St. Louis Conference Trip Redux

One of the most formative experiences of my teenage years was a high school journalism trip during my senior year. Our school paper, The Buzz, won a prestigious award and a few of us were chosen to pick it up at a conference. So, in the fall of 1989, I boarded a plane with our adviser Ron Bennett and my friend Rebecca, who was the paper's editor in-chief.

I have many vivid memories of the trip. I remember my first taxi ride ever, the tall buildings in downtown St. Louis, and the obligatory ride to the top of the Gateway Arch. Another friend named Renee, who was attending Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri, got bus tickets and met us at the conference.

A couple of weeks ago I returned to St. Louis to attend another conference, this time an environmental training symposium. I'm usually a bit of a hermit when I go on these business trips, preferring to hole up in my hotel with a book rather than go out on the town. But I decided to break out of my shell and see what had changed since the last time I was there.

One of the first things that struck me was that almost 20 years had passed since my last visit. Since that time, downtown St. Louis seems to have been slowly declining. The St. Louis Centre, which was a glistening three-story shopping mall in 1989, has been shut down and boarded up. The city itself was pretty quiet, with very few people on the sidewalks.


Since the conference I attended was happening very near the defunct mall, I walked past it every day I was there. Every time I did, old memories from the journalism trip began to whisper from the corners of my mind. I began to remember walking down to Union Station almost every day with my friends. I remembered how Becky dragged me down to the hotel lobby to buy a Sprite because I refused to drink Coke out of a vending machine. I remembered watching a newly married couple and their well-wishers stream out of the church near the base of the Arch.

Resolved to revisit some of these places, I went for a stroll the night before I was to return home. I walked down Market Street to Union Station.



Once inside, I could see that much had changed. While the food court was fairly active, most of the other shops struggled to draw customers. The big name shops that were there before (I specifically remember Banana Republic) are now gone, replaced mostly with places that sell St. Louis Cardinals or "Budweiser" paraphernalia.

The only place that seemed to have survived was "The Fudgery," which was my favorite place 20 years ago. The large candy-making crew would sing and dance and put on quite a show while mixing fudge on big slabs of marble.



Crowds would gather around and try free samples. Even this former hotspot seemed to be on its last legs. The three guys working there still sang a few songs, but hardly anyone was there to listen. Saddened, I bought some fudge to bring home to the kids.

I decided to ride the new subway back toward the hotel. The train stop was back behind Union Station, and as I approached I saw the movie theater we went to during my last trip. We watched the next movie showing, which unfortunately turned out to be "Worth Winning," starring (?) Mark Harmon. Trust me, this is a movie not to put on your Netflix queue. When we went to find our seats that night, we were literally the only people in the place, and we quickly realized that the million or so St. Louisians who didn't watch that movie that night were on to something. I don't know if "Worth Winning" killed the theater, but the place is definitely dead now.



The last place I revisted was Charlie Gitto's, an Italian restaurant on Sixth Street. I remembered vividly the dusky atmosphere and the signed photographs of athletes and celebrities on its walls.


It already looked like it had been there forever back in 1989, and it was largely unchanged when I went in. I ordered a large plate of rigatoni proscuitto, which was undoubtedly the best meal I had during my return to St. Louis. I sat at my table, with only my memories to keep me company. Well, Butterscotch was with me, but she's not much for conversation.



The extreme solitude of dining solo lends itself to contemplation, so I thought about how much St. Louis seemed to have changed since I was there last. I realized that I shouldn't be surprised. After all, much has happened to me during the 20 years that had passed. Since then, I've spent eight years at various universities, been happily married 15 years, and held a handful of different jobs. I'm in the process of raising a bunch of great kids, which never cease to challenge, amuse, and entertain me. Life has been good to me, and I have been very blessed.

Now that I think about it, St. Louis is more like it was in 1989 than I am.

Toy cats and economics

Somewhere in our travels we acquired some toy cats which eventually became Bryan's special friends. The first was a simple, pillow-like feline that Bryan named "Butterscotch." Butterscotch has led an interesting life, most recently traveling to Washington DC with me to attend a big conference. Here he is catching a few minutes of a Bulls game on the flatscreen in the fancy hotel.


