Five Things to Do This Weekend: Elvis and quarters, art and family

Sunny and 75? Not quite yet, but this weekend will have what the meteorology folks like to call “unseasonably warm” temperatures. Store the hot cocoa for another day by the fire, we’re going out.

Elvis and Optimists

The Optimist Club of Belleville likes kids, and helping kids, and helping kids help other kids.

All that work takes money, and that’s where you come in this weekend. Enjoy Memories of Elvis on Saturday for $35 a pop, which includes food, soda and beer from 6:30 to 7:15 p.m.; and Elvis (Steve Davis and the Mid-South Revival Band) along with Patsy Cline (Anna Blair) and Buddy Holly (Thomas Hickey). There will also be a silent and oral auction, a 50/50 raffle and cash bar.

Bring extra change

Bring your own snacks and pockets full of change to the Scottish Rite Bodies, 1549 Frank Scott Parkway West in Belleville, where the quarter auction at 7 p.m. Saturday will benefit the Children’s Dyslexia Center–Southern Illinois.

The folks at the Dyslexia Center offer free tutoring to children who need it; and also train parents to help their own children learn to read better. The quarter auction will help fund all that; rent a paddle for $5. Some food is available for sale, and door prizes are also planned.

Make all your pictures pretty

We’ve been talking for weeks about those eagles (they’re still around, and it’s a great weekend to see them). It would be even greater if we knew how to take a halfway decent outdoor photograph to remember it by.

Photographer Dave Merritt will give a photo workshop from 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday at the Lewis & Clark Confluence Tower in Hartford. He’ll have tips and share techniques, then participants can try out their skills at the tower and beyond.

Tim destroys typewriters

Artist Tim Jordan likes the idea of things that don’t mix — like glass and metal. His exhibit at the Schmidt Art Center at Southwestern Illinois College, 2500 Carlyle Ave. in Belleville, is one of three on display now between noon and 4 p.m. Saturday. Jordan takes old typewriters and somehow blows glass through their parts, resulting in “Zen and the Art of Typewriter Tim.”

“I like the idea of things that don't mix, and are extremely different, getting along and being cool,” he says on the exhibit’s website.

His works join Paula Haniszewski’s “Smile Like You Mean It” and “Function & Ceremony: The Art of Melanesia” at the art center.

What has four legs and feathers?

Through the woods and across the river, the Soulard neighborhood is again playing host to the four-legged costumed friends at the 23rd annual Beggin’ Pet Parade at 1 p.m. Sunday.

Pups must be registered to walk, and the registration fee goes toward Open Door Animal Sanctuary in St. Louis. Register your pup online at www.beggin.com/pet-parade or at 10 a.m. Sunday. It costs $10. Cash prizes of $500 are awarded for best costumes in king, queen and group costume categories.

The parade starts at 12th Street and Allen Avenue in St. Louis, turns onto Russell Boulevard, then back to Ninth Street turning onto Lafayette Avenue. Live music will follow the parade at Eighth Street and Lafayette.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 10:23 AM with the headline "Five Things to Do This Weekend: Elvis and quarters, art and family."