Sunday 23 August 2009

Saturday 22nd August 2009 – South to St Louis

Many years ago, in Washington DC, I think, I was taken to a basketball game at a fine new stadium. They were televising the game, and the TV picture was being shown on a giant screen above the playing area. In no time at all, I was sitting comfortably watching television, oblivious of the fact that the reality was taking place just underneath the screen. Such is the insidious effect of television.

_____I was reminded of this the other evening while watching baseball in a bar. The sound was off, of course, but someone had turned on the subtitles (called "closed captioning" here). Before I knew where I was, I was reading the subtitles, which were talking about a game I could only partly see because of the subtitles.

Baseball programs provide a caption along the top which shows, pretty well, what the state of the game is. The subtitles were partly obscuring this. What really upset me was not that someone had put up the subtitles, but that I had caught myself reading them instead of watching the game. Such is the insidious effect of television.

_____

_____Friday involved getting Rozzie a lube job (oil change), and doing the laundry, so it wasn't of much interest. Suffice to say there are any number of specialist establishments vying for my lube business, so it cost almost nothing and was done in almost no time just round the corner.

_____I've also just worked out that it's a bad idea to arrive somewhere new with a pile of dirty laundry. Far better to do it just before depart, when I have found out where the laundromat is, rather than have to search one out straight away.

_

_____So I was up cleaned and refreshed, with Rozzie newly lubed, to be on my way south on Saturday.

Dulcie turned out to be rather emotional about our departure, because as we got ten miles south of Jacksonville, she suddenly changed perspective, and put "Glasgow" on the bottom of her map: what a nice gesture.

As "Glasgow" drifted off the bottom, I got a startling reminder of Ana (remember? The tropical storm?). I was coming up to a house which looked as though it had been abandoned: the front half had collapsed, and there was a big blue tarpaulin tied over the collapsed bit.

Then I noticed the corn field opposite was flattened. And then I noticed that two grain elevators were lying several hundred yards into the field, split open like tin cans (these grain elevators look a bit like tin cans to start with).

This neighbourhood must have experienced a tornado, and it must have been truly terrifying.

And so it was into St Louis, in search of Glasgow Village.

_

Later that night, in search of some local brews, I found myself in front of an array of taps. As I was working out that I was going to have to put my glasses on to see what was on offer, a young lady came to my rescue. She claimed that, despite her youth, she was an expert in the brews. I asked her opinion on my favourites, and she passed the test. So I followed her advice and had an enjoyable evening, with Schlafly's and O'Fallon's which were very good.

They were doubly enjoyable, being from St Louis itself, which I'm sure you know is the home of the Anti-Christ, An-whatsit-Busch, the American arm of InBev, an intergalactic company based on Sirius 4.

I asked the young lady if she fancied a master class later. She said she could think of nothing she fancied more, but, unfortunately, she had to go and change her library book.

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