And here he is relaxing before calling it a night.



The second cat was "Snip" and he's a "Beanie Baby." As you may recall, these little bead-filled cloth critters were all the rage back in the nineties, and you can see why after watching kids play with them. Bryan has been nuts about Snip, and he tells imaginative stories about how Snip does backflips, fights the bad guys, flies through the air, has ears with "magic powers," and makes cute little sounds. Sort of a cuddly ninja, a concept that speaks to the very depths of a four year old boy's soul.

Snip has become such a fixture in our family that John has attempted to lure Snip away from Bryan and into his own camp. At one point we decided we needed to provide some cats for John to ease the contention, so we logged onto ebay to test the market.

We found that the Beanie market has dropped considerably since its heyday. We found 12 of them for $10, which we decided was a pretty good deal. We snapped them up and about a week later, we had a dozen fabric kitties named things like "Zip," "Chip," "Flip," "Nip," "Pounce," "Prance," "Scat,"and even a brand new "Snip." The kids immediately "clipped" off the tags and started to snuggle.


When I came home from work and saw twelve heart-shaped tags lying around, I couldn't help but think of how those tags had been carefully preserved for about 10 years before meeting their fate. As you may recall, some people began to think of Beanie Babies as investments. I remember seeing a news story on TV (back when I watched network news) that reported how Beanies "NWT" going for hundreds of dollars each. One of the cardinal rules of maintaining your portfolio's value was keeping the tags on. If your tag was cut off or crinkled, the value went Enron. But eventually, the market fell out of the bottom anyway.

The real shame of the Beanie Baby bust is that it all happened before these government bailouts became so popular. If the market could have held on for a few years, those happless investors could have had some recourse. They could say how they were tricked into buying them, that the Beanie Baby company overpaid executives that new the end was coming soon, all the usual stuff. You can almost see those with especially big holdings carpooling to D.C. in their minivans to convince Congress that they needed some bailout bill bucks.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? Doesn't it?

I thought I would take some photos of the boys in their Sunday duds.



Bryan and John looking cute.

The lovely Carolyn was a more willing participant than John.

Trunk or Treat

Here are some photos from the the Trunk or Treat we went to at the Church this year. Even I, the resident party pooper and official stick in the mud, decided to wear a costume this year.



Here are the kids with their Jack o' Lanterns, and some goofy faces of their own.

Carolyn's Birthday

It's true, Carolyn has turned 11, and enters that long long year before she escapes from Primary and enters the Young Women's program at Church. She seems to be holding up under the strain so far.

Birthday Fun

We have two birthdays in November. Last week we celebrated Amy's 9th, which was very fun. Here are a couple pix I thought you might enjoy.



We found a cheesy "Hammy the Hamster" DVD, which we suspected would be a big hit with Amy. Looks like we picked a winner based on her reaction.



I got luck with my digital camera for this one. What a sweetheart. Happy Birthday, Amy!

Thank goodness, Thanksgiving

Finally, Thanksgiving is here. It's always one of my favorite holidays. And it's not only because you get to eat great food, think of your many blessings, get time off at work, and eat more great food. I can finally listen to Christmas music at work without getting strange looks from my colleagues. I usually start in August, but this year I managed to hold out until October.

We've had a very nice time this year. We had contacted the military branch president to try to feed some LDS troops going through Air Force basic training, but when I went to pick them up this morning some relatives had already managed to come scoop them up. I was a little disappointed, since we enjoy having company for dinner. We managed to find a family in the ward that didn't already have plans because they are moving tomorrow. We had a nice time.

We also followed our tradition of writing things we were thankful for on construction paper feathers, and taping them to a paper turkey, cleverly put together this year by Carolyn and Amy.
If you look very carefully, you might notice that someone said they were thankful for Jerry Sloan. Must have been Baby John.

We really do have much to be thankful for this year. We were very blessed to find a home on base so we didn't have to buy a home in this crazy economy. We are all in good health. We're expecting yet another baby (due in April). I'm really enjoying my job. The kids are fun to watch grow. All in all, we're very blessed and grateful for the blessings Heavenly Father has given us.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!