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 college in Chicago. At the time, the hype was that you could get bus rides for as low as $1 plus the 50-cent reservation fee on the internet. Megabus, which is owned by a British company called the Stagecoach Group, operates a “no frills” bus line much like discount airlines. They advertise a few super-cheap seats but increase the rates the later you book your seat, especially around holidays. So if you book your bus ride home three months in advance leaving at three a.m., yes, you might get a dollar seat. But if you’re a college student who decides to book a ride home the day before Thanksgiving ON the day before Thanksgiving… good luck.

My daughter, who is now a senior, has taken maybe a dozen Megabus rides either to or from Chicago. About half of them were uneventful, and the fares have ranged from $10 to $25 one-way. The other half?

One of the ways Megabus saves money is that they don’t have a station. While they usually pick up passengers and deposit them near a station, you have to know exactly where they stop — sort of like Harry Potter looking for Platform 9 3/4. In Chicago the place is somewhere near sprawling Union Station downtown in the Loop. In fact, there are signs in the train station that say “restrooms are not for use by Megabus passengers.” I’m not sure how they enforce that, but clearly Megabus isn’t paying any rent there.

My daughter has had several misadventures on Megabus. The first time she took it home from Chicago was at Christmas. The “windy city” was at its best — or worst — and there was a swirling snowstorm. She dragged her luggage around looking for the “station” and finally found a group of passengers huddled on North Clinton Street. The bus was late and then it was overbooked, and she had to wait an hour while they got another bus.

That was not a phone call my wife and I could have imagined. As far as we knew, our self-sufficient daughter had navigated her way to the bus and was on her way home. Instead, she was wandering around downtown Chicago in a blizzard looking for a phantom bus stop.

Another mishap was when a bus that was supposed to leave St. Louis at midnight didn’t leave until 3 a.m., which severely cut into her mother’s sleep that night.

At least the bus didn’t derail.

My daughter’s mass-transit option to Megabus is Amtrak. Maybe it was the “invisible hand” of competition, but around the time Megabus started operating in St. Louis, travel by train suddenly became very competitive price-wise with the bus. And if you’re a passenger, what would you rather do? Ride on an overbooked “discount” bus line squeezed between two people — or the “romance of the rails”? After her first train ride, my daughter clearly preferred the train to Megabus — after all, you could sit and move around comfortably and yes, visit the dining car. The internet was available for her laptop, and being a history major she could look out the window and think about the historic significance of the railroads in our nation’s development. (She could also think about how Chicago trumped St. Louis more than 100 years ago and became a world-class city because it snagged the majority of rail travel but that’s another story).

But all’s not perfect on the train. On one trip back to Chicago, a normally 5 and half hour trip turned into a 10-hour nightmare when a freight train ahead of her Amtrak derailed. My daughter had to get off of the train and waited for hours — for a bus — to get them to Chicago.

But still, having access to these mass-transit options is great. I have a son who just started school this fall in Kansas City, and he’s already used Megabus and the train.

These aren’t the only options. Normally, when our kids start or end school, we drive them to college to haul all of their stuff or pick it up. And more than once I’ve done what I call the “Chicago turn-around,” which is driving my daughter up to school and returning the same day, an 11-hour task. And sometimes they have found rides from other people who live in town.

One thing I do know: while I like Truman State University, it’s not on a train or bus route.

Truman is a popular school in northwest Missouri where my second-oldest son graduated. By automobile, it’s about a three-and-a-half-mile drive. Basically, you go west on I-70 to Columbia and then drive north for another hour or so. Located in Kirksville, a farming town, Truman is a former state teacher’s college turned into a small liberal arts school offering a great education at a state-school price. About one-third of the students come from the St. Louis area.

But getting there other than by car is problematic. Once, when my son wanted to get home from Truman and he couldn’t find a ride, I checked Amtrak and their schedule said it would cost $100 and take 13 hours. Basically, he’d have to take a train from La Plata, a town south of Kirksville, all the way to Chicago, and then switch to a train to St. Louis. And Megabus? No way.

So, whether it’s by train, bus or automobile, my older kids will make it home for the holidays. But I still have four more kids to go to college.

While I hope the school they attend has good academics… it better be near a train line.

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 fall, there will be more changes to the paths, thanks to a $3 million donation to Forest Park Forever. The gift will be used to finish a section of path in the southwest corner of the park to create a true “perimeter” route.

The origin of the trails has its own winding history.

People have been biking to and around Forest Park since the original “biking craze” in the 1890s. In 1898, the park’s first cinder bicycle path was built. That early bicycle boom ended and the path eventually became a “bridle trail” for horse riders. But in 1968 the Missouri Stables suddenly closed and park employees paved a portion of the path, converting it back to its original bicycle purpose. At the time, Henry Stolar was the 25th Ward Alderman when that ward contained most of the Central West End. An ardent biker, he sponsored legislation for  $20,000 to create a paved path that would nearly encircle the park. By the mid 1970s, when I first started riding there, it also included interior paths.

When the park was renovated at the turn of the most recent century, planners installed  a “dual path” system along 5.6 miles of the total 7.5 miles. In addition to the old asphalt trail, a “soft” path was added for walkers and runners.

