With five days to go to Sunday’s release-signing party for my book Beer, Brats, and Baseball: St. Louis Germans, I have decisions to make. I don’t like it one bit. Which of my creations do I toss overboard?
At 3:15 p.m., I’ll give a 15-minute reading from my book. But as it stands now, I have more than 30 minutes worth of material picked out. That’s OK for Monday, when I can do more than 30 minutes worth of readings at 7 p.m. the St. Louis County Library Headquarters, 1640 S. Lindbergh. But 15 minutes isn’t much time at all.
I know I have to include the piece about how Germans saved Missouri for the Union in the engagement at Camp Jackson. But do I kill off my piece on the three Busch breweries? Or the strange old German names? Or the German POWs around here during World War II?
There’s only one way for you to find out what I decided. Come to the party from 2-5 p.m. Sunday at Gretchen’s Inn at Al Smith’s Feasting Fox Restaurant, 4200 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis.
Jim Merkel the Writer 