I have been to St. Louis, Missouri twice. Once when I worked for Computer Associates my boss flew me there from Phoenix. And when I worked at John Deere I took the bus there from the Quad Cities.

I was a computer programmer at Capex. When we got bought out by Computer Associates they asked us to all move to New York.

Almost everybody in the company refused. Instead of firing me they transferred me to the St. Louis office where I answered technical questions on the phone. But since it is only a phone I could still live in Phoenix and work for the St. Louis office.

Later they would move us all to the New York office.

Both times I went there I wanted to visit my relatives but I was afraid to and didn’t go visit them.

The first time I rented a car and I drove around. I ended up driving around in East St. Louis which is on the other side of the Mississippi River in Illinois. I was told that was very dangerous and that white people who go there can get killed very easily.

I also remember the rain. It rained so hard that if you stuck your head out the door for one second you would get soaking wet. Man it never rains that hard in Phoenix.

Also grass grows everywhere there. It grows along the side of the streets. In Phoenix grass doesn’t grow anywhere unless you plant it and water it.

The second time I went there I saw that The Gateway Arch. It was pretty cool. I didn’t go inside it. But it looked cool. I suspect it is a great waste of taxpayer money too. It is on the Mississippi River.

I asked a number of people what “levees” are. Nobody could give me an answer. I have always wondered what a “levee” is. I think they are just manmade river banks.

I drove by the house my mom lived in when she was a kid. It is on Arsenal Street. It is a really cool house. My relatives still live there. There is a huge park across the street. The park is kind of like Encanto Park in Phoenix or Griffith Park in Los Angeles. It is a big huge park. It might have been Tower Grove Park, but the internet was so slow I had a hard time searching.

St. Louis is a really old town. And it keeps losing population.

When I took the bus to St. Louis from the Quad Cities I sat next to a farm boy and he taught me all about the government pork program in farms. I think we talked about the grain silos that each and every farm has. I think the government pays the farmers to grow stuff, and then the government pays them to put the stuff they grew in the grain silos. It is one huge pork program that the rest of us pay for.

Also when I lived in the Quad Cities which is in the heart of the mid-west I read the Chicago Tribune everyday and got all the news about the farm pork that goes on in the mid-west.