The Right Shovel

The old man likes to talk about fishing. And when he does not talking about fishing, he talks about work. As a union laborer, he worked high and low, from girders spanning the Missouri River to the sewers running into the Mississippi. He will tell you about them all, puffing a cigarette, coughing, and then laughing, again, at his own stories; stories he has told so long that they are part of him, stories that meander like the rivers' memory from place to place, changing like shifting currents over time.

One story he recounts is of a summer spent shoveling cement on a road gang widening Highway 141 in West St. Louis County. He reveals that one of the secrets to survival under these extreme working conditions is to wear a hooded sweatshirt packed with ice behind your neck and in your sleeves.

The other survival tip for summer road work is choosing the right size shovel, he says. He recalls how a young buck showed up at work one morning -- his first day on the job. The strapping youngster, wanting to impress his bosses, took the largest shovel available and began heaving cement at breakneck speed. The old man says he tried to warn the younger man not to use that particular shovel. There was a reason why the shovel chosen by the new-hire had never been used, why it still had the wrapping paper around its broad blade.

It was too big.

Cement is very heavy and to move it manually it needs to be hefted in small increments. That's why the veteran laborers would shorten their shovel blades with a grinding wheel. The old man tried to explain this to the younger man, but he wouldn't listen.

By mid morning, the new-hire was lying unconscious by the side of the road. He didn't show up for work the next day.

Busted

The three young black men sat on the curb amid the dried, crumbling bark near the trunk of a towering sycamore at 19th and Penrose, their hands cuffed behind their backs. Behind them in the deserted softball field, the scorched grass was dying blade by blade under the June sun. In the stillness of the afternoon heat, a crowd of neighbors watched from a distance, as the three white police officers, who were also young, moved methodically back and forth from their squad cars; the routine arrests unfolding as if in slow motion. Last week's breeze had disappeared, and throughout the Northside, vacant lots have begun to look more like parched savannahs, interrupted by diliapidated brick flats with tar roofs, their cockeyed windows flung open or shattered, exposing tattered curtains with nothing to hide, sagging walls dissolving, melting back into the earth.

An Old-Fashioned Corner Store

Though the sign above the front door identifies the retail establishment at 20th and Newhouse in North St. Louis as a "Mini Mart," it's really an old-fashioned corner store, where a customer can still buy lunch meat, Wonder bread, soda, a quart of milk or, during this time of year, sparklers to celebrate Fourth of July. This curious anachronism in the world of 7-11s and Quik Trips has likely been preserved because the impoverished neighborhood in which it is located disqualifies it from consideration by the national chain outfits.

An Old Athlete Walks down Washington Avenue

He played in the 1964 World Series against the Yankees, along with Bob Gibson and Kenny Boyer. But that was a long time ago. On this day, St. Louis Cardinal's baseball announcer Mike Shannon's nimble limbs are slowed by the grandchild holding his hand and the decades of summers past.

The Fat Lady Sings

She sat at the busstop shelter across from the downtown library, singing in the summer morning, her airy voice countering the weight of her obese body.

The Price of a Soda Downtown

How much you pay for a can of soda downtown depends on where you buy it.

*The trendy grocery store at 10th and Olive charges $1.19.
*7-11 at 17th and Pine charges .79 cents.
*The hot dog vender across the street from City Hall charges .75 cents.
*The soda machine inside the shoe store at 14th and Washington charges .55.

Hocked Wheels

Sam Light's Pawn Shop at Jefferson and Olive usually has a rack of bicycles for sale out front. But last week, there was a more unusual two-wheeled vehicle on display: a motorized wheelchair.

Caribbean Connection

The tiny coin glinted on the pavement. By its size, it appeared to be a dime, but this picaunyne wasn't round. Its octogonal shape was the first hint of foreign origin. Somehow a Jamaican dollar had crossed the Caribbean Sea and found its way to the sidewalk in downtown St. Louis.

June Tune: A Bluesman on Union Boulevard

He sat on the sidewalk in a kitchen chair wearing a sombero, leaning against the sun-parched wall of Lou's barber shop, playing the Wind Cried Mary by Hendrix on a Telecaster knock-off, ascending chords rising above the din of traffic on a June afternoon.