Good To Be Back?
It is said that all good things must come to an end, and having escaped St.Louis two years ago I have to report that I've now returned. I won't go into the details - suffice it to say that the positives must have outweighed the negatives - but now that I'm back I have the opportunity to reflect on everything I missed about St.Louis.
And the answer is "not much", when I think about it. Sure, I missed friends, but that has nothing to do with St.Louis - you make friends anywhere, and missing them is just a feature of moving, no matter where you're from. I thought I'd be glad of the lighter traffic, after Chicago, but with my current commute I'm not much better off than I was before, and here's the kicker - when you're done driving home in Chicago you end up in a place you want to be (i.e. Chicago). Personally I'll kill a few minutes extra each day to be able to say that.
From Chicago you can fly anywhere in the world, many places direct, on real planes. In St.Louis the airport is, frankly, shit, and hardly anyone flies a real plane there anymore - it's all regional jets, with seats so uncomfortable that if I were, say, a veal calf I'd have PETA petitioning for my better treatment. As if to emphasize the point about the airport I was welcomed back on the night I returned by a tornado which ripped half the roof off, rendering the ambience of the place even more "third world" than usual.
"Ah, but houses are so much cheaper in St.Louis" I hear you exclaim (or at least I think I hear that - after a few weeks in St.Louis hearing voices is just part of the charm). Well yes, you can have a barn-sized plywood house in one of the sprawling subdivisions for a lot less than the equivalent-sized home in a Chicago suburb, but here's the thing: the Chicago house would be made largely with brick, and have a real garden, and be situated in a real neighborhood, and generally look less like a builder knocked it up in the least time possible, with the shittest materials available, and then stuck granite counter-tops in to sell it. Great neighborhoods do exist in the suburbs of St.Louis, but guess what - they cost the same as the ones in Chicago.
That brings us to the last refuge of the St.Louis apologist: "It's a great place to raise a family". Well whoopee shit. That's what you fall back on? That's the best you have to offer as a clincher for the St.Louis area? Firstly, this is a pathetically weak pitch - I don't understand what supposedly marks out St.Louis as an especially great place to "raise a family". But more importantly it demonstrably isn't true, at least for much of the region. It certainly isn't true of the City of St.Louis, nor of East St.Louis. North St.Louis county is a shithole, so dangerous in places that you may be killed simply for getting lost and accidentally venturing into some areas, and much of South county is crap and crime-infested too, so that pretty much just leaves West county, where you find all the big plywood houses.
Sure Chicago has a miserable winter, but it's not much worse than what you get here, and in return you get a summer you can use - it's about 100 degrees outside now and there's just no point going outside unless you enjoy sweating, heat-exhaustion, palpitations and death.
In fact the only thing I was pleased to experience here again was a small barbecue restaurant which has very good pork, excellent fries and nice friendly staff. And I'm not sure it wouldn't be easier to have them move to Chicago than drag my carcass back here...
Oh, and by the way, you can stick the St.Louis arch up your arse.
Copyright © 2011 Edward Bison
And the answer is "not much", when I think about it. Sure, I missed friends, but that has nothing to do with St.Louis - you make friends anywhere, and missing them is just a feature of moving, no matter where you're from. I thought I'd be glad of the lighter traffic, after Chicago, but with my current commute I'm not much better off than I was before, and here's the kicker - when you're done driving home in Chicago you end up in a place you want to be (i.e. Chicago). Personally I'll kill a few minutes extra each day to be able to say that.
From Chicago you can fly anywhere in the world, many places direct, on real planes. In St.Louis the airport is, frankly, shit, and hardly anyone flies a real plane there anymore - it's all regional jets, with seats so uncomfortable that if I were, say, a veal calf I'd have PETA petitioning for my better treatment. As if to emphasize the point about the airport I was welcomed back on the night I returned by a tornado which ripped half the roof off, rendering the ambience of the place even more "third world" than usual.
"Ah, but houses are so much cheaper in St.Louis" I hear you exclaim (or at least I think I hear that - after a few weeks in St.Louis hearing voices is just part of the charm). Well yes, you can have a barn-sized plywood house in one of the sprawling subdivisions for a lot less than the equivalent-sized home in a Chicago suburb, but here's the thing: the Chicago house would be made largely with brick, and have a real garden, and be situated in a real neighborhood, and generally look less like a builder knocked it up in the least time possible, with the shittest materials available, and then stuck granite counter-tops in to sell it. Great neighborhoods do exist in the suburbs of St.Louis, but guess what - they cost the same as the ones in Chicago.
That brings us to the last refuge of the St.Louis apologist: "It's a great place to raise a family". Well whoopee shit. That's what you fall back on? That's the best you have to offer as a clincher for the St.Louis area? Firstly, this is a pathetically weak pitch - I don't understand what supposedly marks out St.Louis as an especially great place to "raise a family". But more importantly it demonstrably isn't true, at least for much of the region. It certainly isn't true of the City of St.Louis, nor of East St.Louis. North St.Louis county is a shithole, so dangerous in places that you may be killed simply for getting lost and accidentally venturing into some areas, and much of South county is crap and crime-infested too, so that pretty much just leaves West county, where you find all the big plywood houses.
Sure Chicago has a miserable winter, but it's not much worse than what you get here, and in return you get a summer you can use - it's about 100 degrees outside now and there's just no point going outside unless you enjoy sweating, heat-exhaustion, palpitations and death.
In fact the only thing I was pleased to experience here again was a small barbecue restaurant which has very good pork, excellent fries and nice friendly staff. And I'm not sure it wouldn't be easier to have them move to Chicago than drag my carcass back here...
Oh, and by the way, you can stick the St.Louis arch up your arse.
Copyright © 2011 Edward Bison
posted by Mr Bison at
10:53 AM
2 Comments
