I came home last night to find Oscar committing yet another misdemeanor (a different kind this time).
This morning is cooler. There is no food to be had at the conference center (everything is either closed or not running: the cafeteria, the shuttles, the dorm office), so rather than have vending machine Skittles or Reese's Pieces for breakfast, a bunch of us drive out to a Waffle House about a mile away. Tony Cordova -- the youngest-looking 55 year-old I've ever met -- and I sit with each other. He talks about being a percussionist & jazz singer (and life as a son of the Cordovas); I of course sit there fascinated.
Then it's off to one last panel: Eloisa Borah on the commissioners at the Fair, and Sharon Delmendo on photographs of the fair as "colonial snapshots." (I'm also embarrassed by the number of plugs my book keeps receiving throughout the conference; my identity as self-effacing professor can't take it.) Sharon and her mother and I (and later, Marie and Joyce) make our way back to Metrolink for a ride downtown to the civic center, accompanied once again by Cardinals fans.
And so a few hours later, I'm typing this in a Cheers bar at the STL airport. The Giants are leading, and I'm still digesting the greasy pepperoni pizza I had for lunch. It has finally rained a little, so the long humid spell has been broken. No music stores, alas, so I can't buy my Nelly CD. (I read that J-Kwon is from STL too.)
Posted by the wily filipino at July 28, 2004 08:06 AM