St Louis

When we get close to St Louis, we feel a magnetic pull to our regular RV parking spot where we’ve visited a few times with my father’s brother Jerry and his wife Suzy. Much closer to my age than to my parents, these were my cool and fun aunt and uncle who lived away from the family homestead in New England (though they visited often). They hold the distinction of being the first of my extra large family that Doug ever met, back in 1984.

This is our first visit since Jerry passed away relatively unexpectedly last October. We miss Jerry, and we realize this is an especially tough time for Suzy (and their extra-shy cat, Turner). We’re super proud and supportive of Suzy as she’s adjusting and taking some time to plan the next chapter of her life. We’ll always have our fond memories of Jerry, including his impish grin as he hopped into the entrance of the 10-story slide at the City Museum of St. Louis.

Much of our visit was just chill, hanging around, getting caught up and sharing points of optimism for the upcoming election. Suzy and Doug got to trade stories about their first times meeting each of Jerry’s 15 siblings. Given our life stages, the topic of aging and retirement crept into several conversations. We decided our preferred euphemism would be ‘as time passes by.’ And as we’d hoped for, Turner made a much anticipated brief appearance on the 2nd day of our visit. Had we stayed one more day, he may have been comfortable enough to visit with us for his full, 10-minute max.

It was unseasonably hot while visiting. To get outside, we decided to take a walk at nearby Stacy Park relatively early in the day. It had pleasant paved walking path around sports fields. Ha, by accident, we noticed the sign – Cottonwood Trail – heading off into the woods. In the shade. That was delightful! We ran across a birdhouse garden when kids had made small bird houses and hung them at eye level (for us) in the trees. Then we came across what looked like a brush pile, or perhaps a wigwam. It indeed had an entrance where we peeked inside and saw… more bird houses! There was a magnificant tall tree that would take 3 of us holding hands to surround it. We wondered what it was. As a retired research librarian, Suzy pulled out her cell phone, searched for an image which identified it as… oh, right, of course – a cottonwood.

We were so glad to spend time with Suzy on this trip! We look forward to the next time – wherever and whenever it may be.

For anyone who’s interested, some more Stacy Park pix…