Local Talent

The St. Louis Hills Neighborhood Association held its annual house tour this weekend, and this year's event was expanded to include an art fair, day-long concert, and food booths featuring local restaurants.

The Pink Sisters came through and the weather was perfect. The homes we visited on the tour were beautiful, most interesting of all the home of Tom and Linda Bess of Tom Bess Automotive. The Bess's home includes an original 1950s vintage "Brady Bunch" bathroom that is still in like-new condition and someday should be the highlight photo spread when another of those "what's old is new again" interior design stories makes news.

Jim and Joyce Legrand of Legrand's Tom Boy Market were selling brats, burgers and hot dogs; Paul and Pete Manzo of Manzo Importing Company, Inc. were serving their best in St. Louis salsciccia sausage; Gino's served meatball sandwiches, red wine, and A-B products in the new metal bottles, and Michael and his wife Elise from Bartolino's was serving pasta, wine and beer.

Artists lined the lily pad pond of Francis Park, with musicians performing in the center of the park. The headline music act was Erin Bode, who drew over 500 jazz fans. Earlier in the day, the jazz trio of Intuicion/DJC featuring Jan Marra on vocals and guitar, Carol Eder, jazz guitarist (and ceramic artist at the art fair), and Darrell Mixon on bass performed in their first live gig, and by some accounts stole the show.

Across Nottingham from Francis Park, in an outcome similar to a soccer game played two weeks previously, the 7th grade boys of St. Mary Magdalen Church were defeating the St. Gabriel's team in a CYC volley ball match. Maybe in its parish closing and realignment efforts, the St. Louis Arch Diocese was trying to figure out a way to break up that 7th grade Magdalen juggernaut?

By dark, you couldn't even tell a day long neighborhood celebration had taken place at Francis Park, as dozens of St. Louis Hills Neighborhood Association volunteers had everything picked up again.