Offers… my middle sister lives in St. Louis. I don’t write about her much because I don’t see her much. Oddly, she is one of the reasons I moved here back in 2001 when I was trying to decide between here and Chicago. She was very pregnant with her first child and I thought it would be nice to be a real uncle for a change. I have lots of nieces and nephews, but I’ve been a holiday uncle for all of them, as my family is spread out across the whole country. To make a short story long, Sandy moved south of St. Louis at the same time I was moving here and while I am Abigail’s godfather, I hardly ever see her. She and her husband have five acres in Imperial, which is south of Arnold, which is south of south St. Louis.

Now that you have your bearings, Sandy and Steve have decided to move. They live across the street from a rowdy bar, a bar that advertises a shooting range in its basement. Before the kids were born, she has two now, Steve put up a large privacy fence to shield them from the bar traffic. It’s been spray painted a few times, but nothing serious has ever happened. Last week, at 7:30 in the evening, a drunk from the bar ripped one of the planks off the fence and hurled it at one of their windows in an attempt to smash the glass. My one year-old nephew was learning to walk on the other side of the target window. Sandy and Steve don’t know anyone in the area. They have lived there for years but haven’t had fights with anyone. The attack has arisen from a general, rather than specific sense of hostility.

Nothing serious ultimately happened. The screen tore but the window held. The drunk, hostile, probable methamphetamine addict wandered off. They filed a police report and Steve put the board back up (with a handgun in a holster at his side). So, last night they rented a house in Kirkwood and the Imperial property will soon go on the market. It’s a nice piece of land with a barn and several out buildings. Sandy has offered me two months free rent to move in while they try and sell. I could park my school bus in the barn.

On the one hand, shit happens no matter where you live. A few years ago I had a drunk total my Ford LTD at 3 a.m. and it was simply parked in front of my current apartment. The following year a different drunk hit my neighbor’s jeep so hard that not only were both vehicles totaled, but they took out the fire hydrant as well. I woke up to two smashed cars and a fountain in my front yard. The block was without water for three days. Sebastian, my dog, has probably foiled more than one attempted break in. There is no burglar alarm quite like one with teeth.

On the other hand, with regard to a prospective move, I don’t consider Imperial to be part of St. Louis. It’s true that you can be downtown in twenty minutes from her front door. But because of the highway system, you would have to go downtown if you wanted to get anywhere in the St. Louis region. That is not a recipe for fast transit. I lived in a rural college town, where everything is five minutes from everything else, for too long to tolerate much of a commute. Avoiding a commute is a core quality of life issue for me. I still might consider moving there if it weren’t for the bar. I like a good bar. Not as a neighbor, and not where guns are ubiquitous.