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Being Itinerant: St Louis in reviews, pt.2
04 Dec 2007, 20:50

Turtle Park

You're walking along a cold street in St Louis. On your right, the Irish neighborhood of Dogtown broods weighty under late November—Interstate 64 streams steady on your left. You can feel the cold tightening the skin between your knuckles but you can't see the steam of your breath. Your hosts will be home from their 9-5's in an hour and you haven't yet eaten breakfast. You're walking with the hope of finding food—a Hardee's or a Taco Bell or a 7-11 with a full stock of Slim Jims, anything, you're getting desperate and, worse, silly.

You notice how the drivers here have evolved beyond the California Roll—in which you slow to between 5-15 mph when going through an otherwise empty, signed intersection—to something you decide to call the Missouri Mosey. Only in the case that there are cars behind them do they tap their brake lights before crossing an intersection. You notice that you haven't heard a single loud car stereo, haven't seen a single motorcycle, haven't been accosted or propositioned, haven't even seen any homeless or degenerates or transients (except yourself, of course). It occurs to you that this could be a thoroughly decent, thoroughly white, thoroughly boring sector of St Louis.

You notice Pat's Bar & Grill on your left, distinguished from the multi-family houses that line the street only by the sign that names it. Your hunger instinct causes you to stare, salivate and feel panicky. But for a reason you can't explain you spin half a circle, facing the interstate, and it's there, across the street, that you see the turtles. Your curiosity instinct overrides your hunger and, heedless of traffic, you run across the street giggling maniacally.

Do this right now: Google Map 6400 Oakland Ave, St Louis, MO 63139, zoom in as close as you can, X the locator box, switch to satellite view, and look in the park area just above of the arrow. What do you see? You see big stone turtles.



There are three large turtles in Turtle Park—one snapping, one with a pig nose peeking over a hill, and one that just looks dopey—and many scattered smaller turtles. They are named by plaques commemorating what I'll assume are financial doners.



A loose and dusty gravel path winds through the area. The grass is lush, even at the close of November, only sometimes a little patchy. Scattered along the path are many smaller turtles that all look pretty much identical.



On the western end of the park, a long snake encircles a hatching ground. These babies need not fear, however—this particular snake would rather chomp on part of the nearby overpass than a turtle shell.




Across the parking lot is a playground for children who would rather climb on metal bars than on gigantic stone turtles. Apparently, however, kids absolutely love these turtles. An annual act of community vandalism occurs late some night between Christmas and New Year's when children and teenagers, concerned with their warmth and armed with spares, cover the turtles with hundreds of blankets.

Cool points awarded: 7

*

St Louis Zoo

Walk across Interstate 64 via the overpass the snake from Turtle Park is chomping, then turn right and walk along the road there, and you'll find the St Louis Zoo. I met Elisabeth there one afternoon while she was nannying two infants, Gabriel and Margot.

Supposedly certian authorities rank this among the best zoos of the nation. And lawmakers long ago declared admission "forever free", so you'll forever have an agreeable bang-to-buck ratio.

We were sitting at a picnic table near the entrance when Delilah and her nanny stopped near us to tie Delilah's shoes. Gabriel, three and a half years old, and Margot, older than a year but young enough that everyone still counts her age in months, had finished with lunch and had just resumed tromping through the ivy. Shoes tied, Delilah decided to join them. And her nanny decided to join us, still sitting at the table, talking. Mothers and nannies welcome encounters like this, if for nothing more than the opportunity to speak in a grown-up voice.

The train was closed for maintenance and track repair, otherwise we would have taken it. Together, then, we walked the zoo. Delilah likes snakes the best, so we went to the herpetorium first. And Gabriel likes the monkeys so we agreed that, after the snakes, we would head to the monkey house. While the children ran around tapping on glass, Delilah's nanny told us all about them in her swishy, gargly voice—she talked like her cheeks were crammed with marbles, and she hissed. Three years old and homeschooled, Delilah relishes the company of peers maybe more than her nanny, who retired from her short career as a Montessori teacher only a couple years ago.

Outside, I raced Gabe down the hill and over the bridge. Delilah was devestated, as if her new best friend had abandoned her. She shrieked and stomped her feet and Margot saw this time stalled as an opportunity to crap her pants in comfort. Gabe and I raced down the hill a second time.

Eventually Delilah calmed down, grabbed Gabe's hand, grabbed Margot's hand, and the three of them ran across the bridge together. The nannies and I followed.

The main attraction at the monkey house is a chimp named Cinder, the ash-grey color the word invokes matching the color of her skin. As a result of her Alopecia, Cinder's body is completely hairless. Alopecia affects humans as well—about 1–2% of the population is affected—and its cause is not completely understood. Because a higher number of children with alopecia have relatives with Alopecia, scientists suspect heredity. Some think it acts as an autoimmune disorder—the body attacking its own hair folicles. It is not contagious. The varieties are named according to the severity and location of hair loss—Alopecia areata monolocularis results in one bald spot anywhere on the head, Alopecia areata barbae results in a naked chin, and Alopecia areata universalis results in full-body hair loss, back and toes included. There is not an Alopecia areata pubicis, although if there were I'm sure we would find a way to make it contagious.