As any regular park user knows, people don’t always pay attention to the dual-path concept. Mountain bikers race on the gravel and joggers still pound the asphalt. I’m a guilty party; I find the gravel gets in my shoes when I jog and the original asphalt trail is shorter in some areas. It might not be much, but when you’re wheezing along in summer climes, a few-hundred-yard shortcut is worth it.

One could argue that the dual paths take away precious space for trees and greenery. But the park is all about access and separating the ambulatory from the car traffic is worth the space given up. Also, the gravel paths don’t create water runoff like the asphalt. And over the years, park planners have steadily added more greenspace by removing parking lots and roads.

I grumble sometimes on nice weekends when the paths are clogged with clumsy rollerblade newbies, wandering toddlers and oblivious bicycle racers in day-glo lycra pants. So I pick my spots — and times — when it’s less crowded. I’ve got a couple of my own favorite uses for the trails:

• In early June, when lightning bugs are first coming out, I walk to an area just north of Steinberg Skating rink around 9 p.m. Here, a path circles the “river” created by park planners where the old River Des Peres used to run (and still does, deep below the ground in tunnels).

If you do this, please bring a large dog. I’ve never had any safety issues, but it’s always wise at that time of night. Surrounding the river are tall grasses and reeds. During firefly season, thousands of the insects gather in the grass to create a flashing light show worthy of the old Planetarium.

• My other use is what I call the “three-hill” bike route — or five-hill if I have time. I wanted to devise the best muscle-burning activity in the shortest distance. I start on the Lower Muny parking lot and go straight up the steep hill that runs along the north side of the theater. I then proceed south through the Muny parking lot, turn right, and take the path that eventually goes up the back side of the World’s Fair Pavilion. Then down the hill next to the zoo. The third rise is up Art Hill. I stop at the King Louis statue for a breather and then head back home. It takes about 25 minutes. The five-hill route adds the hill behind the Art Museum, then goes over to Skinker for the long downhill ride to Forsyth. Then it’s back into the park for one last heart-pounding climb of Art Hill, adding another 20 minutes or so.

I’ll have to admit it’s been a while since I’ve done the hill ride.

But, unlike when I was a teenager, now I do wear a helmet.

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 didn’t.

I scoured my brain for a minute why he’d call. We weren’t especially friends, but we knew some common people. My first thought… did someone die?

So I called him back and got his machine.

He called back and left another message with an explanation: “Hey, Jeff, I’m hosting a fund-raiser for our old friend and classmate Bill Corrigan, who’s running for county executive…”

Oh.

I should have called him back, but I never did. What would I say? “Sorry, Mike, I live in the city, so I can’t vote in that election. Besides, I’m a lifelong Democrat.”

But Mike, who I recall was a very persuasive guy, might have told me, “Oh, that’s OK, you should come anyway and see some old friends.” I’d be put on the spot and have to tell him “no” or “maybe” and to be nice, might write it down but not have any intention on going.

It did make me think about Corrigan. In high school, he was a smart guy, his dad was a judge, he had red hair and well, that’s about all I remember.

I wasn’t particularly political at that age, so I have no recollection about his views on politics, or guess that he’d become some day a Republican candidate for county executive. Or that I’d be seeing his face at least once an hour when I was watching television.

But even though I’m not voting in this election, there is one issue in the county executive race that concerns me and where Corrigan and his opponent, Charlie Dooley, differ: a city-county merger.

I happen to believe it would be a good thing. As most know, St. Louis is one of the few cities in the nation that is incorporated separately from the surrounding metropolitan area. We’re one of the few cities that is also a county.

The ironic thing, of course, is that it was the city in 1876 that voted not to be a part of the county because the city was prospering and was afraid the county would drain its resources. For a long time that situation was reversed; the county grew and prospered throughout the 20th century while the city shrunk to one-third of its population. But with the current recession, I think we’re all in the same boat.

There’s more irony here. The mayor of St. Louis doesn’t directly control two of its residents’ biggest quality-of-life issues: the police and the schools.

And the county is made up of 91 separate municipalities, many of which have their own governance, fire departments, etc. And even though there have been many years when the mayor of St. Louis and the county executive came from the same political party — and sometimes they’ve agreed on a merger — it hasn’t happened.

According to articles in this issue of the Word, Bill Corrigan doesn’t support a merger, although he favors “cooperation” with the city. Charles Dooley favors a merger but says that voters would have to approve it and St. Louis city would have to agree to become the county’s 92nd municipality.

Let’s admit it, a city-county merger is not on their radar. This is not a great issue for them — it’s all about getting JOBS and attacking each other in endless television ads.

But if the city and county merged, and there was some consolidation of services in county municipalities — do Richmond Heights, Clayton and University City all need a separate fire department? — it could create incredible efficiencies, lower costs, better schools… and attract more JOBS.

Maybe I’ll call Charlie Dooley and Bill Corrigan about this…and leave a message.

The St. Louis Urban Corps will sponsor a Great Debate at 7 p.m. Oct. 19 at Washington University’s School of Law titled, “Should St. Louis City Re-enter St. Louis County?”

