The RDP

Neon Memes • Bone, ash, sienna―those hues predominate in the channel of the River Des Peres. The sight of them, on the daily commute between my South Side bungalow and St. Louis Magazine's Brentwood offices, soothes me. Why? Well, their disappearance signifies that the river has risen, as it did earlier this year, and that disappearance always prompts memories of the flood of '93. Fully a decade and a half afterward, the waking nightmare of that natural disaster still haunts me―so much so that when the magazine ran a retrospective of the flood in its July issue, Peter Newcomb's double-page opening photo of local homes transformed into islands made me queasy. A few months ago, when heavier-than-usual rains swelled the Mississippi and made the RDP lap a trifle too close to the top of its levee, I couldn't tear my eyes from the channel, recalling the summer I passed guzzling Maalox and dreading what appeared to be the impending destruction of the home I'd bought just the year before. Memory as black backwash. The river's brackish, hungry waters discolored the summer of '93…and perhaps my entire life. ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor