I celebrated the summer solstice with an early-morning bike ride. The summer solstice is my favorite, but most depressing day of the year, because it is the longest day (sunshine-wise), but also marks the time when the days start getting shorter. I love going out for a bike ride at 5am, because there are very few people out, though with our recent 90+ degree weather, there were more joggers than usual.
The park itself was a bit depressing, because so many things are closed. The Muny cancelled all their summer musicals - the first time this has ever happened since they opened in 1917. We've been going to at least one Muny show every summer since we moved here in 1983. The Science Center, Art Museum, and History Museums are also closed. The only thing that is open at present is the golf course and the zoo. Even though the zoo is still free, you need a timed-ticket to get in. But at least I can still hear the lions and tigers roaring when I ride my bike past their fence.
I also celebrated Juneteenth with a Zoom sketchout of famous black St Louisans.
Juneteenth commemorates the official end of slavery even though the incident that triggered it (the Union army arriving in Galveston, TX) occurred 2.5 years after Lincoln signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. We started our sketchout with 6-minute contour drawings. I'm not the greatest with drawing faces, especially in only 6 minutes, so in case you couldn't tell, the people are Maxine Waters (US Rep), Chuck Berry (singer), Fred "Rerun" Berry (actor from the 70's show
What's Happening), Maya Angelou (author), and Redd Foxx (actor from
Sandford & Son). Use your imagination.
We finished up our session with a 20-minute sketch of all participants. I think I did even worse on that one. Oh well...
