Nobody ever heard of West St. Louis. East St. Louis sprawled along the sunrise bank of the Mississippi, but on the west it was just St. Louis. Over on the east, it was the wrong state, even - Illinois. That's probably why Johnnie and Delphine spent the first week on the abandoned outskirts of downtown in a campground with sloping sites, pay phones for local calls and groceries a long bus ride away. The attendants lavished attention, but the amenities scored a little less than amenable.
The day after arriving marked the day before St. Patrick's Day, and a parade turned Market Street into a wide green banner. Leprechauns and shamrocks, puffed full of helium and dragged along by ropes, floated and twirled above the crowds. Moms and dads and kids lined the sidewalks, while teenagers raced back and forth around them. On 7th and Market beside Kiener Plaza, with the blue-domed Old Courthouse to the east framed from behind by the Arch, high school bands in the parade competed with a public address system from the plaza, as the winners of the morning's five-mile run were announced. Steam climbed from hamburger and hotdog and sausage grills around the plaza but dispersed quickly in a weak but bitter cold wind. Across the parade route lay next month's destination, Busch Stadium, surrounded by downtown's glass towers of green, gray and brown.
By the time the parade ended, it was too late on Saturday to buy a weekly pass for the Metro. Folks at an information booth at the America's Center said the passes were sold only at a convenience store near 7th and Washington. The Coxes opted for lunch at Mike Shannon's on 7th Street. Most corners downtown featured an Irish pub; no wonder this city celebrated St. Patrick's.
Of all basketball games to be on, Duke and Notre Dame squared off on the pub's bank of TV sets. While every other patron in the bar cheered the Irish, Johnnie and Delphine yelled for the Blue Devils, leaving no secret of their Carolina background. Duke won! In St. Louis, a city currently hosting NCAA basketball games (which signs everywhere proclaimed Arch Madness,) in Mike Shannon's Irish pub, the day before St. Patrick's Day, two folks from North Carolina watched Duke beat Notre Dame. Yeah!
Sunday was a day of rest - laundry and email. Early Monday morning, Johnnie, trying to combine exercise and one remaining chore, walked three blocks south and eighteen blocks east from the RV park to buy the Metro passes. Passes in hand, he could have ridden back, but, buoyed by cold air and overconfidence, he chose to walk again. Sometimes, when the stoplights threatened to change against him, Johnnie ran across a street and then part of the way up the next block. On one such sprint, he set his foot wrong on a curb and sprained his arch.
During the two weeks in St. Louis, Johnnie suffered from a little arch madness of his own. No chance presented itself to favor the foot. Hurrying to and from bus stops, tramping all through the Galeria Mall and tripping back and forth in city streets, walking proved as ubiquitous and necessary as breathing. Some help finally appeared in the form of a support bandage he wore under his left sock. Gradually the pain subsided. By that time, rain, sleet, snow and waves of milder and colder temperatures, as they both shuffled on and off buses full of coughing, sneezing people, had given Johnnie and Delphine colds to replace any pain in their feet.
Delphine, annoyed mostly by the lack of access to groceries, searched again in the campground directory and suggested a Metro train ride across the river. A more convenient RV campground covered several acres of parking lot, most of which served the needs of the Casino Queen, a riverboat casino across the Mississippi from the Arch. With direct access to the Metro line, free shuttle service to the casino, level sites, cable TV, telephone service available in every RV, cheaper prices than the other site and free breakfast at the casino every day, this place was too good to pass by.
Delphine's research had already shown Kansas City to be wanting in the area of mass transit, so another week in St. Louis seemed to offer more promise. The coming week's weather didn't sound like the right mix for traveling, either. So the Coxes booked the following week in East St. Louis, canceled a return engagement and lied to the folks who ran the downtown campground. After all, the managers of that park had been helpful in every way, even to the point of supplying a couple of chicken breasts when there was no way to buy food. They deserved the social consideration of a face-saving lie. But business was business as they say, and Johnnie was as anxious to leave that part of town as Delphine.
Maybe instant karma revenged the lie, because Johnnie snapped the sewer hose in half the morning they broke camp. The previous night's temperature dropped to a near-record 19 degrees. Every RV owner had disconnected water lines, and Johnnie had emptied both sewer tanks. However, a little pool of water overlooked in the bottom of the accordion pipe froze solid. When Johnnie tried to disconnect the line, one end cracked open and fell off.
Well, it had been only a social lie. And that was not the only sewer hose. A Gerry-rigged item picked up in Louisville, the longer pipe had already been targeted for eventual disposal. They'd use the sorter pipe until a new long one could be found.
With groceries and a full tank of propane, Harvey the RV deposited the Coxes across the river at the next site on Friday, March 22nd. It was cold again that night, and Johnnie disconnected all water and sewer lines before dark. That night it became apparent that the propane furnace in Harvey needed a tweak or two. Fortunately the electirc heater worked well enough.
Too many people crowded the underground entrances to the Arch the next morning. Johnnie hated waiting in lines, and Delphine was satisfied with a magnet from the Museum Store. Neither of them felt the need for a tram trip to the top. Of greater interest to Johnnie was the 25-cent pamphlet Delphine bought along with the magnet. It showed how the arch was built and told a little about the history of St. Louis.
A man named Pierre LaClede founded St. Louis in 1764, and nearly forty years later, Lewis and Clark stopped for a while in the area. There, they gathered supplies before setting out to explore the west. After another forty years passed, thousands upon thousands of settlers began the expansion into the western states. These caravans stopped first in St. Louis. Johnnie found a pleasant and ironic connection in the fact that wagon trains started out in April. (Hmmm, baseball waited 50 years in the future.)
Possibly the reward for western expansion, for the dangers and disease and endless hardships, was beer. Two men named Anheuser and Busch joined forces in St. Louis in 1876 to provide this commodity in the first nationwide brewing industry.
After looking around the Arch, Johnnie and Delphine toured the Budweiser Brewery. Johnnie decided the Amber Bock beer at the brewery was fresher tasting than the same drink offered with a late lunch at LaClede's Landing about 2:00 in the afternoon.
A flurry of calls revealed that Monday would be the earliest the propane furnace could be checked out. Nothing to do then, but to eat the free breakfasts at the Casino Queen and rest up until Monday morning.
