[Photograph from Vintage St. Louis and Route 66, Facebook]
{Reposted]
ALAN writes:
I have written thousands of words about what is wrong in the city of St. Louis. Here is a photograph that shows what was once right about it.
Taken on Easter Sunday, 1947, it shows hundreds of people streaming out of the New Cathedral, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, on Lindell Boulevard in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis. In 1963, my classmate Carol and I were part of a choir in this Cathedral.
Observe the clean landscape. Observe that these people are grown-ups, not perpetual adolescents. Observe their countenance. Observe the men in suits and ties and serious hats, and the women in dresses and attractive coats and hats. Observe no tee-shirts, blue jeans, or ball caps.
Observe passengers boarding a red Public Service Company bus in the years when bus drivers were courteous enough to make change if requested.
The people in this photograph are not a “diverse” crowd. All of them are white. This is a snapshot of what Christian Civilization once was.
In 2012, 23-year-old Megan Boken was sitting in her car in broad daylight within walking distance of this Cathedral when she was shot and killed by two black thugs. It was a “robbery gone wrong.”
— Comments —
Jane writes:
Thank you so much for posting Alan’s recollections of Easter.
At 53 years old, I am at the tail end of the generation that benefitted from the memories of our grandparents. I can still recall my beloved Nana singing the song from “Easter Parade”, Easter hats and my grandfather buying corsages for each of the ladies in our family (down to the teens) to celebrate the holiday. I mourn that celebrations have shifted to an overemphasis on egg hunts and cheap bunny decor at Walmart.
I wasn’t around to truly experience the golden age Alan writes about, but during my seventies childhood we were still riding around on its fumes somehow due to the presence of that precious older generation that is with the Lord now.
Thank you for providing such a pleasant saunter down memory lane.
