frenchmills's Blog

That's right. One of the beauties of the City has been (still is some) the convenience, the proximity to what you need. It hasn't been that long ago that people could walk to just about every type of business establishment or entertainment venue.

I grew up partly on the North Side, Hyde Park neighborhood, where you could find a corner market on just about every corner, a small shopping strip on Salisbury Street, and the 14th Street shopping area just a few minutes away. I walked to the Bremen Theater at 19th & Bremen and the Tower Theater at E. Grand and W. Florissant, never it made it to the Salisbury Theater, on Salisbury, near Natural Bridge.

Coming back to St. Louis in the 70's, stores and bakeries were within blocks. We had the Ritz Theater on S. Grand near Juniata, and the Shenandoah, at Grand and Shenandoah. South Grand had everything: clothing stores, pharmacies, barbers, restaurants, night spots, a bakery, meat market, shoe store, specialty stores, a bowling alley, Namendorf's Hallmark Cards (many business moved to the new Zayre Plaze (now Gravois Plaza) when it opened, and failed in competition with the discount stores there. Many remained though and the area thrived quite well.

Several supermarkets existed: A Kroger in the South Grand area, a National at Grand and Sidney, and an A & P a block south, at Magnolia. The National is now a locally owned market, thriving and serving a substantial clientele. A Schnuck's superstore spans an area between Grand and Gravois, also enjoying a large customer base. Small markets persisted into the 90's. Gustine Market. which persisted through at least three owners, just closed some time in the past month.

Still, people can walk to many establishments. Some small markets still thrive, and supermarkets are within walking distance of many people. Quik Trips and 7-11's dot the landscape also, so their convenience is not absent.

 Suburbia was built on the automobile, it seems. The nearest business of any sort is a long walk at best for most people. Getting anywhere to shop or for entertainment takes a several minute drive. The norm is HUGE as far as establishments go, if you know what I mean. Huge shopping centers, huge food stores, huge retail stores, huge barns of home improvement stores, all where most people have to drive several miles to get to them, through heavy traffic and wild drivers, competing for parking spaces. People have to sacrifice personal service for low prices.

 In the City, and some places in the surrounding area, small businesses still thrive, where you can go in, get what you need in a few minutes, and be on your way. Meanwhile, if you frequent the establishment, you get to know the owner -- that's right, the owner is right there in the store -- or get to know the employees, most of whom stay on, The employees know where everything is (naturally, since it is a small establishment).

  Where, in the huge establishments, it seems you never see the same person twice, and it is so impersonal that you can go through an entire round of shopping and not speak to a single human being.

 In the face of increasing gas prices, I personally would think that the trend ought to reverse, with smaller establishments popping up in more places, closer to where people live. Smaller theaters even, almost within walking distance. I like the City because it is what I call, "easy". Not a lot of driving and not a lot of trouble getting where you are going. I can direct anyone to just about any kind of retail establishment.

  Of course, everybody can't move back into the City; but maybe people can begin to take steps to have smaller (maybe owned by indidivuals) establishments set up closer to people. This would serve people a lot better. And there might be other savings: smaller establishments, closer, mean less driving, less traffic, less gas use. Less stress. So people might need less stress relievers. Also, walking to the stores is good exercise. Not so much need for gyms or such.

I am imagining a family walk to go shopping. Everybody together, no radio, no DVD (unless the kids bring their own portable) - maybe even a little conversation. Noticing things along the way like animals, birds, trees, neighbors -- saying hi to the neighbors -- slowing down.

 I think we need this.

So here I read from some bloggers here that the protesters shouldn't protest -- that it's prayer for God's sake.

The protesters didn't protest the prayer, for Pete's sake; they protested the idea of an Christian event having as a keynote speaker a representative of a company that is notorious for worker malfeasance.  Wal-Mart is noted for low wages, reluctance to provide benefits (health care, etc.) and heavy-handedness in dealing with worker dissatisfaction.

And it's not the individual they protested; it's the company that has made exhorbitant profits on not only failing to treat its workers well, but strongarming suppliers into providing products at cost that virtually bankrupts them, importing from sweatshops overseas that have put many a rural worker out of a job, and a host of other sins.

