TT: Happy ending

Lauren Teachout, my niece, got married to Ryan Dukes, her longtime boyfriend, in Smalltown, U.S.A., on Saturday afternoon. Regular readers of this blog know that my mother has been seriously ill all summer long, and until last Thursday we assumed that she would be unable to attend the ceremony. Nevertheless, she wanted very much to go, and on Thursday her doctors gave her the green light. Rarely have I seen anyone so happy as my mother was when she heard the news–or when we wheeled her into the church to watch her beloved granddaughter tie the knot. You won’t be surprised to hear that many tears were shed.
On Sunday Mrs. T and I got in our rented car and drove up to Kansas City, where we chowed down on Winstead’s steakburgers before checking into our hotel. (This is her first visit to my second home town, and I wanted to start it off on a high note.) Alas, the sun set too soon for me to show her around, but we did drive past the brand-new Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Moshe Safdie, which cuts quite a figure–so to speak–when viewed from a distance.
I’ll be giving a lecture tonight at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The festivities start at seven p.m. and admission is free. I’ll be signing copies of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong (or any other book by me that you care to bring along) after the lecture and a question-and-answer session. Should you be interested in hearing me live and in person, go here for more information.
I’ll also be appearing on Up to Date, Steve Kraske’s hour-long radio show, which airs at eleven a.m. CT today on KCUR-FM, Kansas City’s NPR-affiliated station. Tune in to 89.3 FM if you live in the area, or go here if you find it more convenient to listen to the show via streaming audio or download a podcast version.
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I returned to Kansas City in 2009 for the first time after a decade-long absence, and wrote about it here.
In other news, I updated the right-hand column over the weekend, posting new entries in the Top Five, “Out of the Past,” “TT in Commentary,” and “TT Elsewhere” modules. If you don’t have anything better to do this week, take a look.