Chinese food, tea, and a couple of books

A friend and I went out for Chinese food yesterday to celebrate Year of the Dragon, and we did wear red as I reminded folks yesterday (HERE).  I decided to get orange chicken.  Mine looked like this picture I found online, but I had brown rice with mine.  I also chose tea, because one of the earliest accounts of tea drinking dates back to China's Shang dynasty.  Well, also because I love tea.

Greg Freeman: A Gentleman, A Gentle Man ~ by Greg Freeman, 2003, newspaper columns, 191 pages

Gregory Freeman was a St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist who was a champion for racial harmony.  His ability to be humble, honest, and insightful through his column touched thousands of readers during his career, cut tragically short in late 2002 when he died of heart failure.  This book is a collection of 66 columns in six categories:  (1) City Life, (2) Family, (3) Harmony, (4) Love, Hope, Survival, (5) Our Life and Times, (6) Wit and Wisdom.  The book was published a year after Freeman died, with a Foreword by Lorraine Kee and an Introduction by Bill McClellan

University City Missouri: Images of America ~ by John A. Wright, 2002, history, 128 pages

In 1904, from a plot of land that would soon become University City, eccentric publisher Edwin Gardner Lewis shone the beam of what he claimed was the world's largest searchlight over the World's Fair in nearby St. Louis.  Several years later, he claimed an even greater possession:  a city, created around his publishing complex, complete with his own mayoral office, wide boulevards, and beautiful residences.  The story of University City is one of urban wonder:  from the city's "Hilltop Neighbor" and namesake, Washington University, to the diversity showcased in today's University City.  The historic images in this volume illustrate the area's founding and development, from the largest printing press of the time, capable of producing 300,000 eight-page newspapers an hour, to the lion sculptures at the city's famed "Gates of Opportunity," standing proud as the city's everlasting symbol.

 

University City is, a suburb of St. Louis, had a population of 35,065 according to the 2020 census.  Local people call it "UCity," and many streets are named after universities and colleges.  I picked a few from an online list of streets in UCity:

Amherst Ave,       Cambridge Ave,  Columbia Ave,     Cornell Ave,

Dartmouth Ave,   Dorset Ave,          Duke St,               Gannon Ave,

Harvard Ave,       Morehouse Ln,    Princeton Ave,     Purdue Ave,

Radcliffe Ave,      Stanford Ave,       Stratford Ave,     Swarthmore Ct,

Syracuse Ave,      Tulane Ave,           Vassar Ave,         Yale Ave.

You may wonder why I'm reading about University City.  It's my neighborhood, and that building on the book's cover is within a few miles of my home.

Deb at Readerbuzz hosts the Sunday Salon