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Another remembrance of mine is the Gateway Arch that is in St. Louis, Missouri. I remember it going up on the waterfront of the city of St. Louis, down along the Mississippi river.

I was a child then, and mom couldn’t afford a babysitter. She would take me to work and set aside a place in her office for me. It must have been in the summer time because I could remember seeing it from a distance. It was called the Gateway To The West. Not Westgate, which was shorter. I would watch out of the window of her office and after it got tall enough, I could see the two sides of the arch. When it got tall enough, they had to put in a span to keep the different sides from falling toward each other. When it came time to put in the final piece of the arch itself, there was a special celebration that took place. The last piece was lifted to the top to be put in place, and it had an American flag decorating the very top part. It was way in the distance from the hospital where mom worked, but even though small, I could see it.

After the last piece was in place and everything had been bolted and welded in, the two cranes which had slowly risen up the sides, slowly started down to the ground. I don’t know if the rail system which was used for those cranes was left in place, but the arch itself still stands today. Later there was a big scandal when someone decided to fly between the legs of the arch with a small airplane. I do not remember if they ever figured out who did that, it was in the newspapers. Mom and I were among the first 5,000 people who took the tour to the top of the inside of the arch. When we looked out of the windows that were up there, everything looked very small. What a view.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2008 at 9:18 pm and is filed under Business stuff, General, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.