Circling round

We made it back to St Louis to stay with our friends Jim and Nan.  We had stayed with them on our way west and theirs was the first location that we revisited on our return. We were revisiting in other ways as well. 

In 1956 our respective families moved from Trenton, NJ and Elkins Park, just north of Philadelphia to Conway Road in St. Louis County. Our fathers were founding faculty of Covenant Seminary, and each built family houses that are separated by only one house. It was there that we spent 12 years until we got married in 1968 and actually moved in together. The houses still stand on the edges of the Covenant Seminary campus, though much of the landscape is destroyed. The apple orchard is no more. The sledding  hill is the site of a large chapel, and the backyard I had to mow with a machine I could not start, has been swallowed up (Peter would saunter over after a decent interval and start the mower with one pull).  But the houses still stand in the same locations. 

On this return trip we went out to dinner with Jim and Nan and Will and Gail, friends of many years. We ate at Cyrano's, a restaurant which brought back memories of our early dates. In those years Cyrano's was a dark, romantic hideaway off Clayton Road, with a basement location which probably skated close to safety regulations. Romantic evenings together sometimes included dessert at Cyrano's. Their specialty was Cherries Jubilee, which is still on the menu. We indulged. The waiter brought over the magic cart and flambéd the cherries before out eyes.  We felt the intervening 50 years melt away. What fun!

The next morning we drove past the Arch and Busch Stadium, crossed the Mississippi in the direction of Kentucky.  

 

The farms seemed small compared to the western lands. The biology of trees and land covers the geology of rock  which is so exposed in the West. The leaves have fallen since we passed two weeks ago. But it is still beautiful.