From Cornfield to Grocery Store

At some point during my high school years the heavy machinery came in and turned the cornfield and woods we used to play in into a Dierbergs grocery store. It was the first of many changes that turned my old stomping grounds into something I no longer even recognize.

Manchester Road was, even then, a busy road, but busy road by our definition at the time meant that it had two lanes going in each direction but Ron and I could still find large enough gaps in the traffic that we could run across the road.

And run across it we did.

Many times.

Ron and I used to walk to the Grandpa Pigeon's store in Ellisville or to the Winchester Plaza strip mall which housed a barber shop (where you could get a haircut for $2.50), a 7-11 and, for a while, a very small Bass Pro Shops outlet. There was also a small, family owned Chinese restaurant that employed Ron as a busboy for a while.

Those are all gone now, too.

Perhaps none of those long-gone treasures are as full of memories as the woods and the cornfield, though. The tiny patch of woods was crisscrossed with bike trails that we accessed from Spring Meadows Drive. The trails provided an outlet to a trail that skirted around the edges of a cornfield.

The story among the neighborhood was that the farmer who owned the field kept a shotgun loaded up with rock salt ready to shoot at any kids found trespassing. While I never ran across any farmer and certainly never heard a shot; the story was enough to keep us all on our toes as we spent hours riding bikes through his field and the surrounding woods. We had untold adventures as we rode our bikes and chased critters with our Wrist Rocket slingshots or Daisy BB Guns.

The trails eventually ended by the Glan Tai pond spillway where we would get back onto the subdivision roads and make our way down the hill on Baxter Acres toward home.

I remember the feeling in my gut when I saw the earth moving equipment come in. The cornfield disappeared to make way for the grocery store and the woods were replaced with a tiny park.

Like our trips down the flooded creek and the go-kart rides down the neighborhood hills, all of those childhood adventures are but a memory now; forever lost to future generations.