When we look at the situation in Ferguson, Missouri and the tragic death of Michael Brown, we are reminded of the importance of who we elect to our city councils, who sits on our local board of education committees, who we pick to represent us in Congress, in the Senate and more.
I actually have some family that's from Missouri, and my husband is an outrageous St. Louis Cardinals fan, so we go to St. Louis every once in a while to go see baseball games.
Modern Architecture died in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 15, 1972, at 3.32 p.m. (or thereabouts), when the infamous Pruitt Igoe scheme, or rather several of its slab blocks, were given the final coup de grace by dynamite.
When I was four, we moved to a farm outside Springfield, Missouri. We had a radio show from that farmhouse. My dad always wanted a farm. We used to go out and milk the cows every morning and then do a radio show with a remote control from our living room. We'd start by singing 'Keep On The Sunny Side.'
One of the things my mom used to do - I don't know why she chose me, but she chose me out of her six children to take to the African-American church that was in the town that we lived in Springfield, Missouri. And we would go to the church, and we would sit in the back row, and we would listen to all of the spirituals in the hymns.
In high school, the drama program shifted to musicals, and that's not a skill set I possess, so I let sports be my outlet, and I agreed to play football in college. I was invited to play at the University of Missouri, and I played there for a year, but when all of the talented people are plucked and put in one place, it's scary; it's tough.
Being born in Kansas City, Missouri and raised in the very rural parts of Kansas led me to believe that everything was simple, everything made sense and that anything was possible.