It will feature former county executive Gene McNary, Bert Walker and UM-St. Louis political science professor Terry Jones. For more information, visit www.stlurbancorps.org.

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 than 10,000 riders participated. Bikers started in Forest Park and then took either a 9- or 19-mile route through city streets.

The ride has been around a long time — the first one was in 1964 — but gained popularity in the 1970s, when thousands of riders started to attend. I was an avid cyclist in high school, and it seemed like a fun thing to do. But for whatever reason, I’d never tried it.

And I didn’t decide to do the ride until about 10:30 Saturday night — with the race beginning at midnight.  I have two sons in high school, and one of them started bugging me about going on Saturday. He had some friends riding, and then my younger son said he wanted to go, and finally, that night, I said I’d go along. As my wife and others went off to bed, I went off to find a bike.

We had to scramble a bit. We have a lot of bikes, but not a lot that actually work. With eight kids and a couple of dumpster-divers in our family, we’ve collected a menagerie of bikes over the years. We needed one more so I called my neighbor Jim Tobin and borrowed a bike from him and a couple of helmets. We were ready to ramble.

Luckily we live a couple of blocks from the park, so we rode over and registered.  I was encouraged by how smoothly it went. By 11:50 p.m. we were standing with our bikes on a barricaded road near the Muny Opera Theatre with thousands of other riders.

I’ve run in races with thousands of people, but had never been in a big bike ride. As I looked around, there were kids and gray-hairs,  teenagers and young adults, serious lycra-covered speed racers and frat-boy partiers with flip-flops and blue jean shorts. Some people were in costume, some had decorated their bikes and one had loud metal music blaring from a boombox duct-taped on his bike.

The weather was perfect… the moon was out and it was cool. Combined with the festive atmosphere, it was fun.

At least for the first half hour.

As time dragged on and no one was moving, the crowd got a bit restless. A veteran rambler near me started grumbling. A volunteer walked through the crowd, yelling that they were sorry for the wait but the police were still clearing the streets.

How many years have they been doing this? More than 50. Don’t you think they would have figured this out by now?

It wasn’t too long until it dawned on me that it was nearly one in the morning and I’d been standing on the road for an hour and most sensible people were in bed. Near me a young girl had put her head on her knees for some awkward sleep.

Finally,  I could see movement up ahead. But I soon realized  they were staggering the start, allowing only a few hundred riders at a time. That made sense, I realized later, but made the start seem agonizingly slow.

But all of a sudden, we were set free. And then came the terror.

In a big 5K run, you have a lot of people jostling  and jockeying for position until the crowd thins and you find your pace.

But in a bike race, you’re dealing with all shapes and sizes and speeds moving along on wheeled vehicles.  As I struggled to find my way, there were speedracers zipping by, elderly slowpokes, daredevil  banana-seat teenagers and a kid wobbling back and forth across lanes with training wheels.

Compounding this was the fact that there were long dark stretches in the park without streetlights on. Come on Mr. Slay, I pay my taxes!

Finally, as we sped down a hill near the south entrance of the Zoo I glanced up to see a recent crash site, the injured biker sprawled on the asphalt while someone tried to comfort him/her. In the distance we heard ambulance sirens.

But within a few minutes we were out of the park, calmly pedaling along bright city streets,  bikers spread out across both lanes of a completely car-free Forest Park Parkway.

Well wishers lined the route near Euclid Avenue, some even giving high-fives. Looking up, the moon was bright, the air was cool, and we cruised comfortably toward Washington University.

And almost before we knew it, we were back in the park heading for the finish line. I kept telling myself I could have gone the full 19 miles. But then I realized it was 2:30 in the morning.

There was one last hill to the Upper Muny parking lot. Thousands of bikers had finished ahead of us, and there was reggae music playing and smiles all around. While most of the ride had gone smoothly, my nerves were still a bit jangled from the start.

We parked our bikes and headed to the tents. Volunteers were passing out Ted Drewes ice cream and Schlafly beer to registered riders.

I grabbed an extra vanilla concrete and gave it to my son.

“Dad you can have my beer,” my son joked.

Damn right.

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 a mighty motivation: we’d started with chocolate malts at Crown Candy and at the end of the trail (or almost, as I learned later) beckoned frozen treats from Ted Drewes on Chippewa.

After leaving St. Stanislaus church north of downtown we continued south on N. 20^th. At Delmar we walked by the Magic Stove Lofts, a huge condo/apartment conversion of an old stove factory. Developed by Robert Wood Realty, the building was built in 1895 and helps to anchor the western expansion of downtown loft development.

At Washington was another Robert Wood development — the string of distinctive Tudor shops and residences know as, well, the Tudor. Originally built as the showroom for The Wrought Iron Range Company, another stove company (the “Stove District”?), in 1925, it encompasses a full city block and has been converted into loft apartments and retail storefronts.

As we trudged down N. 20^th, ahead loomed what seemed like the Wonderful City of Oz… Union Station.  We’re talking shelter from the rain, indoor plumbing, benches to sit on and maybe even a chance to get some food. Maybe.

