Thomas, Drew, and I moved to St. Louis in June of 2001. Thomas, Drew, Possum, Olivia, and I left in January of 2004. As you can see, the size of my family increased while living there, for that reason, if no other, St. Louis will always hold a special place in my heart.
To be honest, I didn't really like St. Louis, I couldn't wait to leave almost as soon as we moved there. Being from the South, I am used to very friendly people who go out of their way to welcome you, but nobody in St. Louis was like that as far as we could tell. Now, maybe I am not being fair, maybe it was just the people we lived near and worked with, but we did meet other transplants to the area who shared the same experiences we encountered. The only people we ever entertained in our home were people who were from somewhere else. That was hard on us as we are social people, when we moved to California we had more people in our home, having dinner, over for get togethers, or just hanging out in the six months we lived there than the entire time we lived in St. Louis.
Now, there is some good that came of our isolation, I must say. Thomas and I have a stronger relationship and marriage than anyone I know. He is the best friend I could ever ask for, not to mention husband, father, lover, etc. I can't say if we would be as close if we had spent so much of the early part of our marriage in a "friendlier" town.
All that said and done, I must admit there are MANY things I miss about St. Louis. I cannot ever imagine living there again, but we have talked about visiting with Possum and Olivia when they get older, so they can see where they were born. Not to mention, there are plenty of things to see and do that we want them to enjoy. So, the purpose of this blog is to list the things I enjoyed and miss about St. Louis.
1. Dr. Jacob Klein - now this may seem unusual to be the first thing on my list, but let me tell you, he is the best OB/GYN I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. He delivered Possum and I must say that the experience I had with Dr. Klein is one I have never had repeated. I like my doctor now, but Dr. Klein is one of those special people that I am fortunate enough to have known.
2. Casa Gallardo - a chain Mexican restaurant in the St. Louis area. I ate at a few of them, but the one in South County on Lindbergh was, by far, the best. The service was phenomenal and the food was to die for, I will have to eat there a few times when we go back to visit.
3. Ted Drewes - frozen custard is a St. Louis thing, I had never heard of frozen custard until I moved there. There were a TON of different frozen custard shops but none compared to Ted Drewes. Ted Drewes was worth a drive into the city even if you had no other reason to go. We also bought our Christmas tree there every year :o)
4. St. John's Mercy Medical Center - well, the labor and delivery aspect anyway, I can't speak to the rest of the hospital. I had Olivia at St. John's and I know neither of my hospital stays with my boys compared and I am pretty sure this next visit will not compare either. Babies are St. John's game and they play it superbly.
5. Imo's Pizza - St. Louis style pizza is very strange in my opinion and, with the exception of Imo's, I never did have any that I liked. The pizza is on a hard, cracker-like crust and topped with a thin sauce and provolone cheese. It was very unusual, and as I said, Imo's was the only place I liked to eat it. I will order from Imo's when we go visit.
6. The St. Louis Zoo - This is the most amazing zoo I have ever been to in my life. Besides the fact that it is gorgeous and the exhibits are phenomenal, its free. That's right, I said free. You only had to pay to park or to visit a "few" (very few) special exhibits. You could go completely free though if you wanted by parking on the many side streets and avoiding the exhibits that cost. I have been to many other zoos in my life and none compare to the St. Louis Zoo, I don't even want to get started on the Atlanta Zoo. I went once with a girlfriend and her kids and it was small, dingy, and expensive. I figure if I have to pay for entrance it should be FAR SUPERIOR to anything I can go to for free.
7. Other free stuff - there is plenty to do in St. Louis that doesn't cost money. Short of walking the mall in Atlanta or going to a park, there isn't anything free here. The Museum was free, the Science Center was free, etc. And these weren't dinky places, they were outstanding. I am not sure why things that can obviously be done for free cost so much money in other cities, but it is a shame.
8. Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital - I was hired to their PICU and worked there briefly before I moved. I wish I could have worked there longer, but everything happens for a reason. This area has another children's hospital, but I wouldn't take my dog there, let alone my child. Every nurse I worked with felt the same way. The other hospital gets all the recognition, but none of the medical people I knew would ever trust that facility with the care of their children. The stories I heard from nurses who had left the other hospital and come to Glennon was enough to make me want to run the other way. Cardinal Glennon was an amazing facility, by far the best Children's Hospital I have ever been to, including the one I work at now, however I do love the facility I work at now and my daughter has been a patient there, so I trust it very much.
Okay, with all those good points, why wouldn't I want to move back to St. Louis? That is probably what anyone who reads this is wondering. Even if I could get around the isolation, there is the fact that the area does not respect its nurses (unless things have changed in almost two years.) The pittance that hospitals pay their nurses is an insult. I have brought home paychecks here that were full double what I made as a night shift charge nurse at one hospital in St. Louis (and I was supposedly paid "better" because I was a charge nurse and a member of management, yet that was my worst paying job in the area overall.) The cost of living in this area is much cheaper than the St. Louis area, we pay less on rent, utilities, groceries, gas, etc than we ever did there, yet I make more than $10.00/hr more here than I ever did in St. Louis, at my best pay rate (and this is talking base pay, when I add on the shift differentials, it is more like $14.00/hr.) I worked with a nurse in California who was from Missouri (I can't remember where though) and she, like me, would not go back there because of the pay.
