Meet me in St. Louis

Some of you have probably heard me mention that I briefly lived in St. Louis, MO as a child. This was when I was in the second grade — just about fifty years ago.

I haven't been back to St. Louis since the day we moved away, and I remember only a few things about it. I know that I lived in a fourplex apartment building on Chippewa Street and that I attended Dunnica Elementary School, which was within walking distance of my house.

I remember there was a tavern on the corner, and my memory is that there was a delicatessen across the street from the tavern. It was real old-fashioned deli, with huge sticks of bologna and salami hanging above the counter. The clerk was named Walter, and my parents thought he was creepy.

I remember a house where a very old (or so she seemed at the time) lady lived, and if any of us kids so much as put the toe of our shoe on her lawn she would appear at the front door and start yelling at us.

With nothing more than that to go on, I looked up St. Louis on Google Maps Street View, to see if I could locate my old apartment building.

Chippewa, as it turns out, is a rather long street. I started at the east end and worked my way west. I saw a lot of fourplex apartments, but most were red brick and older than the one where I lived. My recollection was that it was limestone and blond brick, and dated from the 1930's or '40's. Most of the apartments I was looking at seemed more like the teens or even the turn of the twentieth century.

I worked my way west for awhile, but felt I wasn't getting anywhere. Then I recalled Dunnica Elementary School. It was a short walk from my home — if I could find that, and if Chippewa ran close by, that would narrow down my search.

I remembered it as being spelled "Dunica," and I almost didn't find it. I Googled "Dunica Elementary" and "St. Louis," and Google suggested I try "Dunnica Elementary" instead. I found one reference to Dunnica Elementary in St. Louis. It was on one of those 'find your old classmates' web sites. It didn't have an address for the school, but at least I knew I had the correct spelling.

I tried Googling "Dunnica" without the "elementary" and discovered there was a Dunnica Street in St. Louis. I typed it into Google Maps, and discovered it was one block south of Chippewa and just four blocks long. I knew I was getting close.

I remembered that Dunnica school was a white frame building — not just annex buildings, but the whole school. I went to the street view again, and went up and down the whole four blocks. I didn't find the school, but I did find a large park which might have been the schoolyard fifty years ago.

And then I saw Bamberger Avenue. I know I haven't thought of that name once since I left St. Louis, but I remembered it as soon as I saw it. Bamberger was the street I walked down to get from Chippewa to Dunnica Street on my way to school. So I started scanning up and down Chippewa near Bamberger — and found what I think is the apartment building I haven't seen since I was about six years old.



I don't think that tree was there at all when I lived there. And frankly, I remember the steps as having a landing halfway down with some potted plants on it. But my memory must be faulty on that.

That small brick building to the left of the apartments is the house where the old lady lived. I remember us getting up on that retaining wall on the left side and walking along it until she stuck her head out the door and yelled at us. The buildings farther to the left of her house are newer and weren't there then.

I looked at that white building on the right several times and couldn't remember it at all. Then I noticed the entrance is on the side, not facing the street, and that sparked my memory.

I also found the tavern, but not the delicatessen.

St. Louis is where I had my first licorice, my first Bit-O-Honey bar and my first Chunky candy bar ("Open wide for Chunky!"). I remember walking up and down the alleys behind the houses, and that's where I picked up the affection for alleys that I still have today. I wish my house had an alley.

There was a girl in another of the apartments upon whom I had a second-grade crush. I was infatuated, and sure enough, I was made foolish. I was trying to impress her, and I don't remember exactly what I did, but it somehow ended with me tumbling down those front steps, banging up my knee so that it bled profusely, and her dad and my dad carrying me back into the apartment because I couldn't walk on it. I felt like an idiot – the first of many such circumstances to come.

She had a little brother, too, and I was always trying to lose him.

I don't remember their names. I had completely forgotten about them until just now.

I think the apartment on the lower left with the bay window was ours. The apartment had a basement room, with walls painted purple and a dark purple carpet.

St. Louis is where I first saw "Learn to Draw with Jon Gnagy..."



There was a "Learn to Draw with Jon Gnagy Kit" you could buy so you could draw along with Gnagy. It had some paper, pencils, charcoal, a sandpaper block and a kneaded eraser. I nagged and nagged (or maybe Gnagged and Gnagged) my folks to buy it for me, which they eventually did.

I sat down with my new kit, ready to draw along with Jon... and the TV station had cancelled the show, effective that very same day. My first chance to practice non-attachment.

I remember St. Louis still had electric trackless trolleys back then, powered by overhead wires, and they'd throw off sparks whenever the poles crossed a junction in the wiring.

A few months of my life, a half-century ago. It's amazing how much of it comes back.