*Monkey’s face goes deadpan and let’s in a wheezy inhale…. With a 1000 yard stare he cocks his head and begins to speak.*

“It’s as if a million voices all cried out in terror then were instantly silenced.”

Oh alright.. I’m not Princess Leah.. Nor am I psychic for that matter.. but I do tend to be involuntarily empathic. All day yesterday I kept feeling… well… depressed and sad – yet I had no personal reason for being so.

Come to find out I work with some extreme hard-core baseball fans… (that and apparently people “in-general” are more into the sport than I thought).

Our team was one game from going to go to the Super Bowl,… or whatever they call that. (oh fine… yes – that’s exaggerated ignorance….)… WORLD SERIES.

Anyway… We lost in what apparently was a heart wrenching game.

It “is” heart wrenching… I would have gone as well…

Not because I care about baseball.

Because the game marked the last event for Busch Stadium before demolition.

No wonder I need a heart-scan.

This – one of a handful of remaining monuments to late-mid-20th century modern architecture is being torn down to be replaced with a McStadium. Why? It’s not falling down. It could stand for hundreds of years… Actually – ask any construction professional and they’ll tell you: “Take a good look- you’ll never see that much poured concrete again.. they just don’t, (can’t), build like that anymore.”

The only rational I could find is the new stadium will have more private corporate suites. Hows that for smarmy and sick huh? Appropriate for the era we’re living in.

Bush Stadium 1966-2005

memory notes:

The U2 ZooTV tour from the Laclede Gas box… They didn’t I.D. us… and I subsequently got too drunk to remember the encore.

Winning a drawing and getting to be in the Barnum & Bailey Circus Opening parade as a boy… The separation and the crowd had me terrified and crying most of the time – but I remember looking up into the ocean of people and spotting my parents who were leaping from their chairs and waving.

Seeing countless Shriner’s circuses and watching my Uncle march in the Drum Corps…. The smell of draft beer and elephant poop.

Snoozing through my share of Cardinals games.

Regardless of age,… from my first visit to the last – I’d always get the same overwhelmed feeling of awe being there… Especially when I’d walk from the mammoth maze of open concrete ramps and enter the inner-stadium. The transition visually is (was) enough to make you pause and gasp.

The drama of the space usually upstaged anything on the field.

Ugh.. I’m getting that choked up wispy feeling again.

Too bad The Cardinals didn’t win the Stanley Cup…

Too bad I didn’t blog about this.