The Mighty Mississippi

Eads Bridge stretches across the Mississippi. When the water is not so high you can see the full statue of explorers Lewis and Clark.

The Gateway Arch

The Gateway Arch is the first sign of St. Louis as you drive in from the east.

Ode to St. Louis

As we were driving in St. Louis while I was home, H declared that there was nothing that he would miss about St. Louis. We have had some rough circumstances here at times. However, I can’t say the same. I was feeling a little strange leaving because even though I have been living out of the country for seven months now I still have a home base here, so it hasn’t felt real, more like a long business trip. Now the change is really happening. So Saturday I got a later start than expected due to jet lag, but got H and A out for a walk along the Mississippi and past Busch Stadium.

Some of my favorite places and memories of St. Louis

The Tivoli Theatre – Having travelled all over the U.S. I find that St. Louis has one of the best selections of movies at any given time, especially for its size. At the Tivoli we saw movies as varied as the documentary League of Ordinary Gentlemen to the Bollywood Bride and Prejudice, but my favorite moment was in 2003 when A & I went with our friend R to see the 50th anniversary edition of Singing in the Rain, still A’s favorite movie. It was February and a Friday night when we left the theatre and there was a beautiful blanket of snow on an unusually peaceful Delmar Boulevard. It looked like a movie set.

St. Louis Art Museum – We used to go to the Art Museum on Friday nights, their late nights. Walking through the rooms being the only ones there felt like it was our own special place.

Soulard Market – One of the oldest establishments in St. Louis was an early favorite. A loved the mini donuts on a Saturday morning. I loved that there was a bar in the middle. I never bought a drink there, but having moved from the Bible Belt, I liked having the option of buying a vodka tonic while I shopped for produce.

Forest Park –Forest Park is actually larger than Central Park in NYC. In our naivety, A, me, my buddy M, and our friend H headed out from his apartment on one corner of Forest Park to go to the zoo at the opposite corner only to arrive half hour after they closed. We nicknamed this walk the trail of tears.

Creve Coeur Park – My buddy K and I would meet and walk these trails around the lake especially right after she moved to St. Louis and we were both missing Alabama.

Blueberry Hill – Good burgers and bad service is what you get here. You never know when your food would show up but whoever brought it would have interesting hair, tattoos, or piercings, or all of the above.

Trivia Nights – Loved being part of a team for these charitable evenings. We had lots of fun and lots of snacks!

The music venues – As diverse as The Creepy Crawl, Pop’s, Scottrade Center, Mississippi Nights, and in-stores at Vintage Vinyl, I heard a lot of great music in St. Louis with a lot of great people.

The Pageant – This music venue gets a special mention. I absolutely love this place and have some very special memories of shows here.

Of course the people make the place and I have met some great ones whether they were native St. Louisans or they had moved to St. Louis as I had. I had a lot of laughs – thanks to you.

Absentee Ballot in Hand

I faxed the form on Friday evening and got the ballot in the mail this Monday. That's speedy service. It will take me longer to decide who to vote for...

The True Spirit of St. Louis

I have always felt a bit like an anthropologist in St. Louis, observing what is unique to the city. Being a Midwesterner, I thought moving to St. Louis was going to be a snap, but I think what I learned was that I had changed having lived in other places, and also, not all Midwestern towns are the same. Living in Huntsville, a somewhat transient place where it’s hard to find anyone who was born and raised there, it was commonplace to find groups of friends coming together for holidays in lieu of extended families. This was a place where I felt comfortable. Here in St. Louis, extended family is where it is at. I will never forget the first year I was here I was getting my hair cut a few days before the 4th of July and asked the hairdresser what she and her newlywed husband were doing for 4th of July. I imagined the answer would be getting together with friends for a barbecue. Instead she explained in a bit of a condescending tone that she was going to her parents with her brothers and their families and some cousins as well. Knowing her now for four years, I know that every holiday and usually every Sunday is family time. Having been in the airport around holiday time, I know that people come home to St. Louis for the holiday to be with their extended family. It doesn’t mean their holidays are perfect. I have talked to many a friend who complained about the family gatherings when they were over. But for many here, the point has been stressed that the family gatherings mean something.

In the four years that we have lived in St. Louis, both H and I have lost our mothers. There have been days where this has seemed harder because of the importance placed on family here in St. Louis. Instead of appreciating my little family, I’ve been resentful at times, sometimes angry at St. Louis because of it, which sounds ridiculous. Sometimes our own private “pity parties” take strange shapes. While I have been out and about amongst the holiday revellers this season, I have been grateful for my small family and in a way, have made peace with my surroundings.

