History for three...

While Sue & I were doing the Girls Road Trip, Gorn made a trip to St. Louis to see some old friends and visit old haunts. Tuesday he called several times wanting us to stop in St. Louis; then it was he wanted us to stay a night. OK.

Aunt Daisy’s B & B is an extraordinary place, filled with beautiful things and great memories. You need to visit to experience it. A trip to the attic is rare but filled with wonder.

The above is the light fixture in the room where Sue & I stayed.

Our second and last morning we were up early for breakfast with Harry Prince. Isn’t that a great name? Harry is a local boy aged 87 who is friends with Glenn & Michelle who own Aunt Daisy’s. Harry is often invited for breakfast and he and Sue have become good friends. Elaine from next door came over bringing us three large bags of beautiful red rhubarb from her garden and Glenn and Michelle’s! What a send off! Talk about hospitality!

Gorn grew up in St. Louis. I went to Barnes Hospital School of Nursing in St. Louis. Sue visited St. Louis for ball games and anniversaries. How odd that Gorn has rooms for us at the Cheshire Lodge. He picked it because it’s right in the middle of his old neighborhood but it also is where Sue and Mark stayed when they came to St. Louis!

Gorn took us to lunch at Jimmy’s Cafe. We had just an incredible lunch. Check out the lunch menu here but I hardly needed to go further than the first item.

FLASH-FRIED SPINACH With a squeeze of lemon, dusted in Parmesan cheese

Yes, sir, heaven on earth.

And then there was

SPINACH & ARTICHOKE DIP Blend of cream cheese, fresh artichokes, spinach
and Parmesan cheese served with pitas

Sue & I both had the soup du Jour which happened to be a delicious black bean and Gorn had a pizza...

Wow. Yes, we shared!

Now, the food was really really good but the memories were beyond. Sitting in Jimmy’s we were looking almost into his back yard of Concordia Seminary. It’s beautiful lawn now with well placed trees, then it was wild woods. The stories of childhood. The restaurant is in the old grocery store building where he was sent for a loaf of bread.

And then we drove around, saw his old house, walked around the art museum in Forest Park where we went on so many dates. Gorn especially wanted me to see our old apartment at 8817 Eager Road as it is scheduled for demolition. You can go back and things are the same but not.

The railing was added after we lived there and the landscaping disappeared.

And then Gorn went the extra mile into rush hour and we drove around the now Barnes Jewish Hospital complex. When I went to school there (let’s try not to count that high just now), Barnes was huge. We students joked about getting lost going to the cafeteria, now it’s beyond huge and building. The nursing school building appears to be gone or unrecognizable. I could recognize the old Queene Tower where I did three evenings of private duty with Mr. Queene as my patient. He was not patient. Children’s Hospital where I had my first job and started a Day Surgery program has been replaced with new buildings. The one place Gorn & I recognized with total clarity was this...

This is half of a U-shaped drive way where Gorn used to park his car, go in those doors of the David P. Wohl Jr. Memorial Hospital, turn right to enter the nursing school, take the elevator down one floor and request the front desk to call my room for me to come downstairs for a visitor. Should I bore you with the hours we were required to keep? First year, the latest we could stay out during the week was till 9 PM, Friday and Saturday nights until 10 PM. Yes, for real.

We shared a good bottle of wine and some deli snacks on the hotel patio for dinner that night and laughed pretty good. Next morning we had our oatmeal and were on the road toward Fulton.

The Party next...Dad turns 90!