A year of travel and dodging the virvus.

Sights from home, our walks, travel, and my work this year.

Primary colors laundry in TGS :

Dear Boi traveled with me until he expired.

Fire rainbows over East STL.

Home photos. I brought in the potted tomato plants which are flowering in December but alas no bees.

A treasured encounter with double negative space. Also, Movie Stills from my narrative.

I'm still stalking brick, architecture, and clouds. Encountering an architectural detail like the exquisite wrought iron corbel seen below is the reward.

I encountered this brick in Belleville on brick paver streets. My great-grandfather owned the corner house.

A Mound community in East Saint. This area is occupied with homes that I believe were built on a Mound. Turn around on the road where I'm standing and you'll see our delightful cabin home with a vintage glider on its porch. The road that leads up to the cabin. The cell tower is tolerated for that view of the tiny STL skyline.

Abandoned Lustron in East Saint just down the road.

I revisited the most astonishing Mediterranean Revival building yesterday in East Saint Louis.

The darling little Golden was gifted with wonderful things this week. Her dad gave her a spy cam so we can watch her darlingness at will. This deluxe stroller arrived from a friend. Little Belle has hip dysplasia and has taken to sitting in pain and refusing to move on our walks. She is a rescue from Dirks Fund. She is very loved.

Belle is challenged to make me laugh. She will stop in front of the mirror to kiss herself as I giggle. She'll linger there as I sing to her, I have to kiss myself I'm so pretty!

The only gift I wanted but there were more!

I stopped making belts (but will start again in 2 months since they sell out within a week) and started new work on an old line of upcycled luggage. I was making and selling these in the 80s. Friend Gen Obata designed my logo, Know Where Fast.

Part of the upstairs studio. I've another studio in the basement.

The best seller: The NYC yellow cab train case. A version of these sold At Kerr-Oberbecks Gallery during the mid 80s:

Charro. My fave.

A pair of felted wool and silk mitts I made for Festivus.

I made a series of Kentucky Derby Winning horse headbands mostly to amuse Tim. They're gone, they've sold.

In the late fall of 2019 Tim took me for a day trip into rural MO. We drove through Hermann, New Haven, Bonnets Mill, Chamois, Frankenstein, and Washington, MO. We were almost to Jeff City.

We crossed and visited the Missouri, Osage, and Gasconade rivers and they were still very high. They love Rump. We saw many Rump 2020 campaign signs. We saw endless American flags, billboards and signs promoting their white Jesus.

Tthe Gasconade river was still above flood stage. We talked to a 77 year old man who just pulled this boat in from the water. He said the river had only recently dropped to this level. He'd been out fishing but didn't catch anything and complained about Asian Carp. I'd read about Asian Carp in the Missouri Conservation magazine and was actually able to hold a conversation about this highly invasive species with him. I was surprised to recall the details.

They cause serious damage to the native fish populations in the lakes and rivers that they infest because they out-compete other fish for food and space. They eat the alga which newly hatched fish need for food to grow into minnows. They are also thought to lower water quality, which can kill off sensitive organisms like native freshwater mussels. They were imported by the US from Asia to help aquaculture and wastewater treatment facilities keep retention ponds clean but chronic flooding caused accidental releases that allowed these fish to escape into the Mississippi River system and migrate into the Missouri and Illinois rivers. And now they are in the Gasconade river. He told me they jump into his boat.

That's Cor-ten steel on the bridge. The white gravel on the beach had recently been dumped there by the county to provide traction over the mud.

New Haven in its own shadow.

Bellie's daddy.

A & M Cyclery, 3123 Morgan Ford, & My Grandfather's Brick Building

My grandfather founded A&M Cyclery on Morgan Ford with my grandmother, Luella.
The store was open for business in the early 1920s.

He owned this building at 3123 Morgan Ford which was a *very* small home.

He extended the front of the building out to the sidewalk, created a storefront, and hand dug a small room that extended into the basement beneath the building.
He laid the brick.
My uncle and dad were born in this building.

I live 300 feet away and pass this building when I walk my pup to the park.

My grandfather was Fred Herman, an autodidact, builder, mechanic, a cyclist, a kind and generous man.
He built a clubhouse on creosote treated stilts along the Meramec River.
I spent a lot of summers with him and my family along what is now the Chubb Trail Loop behind Lone Elk Park.

I was swimming in the river before I could walk according to my mother.
I was riding a bike at 5 without training wheels, could handle a canoe in swift current at 10, and was able to swim across the river at 11.

I once asked my grandad about a pretty rock I had found and he said, Christie, that's quartz and it's formed by mineral deposits.
I was five at the time and astonished that an adult spoke to me as an equal.
He inspired me to learn, research, explore, and to ride a bike.

*
This is my last post.
I'm ending with the brick storefront and business my grandfather created.



This is an ad from the 1940s at the shops first location.
My grandfather sold the business to my uncle, Virgil Herman, who moved it across the street. He eventually became a brilliant aeronautical engineer with a 'top secret' McDonnell Douglas job in the 60s and lived in Torrance, CA.

This phone number is still in use for the current business.


The Arsenal location:

Thanks for the emails over the years about my blog, the photos, the concept, and that movie made by a neighbor.
I've heard I was accused of copyright tyranny and yet the movie has a copyright ;)

Here I am on a Raleigh bike I bought at the current A & M shop in 2014.