I arrived in St. Louis from Richmond VA, in my little red Honda Civic, in the bitterly cold Winter of 1985. I stayed at the Mayfair Hotel on St. Charles Street (now owned by Wyndham) downtown for a few weeks, until I found a place for the movers to deliver my stuff (a short lease on a dumpy apartment in Florissant) and had no idea what kind of warm weather would present itself. And as cold as it was, I wondered if it ever would. I walked the several blocks to the station in the Missouri State Bank building at Olive & Tucker (?) each morning at 4:30AM because the Honda's engine was frozen solid until the sun hit it in the Mayfair's parking lot. It was usually driveable by about noon...
I remember that there was a guy who had a newspaper stand along the way, and I'd pick up a Post for a quarter there each morning. That stand (a block east of the long-gone Miss Hulling's Restaurant, I think) didn't last more than a couple years after '85, although I bet there had been newspaper sales at that corner for decades during the typical morning auto rush. Ahh, progress.
Eventually Spring and Summer 1986 arrived and I learned of the annual Independence Day celebration on the Riverfront, known then as the VP Fair. "VP" stood for "Veiled Prophet" and, as you might expect, it was a somewhat anachronistic organization that was eventually morphed into Fair St. Louis. Now it's a day-and-a-half deal with crappy music acts and no air show along the River...but back then it was a HUGE deal, with air shows over all four days, and continuous entertainment on three stages. The debutante ball and the parade remain in place, but that's about all that's left of the VP deal.
With no previous knowledge of the event, I volunteered to do call-ins for WIL from the Fair. The station provided me with sufficient passes for my family for entry to the South Stage and what was then a state-of-the-art mobile phone...the damned thing weighed about nine tons. The phone was a handset in a cradle, in one bag, and attached by cables to a battery, in a separate bag. And these were not small bags. They were designed to be carried over the shoulder...by Sherpas, maybe, or in packs, on mules. I bore bruises from the weight for about a week after. Trust me, shirt-pocket digital is better...gotta love them three-ounce cell phones!
My job was to MC the afternoon shows on the South Stage, local acts sponsored by WIL, and to call in reports to the station twice an hour from the hour before through the hour after. Carroll and I loaded the four kids and the gigantic phone system into the car and made for downtown from our home (by then, in Creve Coeur). We parked in the garage at the Missouri State Bank building, which housed the WIL studios and where I already paid a monthly fee (yes, I'm a cheap guy) and hiked from Tucker to the Riverfront and then to the South Stage.
Carroll and the kids found audience seats and I went backstage and made my first couple reports. All, so far, was well. But that didn't last long.
It was accepted that there would ALWAYS be a major-league thunderstorm at least once during the VP Fair, and usually more than once, and this afternoon was the correct time and the correct target was...the SOUTH STAGE! We got hit by ginormous winds and rain and lightning like you would never believe. The good news is that those of us onstage managed to get under a tarp and, even with all the electronic gear and current around us, we were safe. Carroll and the kids managed to get to undercover shelter, too.
We got wet but we survived.
My next call-in to the station was just a little less enthusiastic...
The main-stage entertainment for 2006 is B5, Jason Mraz and Hootie and The Blowfish. Dont know who's on the South Stage, or if there even is one. We've watched the fireworks on TV since '87.
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