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Published: August 14th 2008
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Roosevelt
Note that Roosevelt is looking in the same direction as the construction worker on the left. This is meant to signify his close connection to the construction of the Arch. Day Two: On the Shoulders of Giants As you may or may not know, in May of 1904 two Floridian fur-trappers by the names of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out from St. Louis, MO on an historic cross-country journey to the Pacific Ocean. President Teddy Roosevelt had just pushed the New Deal through Congress and he was ready to gather information on the vast territory of the Louisiana Purchase. Previous President William McKinley had purchased the Territory from Russia for a paltry fifteen million dollars—about sixteen million dollars at today’s prices. Roosevelt had ridden with both Lewis and Clark during the Spanish-American War and he had complete confidence in their abilities to lead an expedition of this magnitude. For their part, Lewis and Clark were ecstatic at the opportunity. After arriving in St. Louis in April, they spent four weeks feverishly assembling the Gateway Arch. An architectural masterpiece, the Arch is now an iconic image of both St. Louis and the West—it is the structural and cultural analogue of, say, Atlanta’s NikeTown. With the Arch complete, the two men quickly gathered their party and set off up the Mississippi.
I begin my account of our second day
Receding Hairline
I resent the fact that Jessica always looks better than me in photographs. And in real life. with this history lesson because both Jessica and I feel a powerful kinship with these early trailblazers. Like them, we are heading west from St. Louis to the Pacific. Like them, we are accompanied by a faithful dog who would not hesitate to risk her own 35-pound frame to pull us from the jaws of a grizzly or from the buffet line of an overpriced Chinese restaurant. Like them, we are madly in love with each other and plan to renew our wedding vows in Las Vegas.
Accordingly, we spend the bulk of Day Two reconnecting with their spirits and paying our respects at their grave. (The two men are buried at the foot of the very same Arch they built together, Lewis at the base of one leg, Clark at the base of the other.) We were both totally stoked to climb to the top of the Arch: Jessica was excited for the view and I couldn’t wait to try out the surf n’ turf at the rotating restaurant suspended just below the peak. The trip proved to be a little unsettling for me, however. We grabbed lunch at a Mexican taco stand beforehand and Jessica’s folks, Greg
and Jennifer, sprang a surprise on us. Once the waiter had taken our order and returned to the kitchen, Jennifer pulled out a huge, and I mean HUGE, bag of pot from her purse. “Care for a little something-something?” she purred, shaking the bag. Greg nodded slowly: “It’s the best Nicaraguan rope you will EVER taste.” I choked on my Agua Fresca, but Jessica didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed an empty Tab can from an adjacent table, poked a hole in one end, and reached for the bag. Call me a prude, but I demurred. I mean, we were sitting in broad daylight on a busy St. Louis sidewalk. Greg assured me that the St. Louis cops don’t give a damn—that, in fact, he’d scored from a couple—but I sat this one out. Long story short, the three of them get lit up (check out the photo of Jessica) and I have to drive us to the Arch. Once we get to the top, they all keep running up and down the walkway with their arms held out singing Steve Miller’s “Fly Like an Eagle.” At one point, one of the teenage “rangers” (the Arch is a designated National
Jessica High as a Kite
Shortly before being asked to leave. Park) caught Jennifer’s arm and asked her to stop alarming the other visitors. “Little girl,” Jennifer replied, “if you touch me again I’m going to break your skinny *%!!(MISSING)#ing neck.”
So the vibe was a bit odd coming down out of the Arch, but we moved on to the Museum of Westward Expansion. Unfortunately, Jessica had yet to “come down” from her massive Tab-bong hits. She proceeded immediately to the museum’s centerpiece, a giant stuffed buffalo perched on a tuft of rock and grass. Stepping over the guide ropes, she clambered up behind the animal and began squeezing its rear end. “I like me some big ol’ buffalo butt,” she crowed.
This time it was adult “rangers” who made an appearance. I spent fifteen minutes explaining that she was participating in a new drug trial for manic depressives. Meanwhile, Greg and Jennifer were squirting each other with side-by-side water fountains.
An unconventional homage to Lewis and Clark, perhaps, but heartfelt. How better to say "I respect and admire you" than to get arrested squeezing a buffalo's ass.
Addendum: You will notice that I have included two photographs of some oddly shaped, and oddly decorated, Russian
The Soul Cages
Each vessel contains a lock of hair and a small finger bone from the person or persons depicted on the outside. dolls. This set of concentric containers is the prized possession of Greg and Jennifer and they display it prominently in the inner sanctum of their St. Louis home. What may come as a surprise, however, is that these dolls also constitute a crucial component of Greg and Jennifer's Afro-Caribbean religious practices. As high priests (or "Orishas") in an obscure sect of Cuban Santeria, Greg and Jennifer believe that they can control the gastrointestinal fortunes of the figures painted on the outside of the dolls. Each doll contains a small collection of body parts from the representative figure. By adding a variety of Ocean Spray fruit drinks to these body parts, they maintain they can cure, or cause, a range of stomach ailments. They also believe that the dolls contain the soul of the person depicted on the outside. Thus, when all the dolls are placed inside of one another, Greg has effectively "eaten" everyone's soul and attained a corollary power over them.
You may laugh at this curious belief system, but I will say only the following: Jessica handily defeated both of them at Scrabble the other night and she has had nonstop diarrhea ever since.
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Betsy
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inconsequential
Hee! I almost started mentally correcting your American history -- but then I remembered who was writing it. Thanks for a laugh on a day otherwise clouded by linguistics grading. (That girl dropped the class, by the way, 'because I didn't receive the help and support I expected.' Brat.)