If you grew up in St. Louis, you doubtless have memories of Union Station, perhaps good and bad. My earliest recollections were waiting in the old terminal for my grandmother’s train to arrive from Jefferson City for a visit. This was in the 1970s, long before the rehab was a gleam in Mayor Schoemehl’s eyes. For me, the other major memory was my honeymoon; we spent a few days at the Hyatt before loading our U-Haul and old red Mustang to drive to California.

Union Station

One thing I remember as a kid was the “Whispering Wall” in Union Station. Not oneof the boy scouts knew what we were talking about. But as you stand the grand foyer of the train station, there is a long arching wall that frames the entry way. If you stand at the bottom of one end of the arch, and someone stands at the other end of the arch, you can talk to the other person like they are standing next to you. Don’t ask me how to explain auditory physics; like cell phones, airplanes and radios, to me it’s just magic. Let the mystery be.

The danger we faced at Union Station was that we might encounter a sudden drop in energy and even a possible mutiny. So instead of staying long enough for the kids to scatter and seek out fast food, we marched on, promising them we’d stop somewhere “up ahead” for lunch. Luckily, it worked, and we soon exited the station and parking lot, heading south on Truman Parkway, over the railroad tracks (and the old Mill Creek).

Lafayette Square

We went west on Chouteau a few blocks then turned south on Mississippi for a walk through Lafayette Square. If you haven’t been there recently, it’s really worth getting out of the car and seeing some of the meticulously cared-for Victorian houses. There was a time when I was getting out of college that kids were buying “shell” houses for $5,000 and doing gut rehabs. Good investment… like buying IBM stock when computers were the size of a warehouse.

Crossing over I-44 we turned west on Allen and “picked up” a scout who lived there. Aha! Fresh legs! Maybe he’d carry my water bottle?

We worked our way to Russell and Jefferson, and, standing on a corner, I experienced a very “St. Louis” thing. I looked in a doorway and out walked my friend Michael Kilfoy, a graphic artist who’s rehabbing an old commercial building. I would have liked to talk with him some more, but the light cycled once and the scoutmasters urged us on. No time to tarry, here.

Compton Heights Gazebo

Later we walked through another famous St. Louis historic neighborhood: Compton Heights, the winding streets which held mansions once owned by famous St. Louis German beer barons with names like Busch and Griesiedieck. Ya! And they still keep their streets clean (the scrubby Dutch).

By the time we got to Tower Grove Park, we were getting some “pushback” from the kids — and from our middle-aged legs. The rain started to pick up and we finally collapsed at the gazebo ringed with busts of famous composers and the home of the Compton Heights Concert Band. We sprawled on the stage and ate and watched the rain fall on the green beauty that is the park.

I don’t know what got us going again, but it seemed pretty clear that we’d better not stop too long again or we would bail on the whole deal. I’ve hiked this far before in a day, but usually on soft dirt trails, not the mean streets of the city. And then somehow, reaching Kinghshighway, we started to sense the end of the trail. Kind of.

We went out of the park, west on Arsenal and angled south toward Hampton. We passed two of the city’s most interesting historic buildings with two very different missions.

Known to most as the State Mental Hospital — but officially known as the St. Louis Psychiatric Rehabilitation Center — the large building on Arsenal looks almost like a southern state capital with columns in front and a dome on top. The hospital was designed by William Rumbold, who also designed the dome atop the Old Courthouse downtown. Built in 1869 as the St. Louis County Lunatic Asylum (I’m not kidding — it was later called the St. Louis County Insane Asylum). Originally, its capacity was only 150 patients. After a series of expansions, the hospital held more than 3800 people in 1940.

Walking south on Sublette, we viewed on the west side of the street, up a hill and behind some trees a group of buildings, one of which was red brick and looked like a giant mausoleum. This is the Missouri Crematory, built in 1888, designed by Otto Wilhelmi and was the first crematory established west of the Mississippi. The grounds also include a chapel and columbarium, where urns the ash remains are stored. I took a tour of the facility once… and even on a Saturday morning in May, it’s a little creepy.

We soon approached Tilles Park and scoutmaster (and urban architect) Ralph Wafer mentioned something that I had never noticed. On the north and east side of Tilles, which extends to Hampton Avenue, are several neighborhoods consisting of small wood-frame houses. We’d spent all morning walking through Old Red Brick St. Louis yet here was a group of cookie-cutter houses you’d expect to see in Affton or other post-war suburbs. Ralph explained that these homes were built after World War II in an area that once had a number of clay mines and brick factories. So ironically, the clay that was mined from that area was used to build many of the historic neighborhoods we had walked through. And of course you know how the nearby “Hill” neighborhood got its name… this was the hill that the Italian immigrants who worked in the clay factories had to climb to get to their homes.

Reaching Hampton almost felt like the finish line, yet we still had to make it to Chippewa. South on Hampton, past Oleatha… near the house sold by Mayor Slay in March… to Pernod, where we headed west. I’d never been on this block before — and it was yet another display of classic St. Louis architecture. Yet this was not like the old converted stove factories, or Victorian mansions, or shotgun working-class homes we’d already seen.

