Meramec State Park, August 22-24

I wrote nothing the whole time at Meramec.  We camped, we floated, we sweated.  Friday I camped with one of my five cousins, Lyle.  He picked me up in his Sierra.  I gave him a quick tour of the house.  His brother had been here, a few years ago at holiday time.  We crawled along Hanley and I regretted having suggested we go that way.  Big Bend, Jack—quit forgetting about Big Bend.

Just getting my camp gear loaded into the truck I was sweating.  He was sweating at work and never stopped.  He must've hauled ass to get to my place when he did—left the mill at 3:50, down 70 to Soulard, fight the good fight along 64/170 to College City—I expected him at 5:30 but he got here at ten after.  I was only a third of the way through a manhattan solidarity said I shouldn't have.  But solidarity lost its good fight.


Continue with this travelogue...

Current River Float Trip, May/June 2014

I.  Preface. 
I'm listening to house music in the southeast corner of a hundred-year-old home in University City, MO.  B comes in, to investigate.  We're investigating each other, all the time.  Who you text-a-sizing with, B?  What are you looking up now, B? 
I started by watering the lawn this morning—really what I watered were … Continue reading Current River Float Trip, May/June 2014

Brodkey Was Right, and Not Much Has Changed

In his story "First Love and Other Sorrows," from the 1950s he wrote:

"Toward the end of March, in St. Louis, slush fills the gutters, and dirty snow lies heaped alongside porch steps, and everything seems to be suffocating in the embrace of a season that lasts too long.  Radiators hiss mournfully, no one manages to be patient, the wind draws tears from your eyes, the clouds are filled with sadness.  Women with scarves around their heads and their feet encased in fur-lined boots pick their way carefully over patches of melting ice.  It seems that winter will last forever, that this is the decision of nature and nothing can be done about it."

Harold, you nailed it.  It blew like a beast today.  There isn't any slush left in the gutters, but there was not long ago.  The radiators have all been scrapped and women maybe don't wear scarves about their heads like they used to—but they are still wearing Uggs.  And I am not being patient.