. Hope it doesn’t affect the parade.  

Oh, and beware the Ides of March.