Then bloggers have a problem with unions.   These people apparently have not read their history.  When workers demanded fair treatment in the late 18th, early 19th centuries, the companies hired goons and asked for help from law enforcement to break up these actions violently (Haymarket Square) comes to mind.

It wasn't until unions gained strength and the good graces of the Federal government that workers' demands began to be met:  a fair and living wage, healthy and safe working environments, paid sick leave and vacation, medical benefits, protection from unreasonable dismissal.

I say to all those who rail against unions:  you would not enjoy what you have if it weren't for unions.  Without unions and laws helping and protecting workers such as minimum wage, we all would be working in sweatshop conditions, like in the 19th Century, starting at age 8 and until we died of old age, for poor wages.

We can see where union powerlessness has led us in the past several decades since the Reagan fiasco years and the tight grip conservative and anti-union sentiment has on the country -- worse wages, working conditions, many instances of successfully circumventing pro-worker laws.

But that's all right -- you just go ahead and think as you think.  There might come a time when you wish you had a union representing you.

PS:  be darn thankful you don't work for Wal-Mart.  Ask any Wal-Mart employee.  They won't speak publicly; but many will confide in family and friends that Wal-Mart treats its workers like dirt.

As you can see it's not Angus.

Actually, a lot of beef is Holstein cows, milk cows.  These are old cows that have passed their peak milk producing years, and are good only to be slaughtered for beef.

I could go on about how I am not that hot on Angus beef being all that hot -- probably those cows are kept in crowded feed lots, not moving much, susceptible to disease, and filled with fat producing grain and shot full of who knows what to promote growth and immunity to disease.

What bothers me about the video we see is that the animals are subjected to trauma and produce chemicals in their bodies in response to this trauma, and it is suggested that these chemicals stay in the beef and are passed on to those who consume them with questionable effects.

And it's not as if this is isolated.  Electric cattle prods are a commonly used tool for moving the animals along, and I would suppose that this is a ubiquitous practice throughout the industry.

I will list a few things that affect the quality of education in the schools in the City of St. Louis.  The problem is certainly much broader than this; and the solution quite complicated, having to span a long period of time.

The problem is recent, to my mind.  Having substitute taught in the late 70's before the Court Ordered Deseg plan, I saw a decent system, and youth receiving a decent education wherever I taught, north, south, east, west.

I think the deseg plan had a negative impact on the schools, rather than the positive impact intended. Before this, neighborhood schools seemed to be for the most part good, many of them already mixed race, with the races in general seeming to get along.

It might have been some schools in North City that exhibited a poorer quality education.  I don't know.  What I see is a lot of time being taken up carting students back and forth out of their neighborhoods and less time for education.  This also forced further "white flight" out of the school district, resulting in a different, and maybe, deeper segregation -- city from suburban (although the deseg plan included suburban schools and some of these succeeded.  The magnet schools did well, although I discovered that the educational level of some magnet schools equalled what I received in regular school at the same grade level.

State regulations hamstring public schools in their efforts to provide a quality education.  Charter schools don't come under these restricting regulations; thus, succeed somewhat (although such alleged success has been questioned).  If state regulations are a problem to success of public schools, then why not lift those restrictions so that schools can perform better?

A mobile population.  Families moving from one neighborhood to another, and children changing schools, and the upset of routine, etc., that hampers learning.  Possibly anchoring the child in one school would help.

Then the tax base.  Section 353 tax abatement was set up to help develop downtown.  Under this, newly developed property is taxed only for an empty lot on which the development stands for 15 years; for another 10 years, it is partially abated.  After this 25 year period, the abatement ends.

A large portion of property taxes (I think over 50%) goes to the school system.  Imagine since the mid-60's, when much downtown develpment started, how much income was lost to the schools.  What is interesting is that, about the time the full tax came into play at Busch Memorial Stadium, AB wanted to sell it (after a purported losing battle to avert having to pay full property taxes); then the new owners quickly wanted a new stadium (which had been 8 years in the planning) and demanded that our taxes pay for its building, and property taxes be fully abated.

I think the issue of property taxes and tax abatement should be investigated more fully, with an eye to determining if downtown property owners are paying their fair share of taxes now that much abatement has been lifted, and how much this hurts the financial health not only of the schools, but of the City of St. Louis.

