By Sarah Truckey
He drove the city streets slowly, with extra caution, care and curiosity. The highways are too impersonal, he told me, too overrun with people ignoring the real beauty this town has to offer. Sure, the expressways are quicker, he admitted. And smoother. More efficient, even. But they aren’t St. Louis. Since that driving lesson, I have memorized the sequence of the strip of stoplights east of Grand. I have found fabulous used furniture in some pretty sketchy alleyways, learned to love stopping for school buses and survived a pothole or two on a brick street. I have lost my impeccable sense of direction more than once while traveling on Gravois. My trivia-minded side has taken a little joy from the number of streets named for pioneers and trees, and I have learned to love the one-way. I have disobeyed a downtown pedestrian signal. And I am still confused as to the intended purpose of a Schoemehl pot. I have fallen in love with my city—all over again.
