state line

The trip home was an ass kicker. Thanks to holiday traffic an extra hour was added to our drive time.

By the time we hit the Missouri border my back, shoulders and legs were killing me from the stress of having to share the road with what seemed to be EVERY SHUT-IN IDIOT who suddenly got a day-pass and a drivers license. En route, we passed three major accidents and was nearly in a forth. (Thank you nimble Jetta and ABS breaks).

Wanderlust and fascination with Pennsylvania aside, it’s nice to be Home. We all let out a little sigh of relief when we turned that last bend in Illinois and saw the arch….

Sure, St. Louis is a sucking chest wound of an urban center with a thoroughly fucked city-govenment and crippled economy since the exodus and / or acquisitions of once home-based TWA, Ralston Purina and McDonnald Douglas…. (*thank God we still have Anheiseur Bush)…

…but… it’s still Home. I can drive by where my grandparents lived…. I know the back roads and the nooks and crannies of this old titan like the back of my hand.

We’re very serious about wanting to on day build a secondary home in PA, but I’ll probably always have some sort of stake in this old city…

To leave it entirely would feel like cutting out my spleen or some other trivial, yet important organ.

To blog about this would be an exercise in sentimental spanking of the monkey.