k l a t OF THE TOWNS by bill beggs jr.
Affton
It had been a half-century since Grant’s Farm last opened to vehicles, and this fall it was for the first Halloween in a pandemic. Since virus fears and health recommendations pretty much put the kibosh on trick-or-treating, it was an experiment. The ghouls and goblins that popped up here and there scared many folks half to death, which was the point. Following the Halloween success, the South County attraction near Affton will swing open the gates for a holiday lights drive-through experience starting Nov. 27, the day after Thanksgiving. Unlike enjoying the annual Winter Wonderland at Tilles Park in Ladue, this one will cost you, like the Halloween drive-through did at the farm. (That said, the Halloween event sold out before it opened, so we recommend you act soon.) What could be prettier than festive decorations throughout the grounds and strung from period structures at this charming landmark, unless it’s the magical sight of a sleigh and eight tiny reindeer crowded onto your own roof? Well, we’d say the massive Clydesdales trump itty-bitty reindeer any day. Although inedible, the beautiful Tiergarten should look good enough to eat, all dressed up like a gingerbread house. A variety of the farm’s four-legged residents will be milling around there. Cars with kids, whether wide-eyed in wonder or not, will get complimentary candy canes. The experience runs through New Year’s Eve, with the farm closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.
CWE
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NOVEMBER 18, 2020
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WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING ITALIAN RESTAURANTS ARE NOT FOUND ON THE HILL? 1. Maggiano’s 2. Rigazzi’s 3. Amighetti’s 4. Cunetto’s 5. Tony’s 6. Farotto’s 7. Favazza’s 8. Pasta House 9. Ami’s
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Warning! This item may make you feel like you’re about to dry heave. Your dog or cat already eats the bugs they catch, but Nestle has produced and is now marketing Purina kibble with processed insect protein in it. Really. You remember how former Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway came up with “alternative facts,” a supposedly mediagenic term that somehow was better than “lies?” Well, the Swiss food behemoth has produced pet chow based on “alternative proteins” to, according to a statement, make better use of the planet’s resources. It’s being sold in Europe, where insect protein is already an important ingredient in livestock feed. There are some chicken and fava beans mixed in with black soldier fly larvae. And everyone knows what fly larvae are, really: maggots. Eww?
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The Metro
In the immortal NYC-accented words of one of The Three Stooges: “Da noive ... ” It seems that Mark and Patricia McCloskey— residents of an exclusive, gated CWE neighborhood, Portland Place—are filing another lawsuit. They’re lawyers, after all, but there are two related legal actions (one potential, one filed) over a world-famous photo of the couple on their lawn pointing an assault rifle (his) and waving a handgun (hers) as protesters walk in the private street and along the sidewalk. (No shots were fired.) The large, diverse group was filing past the palatial home on their way to demonstrate outside Mayor Lyda Krewson’s house nearby on Sunday, June 28. The protest was but one of innumerable Black Lives Matter protests and marches nationwide in response to police killings of unarmed Black people, starting with the suffocation of George Floyd in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Who knows whether the McCloskeys are glad or annoyed to be stars of our town’s unusual BLM sidebar, but the saga has gotten more convoluted in the intervening months. Now to the legal kerfuffle(s). It seems the McCloskeys, who’d already capitalized on their notoriety by appearing at the Republican National Convention, recently had holiday greeting cards made featuring a photo from the CWE event. The photo in question was taken by a UPI lensman, and the wire service has considered a cease-and-desist order for use of the photo without permission. But the McCloskeys, not to be outdone, have filed a suit. They accuse UPI’s photographer of being on their property when he snapped the photo. There’s more, of course. Lawyers can produce reams of paper alleging this, asserting that, and claiming stuff like “defendant’s actions caused mental anguish and severe emotional distress.” And all this against a backdrop of the couple already facing city charges for unlawful use of a weapon and evidence tampering. It’s enough to make you dizzy and feel like you need to lie down. As we pointed out, the McCloskeys are nothing if not litigious. There’ve been property disputes over the years, one an ongoing, unresolved flap over a wedge of ground that’s either adjacent to theirs or maybe is theirs. And they destroyed beehives that belonged to the kids at Central Reform Congregation, just north of their lot, that may or may not have been over the McCloskey property line. A group of Portland Place neighbors has distanced itself from the couple’s actions, in writing. Y’know, with neighbors like these ...
LAST ISSUE’S Q&A How old was Ray Hartmann when he founded RFT, and when? Who was the alternative weekly’s co-founder, and which other local publication did that person have a hand in? Ray Hartmann was a wee lad of 24 in 1977 when he co-founded Profile St. Louis, which morphed into the Riverfront Times, with Mark Vittert. For his part, the now inexplicably media-averse Vittert went on to establish St. Louis Business Journal ... quite a different alternative ... along with similar publications in other cities.
‘NOTABLE NEIGHBORS’ CLARIFICATION: Of Hungarian lineage, Lara Csengody was startled to read in our Nov. 4 issue that she’d climbed her family tree “in Croatia.” Um, no. Our reporter has no idea why that other country popped into his head. It was not in his notes, but Russians and Hungary were, as in the 1956 Hungarian Uprising, which the Russians crushed in less than three weeks. Csengody’s grandfather then fled with her father to the States from Budapest and soon afterward established the former Ladue Landscaping firm.