This was “So St. Louis,” home of over-designed stone and brick bungalows with postage-stamp green lawns, lawn ornaments, neat-as-a-pin and you’d better not spit on my sidewalk. Sturdy, neat, scrubby-dutch, conservative hard-working St. Louis. It was the beginning of the ‘burbs, but not really; the homes were still distinctive and stylish, yet small and very close together. It was a neighborhood where you’d go to see your “grandma in the city” on Sundays, or where you’d grow up walking to the neighborhood parochial school and play soccer for the CYC. It certainly was a long way from homeless encampments on the Mississippi river we’d seen that morning.

Before I knew it, we were walking south on Watson and at the Chippewa intersection. It took every bit of my will not to walk through Donut Drive-In and order a dozen, but I knew “in sight it must be right” that Ted Drewes would appear soon.

12 miles later...

For the past six hours we’d been telling the kids that “it’s not that much farther” and I don’t know how it happened, but suddenly the boy scouts disappeared. After all-day hiking through rain and city streets suddenly they burst into a sprint a block from Ted Drewes. While I could barely walk, there they were, like horses trotting faster near the barn, running down Chippewa in hiking boots, unbuttoned scout shirts flying in the wind.

By the time I stumbled to a stop in front of the familiar white ice cream palace, the boys were well into their assorted concretes and sundaes. Except for our bedraggled group, it was a familiar scene in front of Drewes… a group of nuns, a wedding party (after the mostaciolli) and various other white-short-sleeved carb hunters. Looking for some kind of validation, I told the girl who served me at the counter what we’d done. She looked at me blankly for a moment, said OMG! and then asked, “do you want any nuts on your concrete?”

The end of the trail...

Epilogue: a couple of kids were picked up by their parents, but most of us chose public transportation to get back to our cars at the MetroLink lot on DeBaliviere. After some discussion, we decided to take the Hampton bus instead of the Shrewsbury MetroLink, and just when we thought we were finished we walked back to Hampton and waited at a bus stop. My one son Paul immediately sprawled on the grass and 10 minutes later a bus took us all the way up Hampton, through Forest Park, and finally to DeBalivere.

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 in the Central West End. There is a tradition at Troop 98 — and at other urban boy scout troops — of plotting hikes through the city, often along historic or architecturally significant routes. And this one ended at place that had concretes made of chocolate.

I went on an urban hike several years ago. It was a frozen morning in January. We started at Carondelet Park in south city, hiked to Jefferson Barracks Park in south county, then back to Carondelet Park. It was a gritty walk… past a homeless tent city near River Des Peres and along a string of vacant storefronts. The view of the Mississippi from Jefferson Barracks was nice, but we only stopped twice — once to eat frozen pizza and another to warm our toes and use the rest rooms at a Quik Trip.

But this hike sounded more promising. It would start at Crown Candy Kitchen in north St. Louis city and end at Ted Drewes in south city. I didn’t really think of the intervening 10 miles or so… just the ice cream at both ends.

We gathered for the hike at the DeBaliviere/Forest Park MetroLink station. It was not a large group. It included my two sons, three other scouts and two scout leaders, Paul Winter and Ralph Wafer.

I still feel a little funny going on “scoutings.” I was a boy scout for about three weeks when I was a kid; we had a bad leader and the whole thing seemed vaguely conformist and militaristic.  And for a pre-teen: Not Fun.

But two of my sons have found a good troop and a good leader. I help out with the activities I like — hiking and camping — and my sons go along with the rest. I don’t quite understand the whole passion for collecting “badges” but then there’s the “fun stuff.” Last summer, one of my sons took a train to New Mexico with scouts and spent 10 days backpacking in the mountains, an experience I would never have the time, money or opportunity to give him.

Anyway, the ice cream hike was attractive to me in several ways: not just the chocolate, but the chance to walk through the city and glimpse the architecture and history.

Ralph Wafer was a good person to have along; a veteran scout leader, he’s also an urban architect and St. Louis history buff.

We got off MetroLink at Laclede’s Landing around 9:30 a.m. and headed north. Though I consider myself a “city person” I had never walked north of the landing or taken the Riverfront Trail. This is the bicycle trail built by Trailnet that travels along the river north to the Chain of Rocks Bridge.

This particular Saturday morning was cool and there was a light rain. The plan was to take the trail north to St. Louis Avenue and then head west to Crown Candy Kitchen.

The first mile or two was fascinating.

Bob Cassilly's Riverfront Sculpture

We saw: Bob Cassilly’s amazing sculptures on the flood wall; the old Admiral/President Casino boat being shut down because of rising river water; the “Hopeville” homeless encampment that had just moved from Tucker Boulevard; the beginnings of the new Mississippi river bridge; and the seemingly endless industrial buildings and railways along the river.

This was not a nature stroll at Babler Park.

This was the city, and the river, in all its urban glory and decay. Meanwhile the boys were jumping in puddles, climbing walls and asking: how far to Crown Candy?

By 10:15 a.m. we arrived at ice cream oasis number one. Crown Candy, run by the colorful Macedonian (don’t call them Greek) Karandzieff family for several generations, is a wonderful St. Louis anachronism. It’s a 60’s-style ice-cream-soda-fountain joint that caters to tourists and adventurous natives. It’s plopped in the middle of a historic red-brick neighborhood peopled with poor families, liberal homesteaders and hopeful rehabbers.

