My lovely bride Vickie Wyeth and I recently took a second honeymoon trip to St. Louis.
Seeing the musical “Six” at the Fabulous Fox Theatre was the focus of the trip. It was boffo.
Essentially, six women, representing Henry VIII’s wives, sang and danced for 80 minutes. It was visually stunning and the music was powerful. The production also had a lot of humor, for a story about six dead women.
The theater itself was worth the price of admission. It’s hard to describe the interior. A Wikipedia article variously described the interior as Siamese Byzantine or fashioned after Hindu mosques. It is a sight to see. “Opulent” is a good descriptor.
Before the play, we visited the St. Louis Aquarium. It was really neat. My favorite part was when a staff member there persuaded me to stick my hand into a vat full of swimming, minnow-sized fish. They quickly surrounded my hand and started removing my dead, dry skin. I have no idea what type of fish it was, but I wish I had a tank of them at the house. My hands were baby soft when I was done.
One more thing about St. Louis … as was the case during our last visit, everyone was just so freaking nice. It may have been because I was wearing my Batman suspenders, but it was noticeable.
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We bought tickets for the Brooks and Dunn tour coming to Simmons Bank Arena in North Little Rock.
That was a learning experience.
As soon as I heard about the concert, I went online to buy tickets. At the online reseller (not Ticketmaster, by the way), two nosebleed-section tickets would be $468.39. I almost bought them, but the angel on my shoulder urged me to wait.
Vickie called a friend who suggested we go to the arena box office to avoid extra fees. It was good advice.
Two pretty good tickets, including an aisle seat, cost us $239.50. Vickie compared them with similar seats available on Ticketmaster and said we saved more than 33 percent. I’ll be visiting the box office for tickets more often now.
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I have not written about the last round of mass-casualty shootings.
Why would I? Gun-wielding killers have committed such acts for years and, unless we ban assault-style weapons, they will continue.
It IS the damn guns.
And before some Neanderthals spout that their rights “shall not be infringed,” they had best read the rest of the amendment, which calls for a “well-regulated militia.” They don’t get to pick and choose the wording as they do when quoting Old Testament Bible verses.
Robert Shearon spent 30 years in journalism, working as a reporter, editor or publisher at newspapers in Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. His e-mail address: robertshearon@sbcglobal.net