Author Archives: Jim Merkel

We lived right at Oakland and Kingshighway on Arco Avenue, right behind St. Louis University High School. The Depression was hard because money was very tight, and we were pretty poor. A lot of men wanted odd jobs around the house, and my mother would give them a sandwich or something. We always had aContinue reading “A Sandwich for Lunch”

I was a sophomore at McBride, The teacher was called out to the principal’s office and when he came back,he told us all to be quiet. He said President Kennedy is dead, and we were of course just stunned. We were all sent home, and I can remember riding a bus down Kingshighway Boulevard andContinue reading “The Death of Kennedy”

This story of Susan (Waskow) Shaw’s (born 1967) pain in the stomach is on page 118 of Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades. It was probably in fourth grade. I never told anyone I was sick, because I didn’t want to miss school. I had been sick for about two days, butContinue reading “Ouch!”

Like millions in her generation, Linda (Seiferth) Gurney fell in love with the Beatles when she first saw them on The Ed Sullivan Show. Here is her story, from page 95 of Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades. I grew up in University City. I’m a professional musician and started learning music very, veryContinue reading “First Love With The Fab Four”

In the 1950s, Margaret (Tinius) Walker (left) was a polio poster child for the St. Louis March of Dimes. This story by Margaret (Tinius) Walker is on Page 76 of Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades by Jim Merkel. To buy a copy, go to https://merkels-books-and-things.square.site/ I got very sick with polioContinue reading “A Terrible Disease”

The picture above shows Darren Seals as a teenager in the 1980s. On page 128 of my book, Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades, he relates that he netted $3,000 or $4,000 a month selling drugs when he was a high school freshman. “I got clothes, shoes, jewelry, girls,” he told me.Continue reading “Big Money at a Cost”

I had special reasons to remember the Feasting Fox Restaurant. Covering St. Louis’ South Side for the old Suburban Journals from about 2001 to 2009, I wrote about Marty and Sue Luepker, owners of the restaurant at Grand Boulevard and Meramec Street. I ate there and came to appreciate the fact that it was oneContinue reading “Remembering the Feasting Fox”

For sheer chaos, few places in St. Louis County match Manchester Road at Interstate 270. The West County Center, numerous strip stores, office buildings and a mass of suburban homes in all directions combine to bring more many thousands of vehicles a day to Manchester just east of I-270. Traffic is so great that eastboundContinue reading “My Life as a Country Boy”

People say St. Louis is the world’s biggest small town. You’re always running in to somebody with a connection to yourself. I can believe it, after seeing one huge coincidence in the writing of my book, Growing Up St. Louis: Looking Back Through the Decades. I interviewed more than 100 people about their experiences growingContinue reading “A One in a Million Coincidence”