We walked in and ordered malts “to go.” The boys wanted to sit and eat, but we told them we had a LONG way to go. That’s the great thing about youth: fresh springy legs and undying optimism untempered by the knowledge of the trek ahead.

14th Street Mall

Leaving Crown Candy we walked south through the 14^th Street Mall, a new redevelopment effort by the Old North St. Louis group.

The mall seeks to recreate one of the city’s once-thriving shopping districts, like the U. City Loop and Wellston, before shopping malls and strip centers made the streetcars obsolete. One city official called it the “Soulard of the 21^st century.”

The mall features two blocks of old storefronts and offices painstakingly restored. New sidewalks and curbs are installed and the street seems ready, if not for the rain, for new paving. One of the scouts observed: “so where are the stores?” Wafer, a veteran of urban rehab, said: “yes, all they need now are more tenants. That’s always the hard part.” Given the recession and fears of crime in the city, this may be harder than ever.

If you’re a middle-class suburban-raised person like myself, one of the endlessly fascinating aspects of “city living” are the contrasts that exist from one street to another, from one block to the next.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the near north side where we walked. From homeless tent people to large industrial complexes. From run-down row houses to sparkling new suburban-style homes. From trash-strewn vacant lots to blossoming urban community gardens.

At the corner of North Market and  Hogan Street is the old St. Liborius church. The rectory building is the home of Karen House, a Catholic Worker settlement inspired by Dorothy Day that serves the poor in the area. A little farther down Hogan Street we walked by New Roots Urban Farm. This is a patch of vacant land claimed by young people who grow vegetables and work with residents to sell them and to create a “sustainable” community. I’d been here before; my son, an “eco kid” who had graduated from Truman State University with an environmental  degree, had volunteered there last summer and had given me a tour (for more information: Newrootsurbanfarm.org). Who says hippies are dead? On the farm’s website is this statement: “We are here because we believe that in order to create a more ecologically-sound lifestyle we must create radical systems that actively oppose the dominant capitalist model of exploitation and oppression.”

From there we walked closer to the city’s core; past the old Falstaff brewery which had been one of the north side’s first residential rehabs. We also passed numerous vacant plots of land owned by Paul McKee and slated to be used for his ambitious north side development.

A distinctive landmark is St. Stanislaus church. This old Polish Catholic church, the subject of much recent controversy, is emblematic of the city of St. Louis, which is dotted by large Catholic churches built by immigrant communities in the 19^th century. As the city population has shrunk and people have moved to St. Louis county, these large, historic, often architecturally-stunning churches have met mixed fates. Some survive due to being in gentrified neighborhoods or support from the heirs of the original immigrants — like St. Stanislaus — but many have closed or have been sold.

When we first saw St. Stanislaus, one of my sons said, “isn’t this the church that’s in trouble?” It wasn’t that simple; I wanted to explain the church’s struggles with the Archdiocese of St. Louis about governance and recent efforts to resolve the controversy.

But that would have to wait. As I’ve learned on other scout hikes, the main goal is to keep moving. There were many miles to go.

Check back in June for part two.

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 centerpiece — a “legacy” property — of the $8.1 billion north side redevelopment plan proposed by developer Paul McKee.

Central West End developer and rehabber Bob Wood is partnering with McKee on the project, which will turn the 150-year-old mansion and adjoining chapel into senior apartments and community center.

“We’re talking to the Missouri History Museum housing a museum honoring the heritage of the surrounding neighborhood,” said Dan Holak, who is heading up the project for Wood. “They would occupy part of the chapel building and we’re also talking to the Missouri Botanical Garden about doing some landscaping and putting in an urban garden.”

For years, McKee secretly bought more than 850 properties on the city’s near north side in a two-square-mile area. He announced last year the redevelopment plan and is negotiating nearly $400 million in tax increment financing with the city of St. Louis. He said he plans to turn the mostly vacant properties into 10,000 new homes and millions of square feet of office, warehouse and retail space to the area over 15 years. At the end of last year, the Missouri Department of Economic Development awarded McKee $20 million in tax credits for the project. McKee bought the Clemens mansion in 2005.

Wood is also hoping to finance the $13 million Clemens project through historic and low income tax credits. A model for the development is Wood’s work on the Franklin School at 814 N. 19th Street. A former St. Louis public school, designed by famed school architect William Ittner and opened in 1911, Franklin was closed in 1995. Wood renovated it into 75 senior apartments and reopened it in the growing neighborhood now known as Downtown West in 2007.

“The condition of Franklin School when we started there was pretty nasty,” Holak said. “With funding, we’re confident we can make the Clemens mansion work.”

I met with Holak and architect David Lorentz at the Clemens mansion on a cold December afternoon.

At first, I was content to just walk around the outside of the property, which includes the 55,000-square-foot mansion, an addition on the back of the house, and an adjoining 3,000 square foot chapel building. Wood’s plan, Lorentz said, is to convert the main house into 49 senior apartments. The first floor of the chapel would be residential, and the second floor would be the public museum space.