Then there is the perception of the schools as being grossly inferior.  Like the City itself, there is a negative perception of the schools.  No confidence.  This equates to enrolling children in private or charter schools.

And, any program that encourages enrolling in other schools, such as school vouchers, detracts from public education.  The fewer students in school, the less money for the schools.  Public education was supposed to be for everyone, where the poorest would get the same chance at an education as the richest.  With the trend toward non-public schools and less funds to operate public schools, it would be only the poorest that would be left in the schools, with the worst education.  That is not the intent of public education.

More can and should be done to improve education in the public schools.  Bush's No Child Left Behind program is not doing that.  Schools start their school year sooner so that the students can be coached and taught to pass the tests.  This causes me to question if education in the rest of the year suffers because of this.

As I say, I don't have the entire picture, not even of the items I have brought up.

Interesting that we have a problem with Youth dress.  Interesting that a town  wants to curb a dress style.

Is it for public decency?  I think that in many places such a dress style (of wearing baggy pants way down on the rump and showing more underwear than you find anywhere except for an underwear commercial) does border on  violating a few public decency norms.

I have a problem with it in that it does several negative things for the youth who have followed the "uniform":  It returns us to the old stereotype of a racial group (ask your parents), it also undermines individuality in the rush to conformity.

But I think the main reason Wellston has enacted such a dress code is economical, just as Union Station does not allow do-rags (the Nelly incident some time back) and Northwest Plaza holds restrictions on styles and colors and other gang-related displays.

I had a radio show on WGNU some time back, and , on one of the programs, the African American youth that accompanied me commented on Union Station not allowing Nelly in wearing a do-rag.

Two older African American men called in, one said that he understood Union Station's stance, because of problems that Northwest Plaza had with gangs roaming the premises and the dress and colors associated and that they had to restrict dress.  It's economical.  Such displays run off paying customers.

Another older African-American man mentioned that the source of the baggy pants was prison, where the men received ill-fitting, baggy pants.

I wonder how young people can take up a style that originated in prison.

It happened again yesterday.  Going to an office supply store.    I have favored this one in the past because the staff were mainly friendly and personable.  It's been around for some time, moving in to a building that once housed a supermarket.  I really do still prefer it to the competitor that moved into the new shopping center a few blocks away and where you have  the young, slick personnel who don't have much at all to say to you.

Only in this, my favorite store, the personnel has mainly changed.  This time, I might have gotten a dozen words out of everybody I met, and, looking for something down one aisle, there was a store clerk right there in the aisle, looking at me -- but he just turned around and pulled his  cart away with him with not a word to me to ask if he could help.  15 minutes later, after looking up and down the aisle and checking a few cards to see if I got the right item, and getting down on the floor (I am recovering frm a total knee replacement and have to use a cane) and finding what I wanted right on the bottom rack, then struggling back to my feet and going to the the checkout counter, where the clerk used stock statements such as "Did you find everything?", but not making eye contact at all, concentrating instead on whatever it was she was doing.

Sheesh.

I try to steer away from impersonal places as much as I can.  The big barns of home supply warehouses, where you can spend an hour in there without talking to a single human being (and it takes an hour to find what you want), the huge supermarkets where your items are sped through a scanner and the only words spoken are "paper or plastic", or "slide your card, enter your code, do you want cash back?"./

I am old enough to be accustomed to entering small markets or hardware stores or other specialty stores and seeing faces I know and saying hi and how are you and how's the family and other such conversation, and knowing that they know me and I am not an anonymous face among hundreds.

But it does seem that this new generation will become known as the "Impersonal Generation", where they interact with only a small "circle of friends", and "hello" and "how ya doin?" are obsolete phrases.

IMy own Father was a very gregarious individual, could strike up a conversation with just about anyone, and that's why he was such a good salesman.  I remember entering small general stores in the country and seeing around the wood heating stove several men, young and old, conversing about just about everything there was to converse about.   People greeted you with "hello!" and "how are you?".