December 23rd

I haven’t travelled on this day since 1996, and now I remember why. The airports were absolutely insane, with fog in London and other delays in Chicago that added four additional hours to my journey. I wish I could have taken pictures of some of my fellow travellers but with security being what it is, I just thought it was better to catalog their looks in my mind. I was pretty calm at the start of my journey, just glad to go home. When I was in the Heathrow Airport in London, I saw a man with a toddler in a backpack on his back fighting with the probably one year old he held in his arms. I thought to myself, no matter what happens today, I am quite sure that my flight will be more peaceful than his! Wouldn’t grandma and grandpa be just as happy seeing those kiddies over the webcam instead of braving air travel?

I noticed a big difference in attire between the travellers in London versus those in the Chicago. Most folks in the U.S. flying yesterday had their sweats or their pajamas on. We were already ready for relaxation time!

As I was walking back through security in Chicago after going through customs, there was a guy in front of me wearing the biggest, most ostentatious Green Bay Packers parka. When he walked through security in front of me, all three of the security cards started ribbing him very loudly about the fact that the Bears had beaten them 35 to 7 Sunday. While I’m not a football fan, here’s a rivalry I at least understand.

I don’t think I have ever been so happy to be in the St. Louis airport. Merry Christmas to all! I hope you have a restful holiday.

David Sedaris

Last week at dinner with the B&B gang we got to talking about book clubs. Everyone living in the house reads a lot and we have a stack of paperbacks that is starting to take over the communal dining area. I told them about the book club that I joined when I first moved to STL to meet people. The woman who was hired by the school district to facilitate the group, didn’t really understand what a facilitator was supposed to do. For the first 20-30 minutes of the meeting we basically got a monologue from her about her life and her kids who were all living the word of God, which was demonstrated by their dedication to one of the most expensive private Catholic schools in St. Louis. The more she talked, the more you realized that she was very close-minded, and in my opinion then not really living in a Christian way, but I digress. You might be wondering, why did I keep going? The rest of the group was wonderful. It was a really mixed bag with an age span from college student to retiree. We actually discussed the book! Maybe it was the evil side of me that when our facilitator asked for “light” recommendations for the month of January, I mentioned David Sedaris’ Me Talk Pretty One Day, knowing that while our facilitator was bound to hate it, the rest would love it as I do. True to form, she hated it.

When I mentioned this book to the B&B gang, N laughed out loud. He told me he had read that book, not knowing what it was going to be about and found himself laughing out loud. He started quoting the book, especially the first essay, Go Carolina. I told them that I have a copy of that book in my office. So if I’m having a really bad day, I can read a little and it always makes me smile. I brought the book home for H to read and she is enjoying it. Another work colleague is also now reading it. For my David Sedaris loving friends, know that I am spreading the word, and that nothing about his work is lost in translation!

For those of you not familiar with David's work, here's a clip of him reading an essay on Letterman. I remember watching this with H when it originally aired, and even he smiled.

Flashback

After a very stressful work week, I was very much looking forward to Friday night. Now I find myself wide awake at 2:30 in the morning, worrying about Monday morning. Having moved several places in my adult life, every once in awhile after moving to a new place I have flashbacks. A memory will wash over me that is insignificant but familiar about the last place I lived. As I sit here in my little B&B room, I just had a recollection of standing at the checkout line of the Schnuck’s grocery store by our STL home and it felt really comforting for a moment. This is funny since H & I have always bitched about Schnuck’s, so it’s not as if I have this longing to be there again. It was just a piece of my old routine. I'll never forget my brother M's reaction to going to Schnuck's with me the first time. He said, "Where are the vowels?"

Three Hours Left

I fly from St. Louis to Chicago and then on to London tonight. H & A will be staying here in St. Louis until the house sells. I hope it is not long until we are reunited.

Things I will miss about St. Louis:

1. The Pageant music venue

2. Seeing the Arch as we make our way home to St. Louis from our visits to the South

3. Being close to my family and my friend Mel.

4. The movie theatre variety

Things I will not miss:

1. Provel Cheese

2. Power Outages

One Last Concert in St. Louis

Wednesday night proved to be a classic final act in St. Louis. When I moved here in 2003 my friend RB mentioned that music legend Chuck Berry (now 80 years old) had a standing date at Blueberry Hill each month and that we needed to go at some point. She went a year ago with family to celebrate a birthday but I totally took it for granted and kept thinking, oh I'll go next month. The thing about this standing date is the club is very intimate and sells out very quickly.

While I have acquaintances in St. Louis outside of work, I basically have one good friend here that is not a SD employee. Her name is Megan and we met each other when both of us were taking our first graduate class at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. We were planning to see each other before I left and to my delight, she called a few weeks ago and asked me if I wanted to go see Chuck with her. I was thrilled. An added bonus was that while I had graduated in December, I didn't know that Megan had finished last week. It was a perfect way for us to celebrate what we had both started together. Megan, I will miss you and wish the best to you!