Holak and Lorentz then pulled out their flashlights and invited me inside the mansion. We stopped first on the front porch and Holak pointed out the distinctive columns. With everything else falling down around, how do they stay up?

“They’re cast iron,” Holak said, and sure enough, I knocked on the two-story high columns and they “clanged” like an old kettle. Maybe this house, built in 1860 and listed as one of the city’s most “endangered” landmarks, might hold up after all.

But then we went inside.

I’ve been inside a lot of old and deteriorated properties, but this one was, well, the creepiest I’d ever seen. We walked a bit down the main hallway and glanced inside dark rooms filled with trash, crumbling walls and exposed wires. I’m not a haunted-house guy, but even this one seemed ripe for a ghost or two as a cold wind rattled through the old walls.

Holak and Lorentz were unfazed. They calmly pointed out the distinctive hardwood floors — “we can save that” — and some of the mouldings and architectural detail that were dirtied but salvageable. Lorentz flashed his light on an elevator shaft that he said would work. Holak said that conditions at Franklin School were just as bad, or worse, and talked about the rehab like any other home improvement project. He added that if financing gets approved, his company would start construction this spring or summer and it would be completed the summer of 2011. As he talked, I could almost imagine a warm and bright historic home filled with “active” seniors. Almost.

Ten minutes was about all I could handle in that place. After we shook hands, I walked to my car and glanced back at the building. I thought about all the people who had lived there — from the Clemens family to Roman Catholic nuns to Buddhist monks. But did Mark Twain? I don’t know, but it would have made a good story.

(Part II: History of the mansion’s inhabitants and the Mark Twain connection.)

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 historian Mary Bartley in her book, St. Louis Lost. The street was named for Peter Lindell, a 19th century merchant who made his fortune in trade along the Ohio River and later as a holder of extensive real estate in the area.

Lindell Boulevard was the main street platted in the subdivision of the Lindell farm west of Grand Avenue. The subdivision of their farm into straight wide streets with large blocks was unique at a time when most additions were still conforming to the same old irregularities.

Later, in the early 20th century, city planner and architect George Kessler envisioned Lindell as one in a series of grand city boulevards that would connect parks, residential and business areas. In part, this plan was realized. During the World’s Fair of 1904, Lindell was an important route from the city to the fair; it’s westernmost section, from Kingshighway to Skinker, hosted an amusement park called the “Pike.” The grand mansions, institutions and apartment buildings that lined the street boasted some of the nation’s finest architects.

Fast-forward a hundred years. “Lindell seems schizophrenic,” said Carolyn Toft, former director of Landmarks Association. While some blocks retain their Victorian glory, many historic buildings are gone, including the Castleman-Mackay mansion at Spring and Lindell, now a parking lot for the next-door Masonic Temple.

The blocks east of Vandeventer to Sarah have been especially prone to change. A series of commercial buildings have been built and torn down from the old Windsor Hotel to the recent demolition of the San Luis apartments. Strip malls have been built and bland 1960s-style office buildings still stand.

Remember the Cinerama? This was a popular movie theater that I attended as a child. Built in 1962, it was billed as having one of the largest indoor screens in the world; 100 feet wide on a curve. I’ll never forget George C. Scott yelling and World War II army tanks marching across the screen during “Patton.” It’s at the site where the Walgreens now stands.

I do remember — but never visited, I promise — the old Playboy Club on Lindell near Vandeventer. It was Hugh Hefner’s fourth club, at 3914 Lindell. Also, the Windsor Hotel, built in the 1920s but torn down in 1993, occupied what is now the American Cancer Center Hope Lodge.

These blocks of jumbled urban architecture have been slowly upgraded with newer buildings which employ brick facades and architectural character lacking in the older ones. The Hope Lodge, the Walgreens, and yes, even the new McDonalds may not win awards, but they do blend better into the streetscape.

One new building which did win an award is the 3949 Lindell apartment building which opened this year. It’s a four-story, 200 unit structure which caters to students, staff and employees of nearby St. Louis University, Washington University and the Grand Center entertainment district. On Oct. 9, Mayor Francis Slay recognized the apartment complex as the city’s “Best Economic Project.

There’s still a long way to go to reduce the street’s “schizophrenia,” but perhaps someday Lindell will return to the grand urban boulevard that would make Peter Lindell proud.

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 of my utterances.

Also, now that I’ve been on the planet for 50 years, and in St. Louis for 41 of those, historical facts are now mixing with my own past into one big grab-bag of entirely useless bits of information — that is, useless until there’s a St. Louis category at a trivia night I’m attending.

Years ago my older kids started calling me “Mr. History.” I thought it was out of respect, but I noticed that they’d always giggle after they called me that. One of them finally told me they watched a cartoon where one of the villains was, you guessed it, Mr. History.  He would show up and start spouting random historical facts, and punishing the other characters by “boring them to bits.”

Thanks, kids.

But I don’t take the history thing too seriously. It’s not that I even LIKED history that much in high school and college. For myself, it was just another class requirement to complete, easier than math and less memorization than French. But in my career as a journalist, editor, PR guy and publisher, I’ve had to master quickly whatever subject area I was writing about. Believe it or not, I spent five years learning to be an “expert” on the U. S. space program when I worked at Boeing.