Oh well, every place has its good and bad. We experienced both in St. Louis and we are better people overall for the time we spent there. There are many things I would like to do there that I didn't before, like go up in the Arch and visit Grant's Farm and take a tour of Anheuser-Busch. I think though, that for the things I enjoyed and the things I miss most, with the exception of Glennon, I can experience them as a visitor to the area. I wish I had a zoo and a museum close by like the ones in St. Louis, but we all make compromises and I think the life we have now is better overall.
3 comments:
Hmmm...it is interesting to hear your point of view. As a St. Louisan myself it is fun to hear what "visitors" think of our great (or not so great) city.
I lived in the south for 10 years and upon our return to STL I also noticed the lack of friendliness and hospitality. In the south, it was always easy to talk to strangers. All I had to say to a new comer is, "So, where do ya'll go to church?" and instant friendships where made. In STL the big question is, "So, where did you go to High School?" and unless your answer is the same as theirs, chances are good that you wouldn't become good friends. That makes it VERY difficult for folks who came here from other cities as adults. ANYWAY...
I thought that I would share a few favorites and not-so-favorites too.
Favorites in STL
1. Family
2. The Feasting Fox (on Grand)
3. The Fabulous Fox Theatre
4. I must agree...IMOS, CASA, and TED DREWS, the free ZOO
5. Amazing Medical Care through Barnes and Cardinal Glennon
6. Great Malls (the new West County mall is amazing as is the new St. Louis Mills Mall)
7. ST. LOUIS CARDINALS and the best fans in the country!
8. Forest Park
Not So Favorites
1. Dog eat Dog attitude
2. Traffic on 270
3. Crime
4. The hot, I mean cold, no the rainy, no snowy, no icy weather. (just wait 5 minutes, it will change!)
5. ALLERGIES
6. Cost of living as compared to West Tennessee.
Well, I didn't mean to take up so much space on your blog. You provoked thought, and I figured that I'd share.
I am sorry that you didn't like it in STL. I hope that you will come back for a visit sometime and have a better experience. Sometimes when a stressor is removed, things can be enjoyed a little bit more.
ch
As I said, it wasn't that I didn't "like" St. Louis, there was a lot to enjoy and we did enjoy many things. I think, in retrospect, my biggest disappointment was the lack of friends. A lot could be overcome if you had someone to talk to and share things with, including stressors.
I think the thing that amazed me the most was our neighbors. We lived in the same house for two and a half years and our neighbors never entertained anyone who was not family EXCEPT on the day their daughter made her First Communion, when church people came over.
Maybe its because I grew up in a military town and in the south, but newcomers were always welcomed with open arms. Half the neighborhood would bring food over when a moving truck pulled up.
Oh well, we will be back to visit and we will enjoy ourselves. Of course, I don't think we will visit in the summer, maybe the fall. I was warned by my girlfriend about the "Hotlanta" summers, but after living through my first one I must say they do not compare to a St. Louis summer at all. We had days that would get as hot and humid as St. Louis did, but they were a day here or a few days there, not the consistent oppressive heat that I had become accustomed to in St. Louis. I do miss the winters though, I like the cold and snow. St. Louis never had enough snow for my taste, but some is better than none.
I am sure that our return visits to St. Louis will be a lot less stressful than life was while we were living there.
Time to put the toddlers down for a nap. Have a good afternoon.
I miss Dutchtown. . .
I miss Ted Drewes, for Frozen custard AND xmas trees.
I miss Gus' Pretzels.
I miss a St. Louis Bread company on EVERY corner.
I miss the Barnes and Noble at crestwood.
I miss being able to buy ANY Anheiser Busch product for HALF the price you could anywhere else. . .Amberbock on draft EVERYWHERE.
I miss South City...What a great vibe. . .
Vitales Bakery. . .on the Hill. . the BEST CANNOLIS EVER!!!
I miss being able to get from ANYWHERE south of Hwy 40 and know three different ways to do it.
Dad's Cookies on Louisiana. Hard as a rock, but worth every broken tooth.
The Guitar center at crestwood. . .the last Guitar Center with any REAL concept of customer service.
What i DON'T miss. . .
the aforementioned isolation (what High school are you from)
The "coutesy invite"--when I say I want you to come over for dinner, i REALLY mean it. . .don't say yes if you don't think I am just asking to be nice. Don't invite me over unless you REALLY expect me to come.
Heat and Humidity.
The lack of a cohesive music scene. . .high competition for venues, no real concept of collaboration with musicians, too many people thinking they will be on MTV next week.
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