We didn't see Cinder that day. The cold had forced the chimps inside and we didn't want to linger too long in there because, as Gabe pointed out when he opened the door to the monkey house, it smelled bad. The main attraction that afternoon was a silverback that, after flinging a trick-or-treat pumpkin into the faux pond, hopped down the hill and shuffled over to a female, idly playing with hay beneath a large tree branch. He bowled into her back, she rolled forward a little and we prepared ourselves to hear the caged bird sing when the male, perhaps overcome with anxiety avant l'act, turned his back to hers and tilted, ass to the air, and puked a big creamy puddle in the grass. Still tilted, he poked through the puddle and retrieved a few larger carrot chunks, sniffing them before eating them a second time.

Delilah had another breakdown in the bird house and we decided to leave them there. After quick goodbyes, we started running for the exit. We ran heedless of direction—separation was our sole priority. Gabe led the race and set the pace, Margot was in Elisabeth's arms, and I just looked stupid running alongside them. And then somehow Elisabeth tripped, tumbling into Gabe—the three of them fell and scraped and even though Elisabeth instinctively clutched Margot closer, her head clunked the sidewalk with a sound Elisabeth described as a "mortifying bonk." It took a while, but I helped Gabe recover. It took even longer to calm Margot. She would sniffle and seem fine, Elisabeth would shift her weight so she could stand, and then Margot would start wailing again. It took so long for her to be ok that Delilah and her nanny, in their slow awkward walk, caught up with us. The nanny showed concern and offered advice—first aid for Elisabeth's knee, which was bleeding through her jeans—and instead of picking up the escapade it was decided that we'd ride the merry-go-round together.

My favorite part of the merry-go-round were the labels above the animals. Sun bear. Siberian tiger. Somali Wild Ass. I sat on the bench watching the nannies and infants go round and round while the man whose job was to open and close the gates for riders—ours was the only party riding that particular go-round, the only party in sight—stared at me with curiosity or contempt, maybe even trying to label me.

Cool points awarded:
Delilah: 4
Delilah's nanny: 1
Absence of Cinder: 0
Barfing horny silverback: 13
Somali Wild Ass sign: 8

*

Riding bikes in roads

Two days after the zoo—she doesn't work Thursdays—Elisabeth and I had an adventure on bikes. As we rolled up our pant legs, hanged the lock so it wouldn't clank on knee, and dismayed at her empty tires, she asked if I minded riding in the street. Josh doesn't like to, she said, but she does, and does so whenever she can. I said why not?

In the state of California, at least, bike riders legally have all the rights and responsibilities on surface streets as everyone else. However, everyone I've told this to has had the same reaction: that's a stupid law, they say. Not only stupid, but deadly. And it's true that, at least in the state of California, collision with automobile is the leading cause of death among bicyclists that take their rights to the road seriously.

Of course, car-bike collisions are only a hazard on roads where bicycles and automobiles need to compete for space. We didn't experience this problem in St Louis. Skinker—the busiest road we biked down—borders both Washington University and Forest Park, and we rode on the path that parallels the street. In Josh's neighborhood and hers, we rode in full command of the right lane. Any passing cars took the left.

The last time I biked through a city was this summer—and the city was Amsterdam, where bicyclists have their own lanes on every street. At first, the idea of seizing my right to a slice of street had me anxious. Bikes do force cars to slow, to accommodate, and bikes can be hard to see sometimes. But if a city will permit such rights to bicyclists and not install lanes or paths for them, then bicyclists don't have much choice other than to force motorists to accommodate. And if motorists have forced everyone else to accommodate their cars, with accompanying oil woes and inconvenient, sprawling city design, it seems the least they could do.

Cool points awarded:
Bikers: lots
Accommodating drivers: lots, too
Nonaccommodating drivers: none at all

*

MetroLink

After touring her neighborhood, withdrawing some cash from an ATM on the Wash U campus, and taking a coffee break at Kayak's Coffee and Provisions, Elisabeth and I bought a day pass for the MetroLink—St Louis' train system—and boarded the next train to Shrewsbury.

We had been drawing the public eye all afternoon—wheeling our way through the streets—so it fit theme that the seats of the car we boarded all faced the two of us, lurching and staggering and grasping our bikes as if they could hold us steady.

And that's all I have to say about that.

*

Shopping for dinner

So where'd we go? Trader Joe's.

We got off the MetroLink at Brentwood and braved sidewalkless frontage roads to get there and we left mostly disappointed. The Trader Joe's at 48 Brentwood Promenade (misnomer, unless we're now counting parking lots as promenades) is the worst Trader Joe's I've ever been to. They didn't have falafel mix. They didn't even have plain tomatoes in a can. They did, however, have rosé champagne.

And a canvas bag. Elisabeth brought a backpack but we had more groceries than could fit. So I shouldered the sack and we rode back to the station. With each pedal, my knee contacted cans and canvas.

We needed spices, and no one that knows anything about spices buys anywhere but Penzey's. That's the impression I got, anyway, waiting with the bikes outside the store. Alphabetized jars of a disorienting array of sizes pack the shelves, which go midway to the ceiling on two long walls—tables and barrels and racks make a maze of the floorspace. They have such exotic stock as Hungarian Sweet Kulonleges Paprika. Elisabeth bought some cinnamon.

And then we trekked all the way across the street to the Shop N Save, where the gimmick is you save money because they save money by not hiring bag boys.

They had the falafel mix that Trader Joe's did not. They had the organic quinoa blend that Trader Joe's did not. And some dude dropped a bottle of bar-b-q sauce on the floor, which popped and globbed sauce all over his sweat pants. He looked upset but walked on.

Three stops and $60 for a dinner that left nothing for lunch the following afternoon. Consensus: delectable.

Cool points awarded: uncounted but high (extra points awarded for braving intense cold and illegally traversing an overpass under construction)

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