So becoming a publisher of local history books has helped me to master a lot of PR-worthy historical blurbs, although I’d never profess to be an expert. I’ll leave that to the wonderful authors I’ve had a chance to publish. But I have come to love the rich tapestry of history that permeates our river city.

I was on a recent interview with John Carney of KMOX, promoting my own book called “Counting Chickens.” John threw me a curveball when he asked me to name three surprising things about St.. Louis history. I was stumped to come up with anything quickly; luckily he went to a break and gave me a few minutes.  I forget now which three I came up with except for the nickname of the 04 Wydown streetcar line: the “dinky.”

To illustrate my St. Louis historical “bent,” let’s say you’re captive in my car for a ride to St. Louis University, where I’m picking up my niece Aileen to bring her back to our house for dinner (she’s a student there). Below is a list of landmarks I couldn’t help commenting on. Did you know…

• at Kingshighway and Waterman, the Central Reform Congregation is the city’s only active Jewish synagogue? The temple, built in 2001, is at the site of the old Plymouth Hotel, which eventually became run-down, vacant and crime-ridden before being torn down.

• at Kingshighway and Washington is the “holy corners” historical district. In one two-block area you can see three different types of architectural columns in front of various churches: Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.

• at Olive east of Euclid is the site of Bowood Farms Nursery. The building was formerly an auto repair shop. Farther east on Olive was the filming site for the 1993 movie, “King of the Hill.” It was director Steven Soderbergh’s first movie.

• Speaking of movies, nearby on Westminster Place, actress Susan Sarandon rented a house while filming the movie “White Palace” in 1990. Westminster Place is also the street where writer T.S. Eliot grew up.

• At Olive and Taylor is a monument to the old Gaslight Square. Even I was too young to see the entertainment district in its heyday, but Woody Allen, Tina Turner, the Smothers Brothers, Barbra Streisand and many others performed in those bars in the early 1960s.

• at Lindell near Vandeventer is the site of the old Playboy’s Club. It later became a coffee shop and now is vacant. No, I never visited but I heard stories…

• Farther east on Lindell, past Vandeventer, is the Moolah Theatre and Lounge. It once was a meeting place for the “shriners,” the guys who ride around on tiny motorcycles in parades and operate hospitals for disabled children. It’s also where I worked as a janitor while I was a student at St. Louis University. I’d come in early on weekend mornings to clean up from the “meetings” the night before. Let’s put it this way: those guys knew how to party.

• at Spring and Lindell is the renovated Coronado Ballroom. It was once a fashionable hotel, hosting notables such as President Harry Truman, Queen Marie of Romania, film stars Rudolph Valentino and Barbara Stanwick, Charles Lindbergh and jazz singer Mel Torme. More personal history: it also hosted me for a semester in 1980 when it was NOT renovated and I had a middle-Eastern roommate named Said Waked. Some names you never forget.

I’m nearly halfway through my sentimental journey to St. Louis University, and there’s so much more to tell… but I wouldn’t want to bore you to bits.

The San Luis wasn’t unlike many nursing homes I’d visited in my life; drab, dated and undistinguished. But it was clean and the residents seemed happy to see us.
Last week, as I drove on Lindell near the “new” Cathedral Basilica, the street suddenly changed from two lanes to one and a small river of water flowed down the street to the sewer. As I drove farther east, I realized the water was part of the demolition of the San Luis. Driving slowly past, I saw large earth-moving equipment and men with jackhammers. The San Luis was coming down.

What I didn’t know when I visited with my daughter was that the San Luis was originally built as an upscale hotel in the early 1960s called the DeVille. The archdiocese bought it in 1973 and operated it as an apartment complex for low-income residents until 2007.

Last month, the St. Louis Preservation Board voted to allow the Archdiocese to tear down the building to create a 150-space parking lot.

Preservationists had sought to save the building for two reasons. They cite it as an excellent example of mid-20th century architecture that matches some of the other nearby buildings. They also say a surface parking lot would ruin the Lindell streetscape, which features a series of high rise apartment buildings.

Meanwhile, the archdiocese stated they need more parking for events at the Cathedral and for Rosati-Kain high school. The architect for the parking lot said the building is in poor shape. My guess is that the archdiocese, with its own financial struggles, realized the long-term cost of maintaining the building had exceeded the demolition cost. With a poor economy and sluggish real estate market, there was little prospect of someone renovating it.

I had lunch with a preservationist last week and she said the best use of the building would have been “adaptive reuse,” or renovation. But she admitted that the appearance of the building itself did not generate a big public outcry over its demolition. This was not a “turn of the century” grand apartment building with 12-foot ceilings, ornamental terra cotta and “classic lines.” This was an old hotel built in the 1960s that was converted into senior housing and then left vacant. Even 28th Ward Alderman Lyda Krewson, a longtime supporter of Central West End renovation, said she reluctantly supported the parking lot plan.

The building, for many years bustling with hotel guests, senior citizens and even child carolers has now entered into its own “Silent Night.”