St. Louis · 314

Silent No More

A first-person St. Louis memoir. The pictures came first. New chapters go out free on Substack.

A first-person account. Not findings of fact. Not legal advice. About this record

I write about rebuilding, about St. Louis, and about saying the quiet parts out loud. If you're new, start with the short version, and subscribe if it feels like home.

Story

How I got here

Start here if you're new. This is the short version, in my own words.

I didn't know I was keeping a scrapbook of St. Louis until I went back through the pictures. A park sign. The Fair. An old sign over an intersection. I left Hazelwood West in June 1998.

The park came first. The stone entrance sits on the median, bare March trees, and the windshield is the frame. I grew up around that park. The Fair of 1904 used it, and the Art Museum building and the Flight Cage are still standing from it. I'm walking the ground, not rewriting the exposition.

A tall red, white and blue Amoco sign on a pole above a city intersection, seen from a car window under a clear blue sky.
The Amoco sign, Saint Louis, March 2024.

Then the animals. Honey Butter Biscuit is a small tan terrier mix with a scruffy coat. She's one of the strays who came through my door, and the rest of them have their own page.

In 2025 the pictures had a page of their own. What I believe stayed simple. It's a private road, tied to the earth, and to a light no machine has copied. Someone, something, out there is bigger than me. I leave it there.

This city is beautiful. It is time to do something new. I said it and I didn't stutter.

Some of what happened is hard to tell. I tell it in my own words, I keep it to what I can stand behind, and I leave other people's names out.

Keep reading →

Get each new chapter by email

Free. First-person essays on St. Louis.

The button opens Substack. You still press subscribe there. This page does not sign you up.

Or continue without an email
The stone Forest Park entrance sign on a grassy median, seen through a car windshield under bare March trees.

The Fair and Forest Park

St. Louis history, from the 1904 World's Fair (the Louisiana Purchase Exposition), held in Forest Park, to the park I grew up around.

Forest Park, from the driver's seat. March 2024.

The photographs

The park, the sign, and the summer pictures.

A St. Louis timeline

The city in one lane. My pictures in the other.

The library

Every page, indexed.

The shelf

The letter on Substack stays free. The Walk Season is a file at $48. A list price is not a card charge.

Strays I took in →

Resources that helped me

Zotero and FamilySearch are free. They are not affiliate links.