I sit on the steps ofmy church and say hello to peple and they act like nothing hapened.  The young people I encounter, even in church, gravitate to their own favored cliques (not that this has not been an ongoing phenomenon)(but then I belong to a denomination that has been known as the "frozen chosen", so I guess this should not be surprising). 

But this seems to be a growing, ongoing cultural phenomenon.  It's like we are separating into these little pieces of groups that seem to be becoming more and more alienated from each other, and this at a time when more understanding prevails.

We want to include more groups that have been excluded in the past:  cultures, races, sexual differences, etc; and yet, it seems we are becoming more exclusive of others standing right next to us.

I was fortunate enough to live on a farm from age 16 almost to age 20, living in a house that my great grandfather built and drawing water from a well that he dug and blasted 60 feet through solid granite.  Now my great-grandfather is one admirable man.

And then I think I lived on the edge -- think about him, settling and laying claim to about 200 acres of riverbottom and hillside land, getting the lumber and building the house and outbuildings and barn, which had foot diameter cedar trunks as the main uprights.

We moved down there in 1961, and I began a life of feeding stock, gathering eggs, milking cows, etc.  Dad built the henhouse and put the fence around it, I carried five gallon buckets of grain and water to the cows and hogs and chickens and the one 20 year olf Morgan plug mare named Dolly.

We had a propane range and electricity, but that was all the modern conveniences.  No running water, no central heat.  It was primitive, to say the least.  We heated with a Franklin-type wood stove, even had a wood cookstove that my Mother used quite a bit in the winter (she used the gas range in the hot summer, leaving the wood stove dormant).  I drew water from that well that my great grandfather dug, letting the 3 gallon galvanized buck down, to catch just a little on the side about halfway down, wondering how my great grandfather squirmed down there to dig the well the rest of the way (he was a smallman, though).

So here we are, living a quite primitive life, and I go to school and listen to Alan Shepherd's 15 minutes in space (the broadcast piped through school's loudspeakers) -- quite a contrast.

We had the privelege of raising our food from start to finish.  We planted a sizeable garden, canned the vegetables and fruits, gathered eggs, hunted for rabbit and squirrel and other wildlife.  My Mother's cousin gave me a pig (a barrow, or castrated boar) to raise (actually,he didn't really give it to me -- he "sold" it to me for a dime [it was bad luck, he said, to give something to someone for nothing').  It was the runt of the litter, weighing in at 15 pounds max, but we kept him in a stall in the barn and I carried food and water to him and cleaned out his stall and finally, when we had him butchered, he weighed in over 400 pounds.  Had him hanging by his hind legs out in front of the house for a few days (it was Winter).

In Winter, several of us got together and cut up the wood for heating.  A relative had a sawmill (farmers down there would saw up and sell square railroad ties for $10 apiece, and the outside round slabs that were left were what made the firewood).  There was a circular saw about 30" in diameter with huge teeth (not as big of course as the sawmill saw) that was hooked up to a tractor's power takeoff; and we would cut the slabs to the approsimate correct length and throw them up in the back of the flatbed truck with the high sides on it, and we would take the load around to each others' houses and stack them up in cords -- estimating what would be needed for the winter.  As had been done for ages, here was community working together in a quite self sufficient manner to provide for all.

In summer, us young guys would follow along behind the same flatbed truck (this time with the sides removed) and heft up 50, 60, 70 pound or heavier bales of hay onto the bed whle a couple others would stack it; and we'd all return the favor in each others' fields.

Of course, some things, we couldn't make oursleves -- automobiles, trucks, farm implements, jars and lids for canning, flour, clothing, other things that came from a factory.  But the idea was that our own labors bought these things.

Something was broken; you fixed it.  Repaired the house, other things, changed your own tires when you got a flat, and with those gravel country roads, you got a lot of flats.

But with all this self-sufficiency, we lived on the foundation laid by others, my great-grandfather, as I've mentioned, people who were considerably more self-sufficient than we were.

Today?  I see more people going to other people for the simplest things.   Hiring out snow removal, lawn care, all sorts of repairs and care.  It seems people don't know how to take care of themselves.  They figure lots of people out there are "experts".  Instead of community efforts at dealing with projects or porblems, these are left in the hands of paid strangers. 

Seems people are paying more for learning less, don't you think?