Friday, August 15 2008
St. Louis, MO

I had a long walk and quite an adventure through St. Louis. My first big stop was the St. Louis Arch. Here are some photos I took of the monument:

And here’s one of the Arch’s reflection in one of St. Louis’s other buildings:

I happen to think those are some pretty cool pictures. But before I pat myself on the back too much, I have to say that one of the genius parts of the Arch’s design is that it is nearly impossible to take a bad photograph of it! Pretty impressive.

Now, I’m afraid of heights. But it seemed like it would be a shame to be so close to the Arch and not go up to the top. So I entered the underground ramp (after more security than I’ve even ever been through at an airport, by the way!), and found my way to the tram lines that run up either side of the arch. I shared an elevator with a family of four who were making a pilgrimage from Florida to Minnesota. And when I say “elevator,” I really mean something that’s a lot more like a space-pod, with room enough for five people to sit and stare at each other as the space-pod is brought up the Arch’s slope to the top. (a bank of eight pods run up and down on either side of the Arch)

At the top of the Arch are some thin, rectangular windows to peer out of. But even though the view from many of the windows was pretty cool, the most memorable thing I saw at the top of the Arch was an Amish family who was taking the tour as well! I was flabbergasted. I mean, I don’t know much about the Amish, but it seemed completely counter-intuitive to find them at the top of the St. Louis Arch. I decided that as much as I would have regretted not going to the top of the Arch, I would regret ten times as much if I didn’t try to get an interview with at least one of the family members once we were back on the ground. Thankfully, I was able to talk to Samuel Borntrager. Samuel told me that it’s not so uncommon for the Amish to make it outside of their community:

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Do you hear the way he says “Souzwest Missouri”? I don’t think that this is a speech impediment, I believe it is the way that the community pronounces their ‘th’ sounds. Unfortunately I didn’t get to speak to anyone else in order to confirm this, but I am pretty certain that many Amish have different speech patterns than Standard English.

I asked Samuel about the differences between how people like me are taught to think of the Amish, and what the Amish are actually like. For example, how it’s jarring to see them out in the city. I am certain that I was absolutely insulting in the way I presented my question, but Samuel was kind and patient in explaining:

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This got us onto the topic of religion which, if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll notice has been a pretty common theme among many people I’ve spoken to. But I will not go much into Samuel’s and my discussion because, frankly, it was a little heartbreaking for me to reveal to him that I don’t believe in Jesus. I could see such compassion and pity and concern for me, and by extension for America (and he said as much), it’s a little difficult to reflect on still.

So I’ll give one more clip from the man, if only to demonstrate what I think is another fascinating linguistic artifact. This is from when he and I were discussing certain theosophical doubts:

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This is something I’d read about in other dialects of English, but I’ve never heard first hand. “It’s always been a world.” “It’s always been a blue sky.” He’s using the pronoun it’s where the Standard English uses there’s. When you think about it, there really isn’t any real meaning specific to there that requires us to use it in constructions like this. I love thinking about how language develops in different places to find that one word instead of another has made its way as the pronoun in these kinds of phrases. Forgive me for getting all language-geeky on you.

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I stopped into Levine’s Hats (www.LevineHat.com), a hat store in downtown St. Louis. They not only sell many fine hats, but are also one of the few places left in the country who can actually create a hat from scratch, including making all of the felt, steaming and blocking the shape of the crown, and putting on all of the finishing touches that go into a really elegant hat. Hats used to be a de facto part of peoples’ wardrobe in the early part of the 20th century. If you were a man, it wasn’t a question of whether or not you wore a hat; you wore a hat. That started to decline in the 1960s. Lance Levine, the fourth generation of Levines running the store, explains that the decline of the hat was largely due to a certain President of the United States:

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I also spoke to James Peterson (affectionately known as “Pete”), the establishment’s premiere hat-maker and repairman. Just as an example of the craft, skill, and specialized technique that goes into hatting, here is Pete talking about how he changed a porkpie hat into a fedora:

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There was also an amazing custom hat hanging around the shop, and I couldn’t resist taking a photo to show you:

Isn’t that something else?? Pete didn’t make that hat (though he’s made similar creations), but here he describes it to me in a little detail:

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My final stop in St. Louis was the City Museum. I had been told by some friends that I absolutely needed to check it out, but they didn’t really tell me what to expect. I suppose I thought it would be a museum about St. Louis with some great exhibits, kind of like the ones at the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. And I was dead wrong. In fact, “museum” doesn’t really seem to be the right word at all.

The City Museum used to be a shoe factory (in fact they take pride in the fact that Tennessee Williams worked in the factory, and even paid homage to the factory in The Glass Menagerie), but has long since been closed down. So the gigantic building was left abandoned until an urban revitilization project came along and decided to turn it into what I can only refer to as nothing less than the best treehouse ever!!!

Re-using all kinds of industrial beams, scaffolding, scrap, and other metal, the City Museum provides kids (and some adults, if you’re small and nimble enough) with twisty-windy ways to crawl through, slide through, run through, explore, and discover. And kids love it! This is just a small sample of the things I heard kids shouting throughout the museum:

“Follow me!”
“Where are you”
“Where does that lead?”
“We’re lost. Have you seen the Dragon’s head?”

I think it’s nearly impossible to get an idea for what the City Museum is like–how vast it is, how much fun it is–unless you actually see it. Nonetheless, I’ve tried to capture some video of a small fraction of the City Museum’s wonders. Tell me, if you were still 7 years old, wouldn’t this be the coolest place to be?

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