By Jeff Fister
The busy holiday travel season is almost upon us and millions of people are traveling “home,” including students. I have two kids in college and I’m just thankful they attend school near a major highway —and a Megabus or Amtrak route.
Megabus service started in St. Louis about the time my oldest daughter started [...]
By Jeff Fister
I’ve spent many enjoyable hours on the various paths in Forest Park — from screaming down the hills on my bike as a helmet-less 1970s teenager to a magical night in early June when I walked by a natural light display that was like a thousand flashbulbs going off.
This [...]
By Jeff Fister – October 13, 2010
Sometime in August I received a phone message from a high school classmate I’ve talked to maybe twice in 30-some-odd years.
“Give me a call,” he said.
We all get a lot of phone messages. A call like this, you’d expect the person to leave a reason they’re calling. But he [...]
By Jeff Fister
I’ve never been in the Army, but there’s a saying that goes something like… “hours and hours of unspeakable boredom followed by moments of sheer terror.”
That’s sort of how I felt at the beginning of the Moonlight Ramble bike ride. The annual event, sponsored by Hostelling International, took place Aug. 22 and more [...]
Urban Hike In the Pursuit of Ice Cream: Part II
By Jeff Fister
On our 12-mile hike with boy scouts through the heart of the city last month, as the day wore on, the big question was: if we stopped walking, would we fall over and call someone to pick us up?
On the other hand, there was [...]
By Jeff Fister
So how far would you walk for ice cream?
Twelve miles?
The event showed up on my son’s boy scout schedule a few months ago: the “ice cream hike.”
This sounded interesting.
Not all boy scout hikes are over the river and through the woods. My sons are part of Troop 98, based at St. Roch school [...]
By Jeff Fister
The dilapidated Clemens Mansion just north of downtown looks like a horror movie set…. Nightmare on Cass Street. With its faded antebellum columns, collapsing porches and lean-to construction, it seems likely to fall over (or fall in) at any minute.
It’s hard to believe that this decrepit old house is set to become a [...]
By Jeff Fister
Lindell Boulevard is one of the city’s best-known streets; it began around 1800 as a small path in the prairie leading to a spring near what is now Maryland and Euclid avenues. French colonials and others made their way from downtown to the spring to drink, gossip, quarrel and relax, according to CWE [...]
By Jeff Fister
I can be incredibly annoying when I’m driving around town with passengers in the car.
By virtue of publishing books on St. Louis history for nearly 20 years, I’ve slowly accumulated tiny bits of St. Louis historical trivia. Occasionally, I can impress an out-of-town visitor, but mostly it’s my kids who bear the brunt [...]
The last — and only — time I entered the San Luis Apartments at 4483 Lindell Blvd. was about 10 years ago. My daughter was a student at the nearby Cathedral School and her class went to the building to sing Christmas carols for the elderly residents.
At the time, the building was part of the [...]
