365 Memories

I remember a single afternoon, sixteen years ago in St. Louis, when I met two dynamic women who changed my professional life for the best. One I never had another contact with and can't remember her name, but still she influences me; the other became my first mentor in public relations and is still a friend today. I was attending a one-day conference with a job fair component, sponsored by the St. Louis chapter of PRSA , the Public Relations Society of America. I had left law school and was not exactly sure what to do next, only knew that I had to do something. My mom is the one who steered me toward public relations work, giving me some of the best career advice I ever received. She worked in PR before I arrived in her life, and she could say from experience that the skills I'd learn in a PR position would be among the most valuable and most transferable —though perhaps I'd want to stay in the industry. She was absolutely right. Although I did eventually leave the world of...

Although St. Louis was not a particularly good fit for me—I needed to be where the streets downtown weren't deserted after 5:00 PM, where there were throngs of people who moved quickly and jaywalked against the light, where nobody asked where I'd gone to high school as if it made a difference once you were out of college—still, as I've said in earlier posts, I had the good fortune to meet and work with some fabulous people while I was there. People with great energy and creativity, supervisors who mentored me with kindness and generosity. And, craving the weird, it's not as if some oddball things didn't happen there, too. Let me ask: when was the last time you saw a group of skydiving Elvis impersonators, complete with Vegas-style jumpsuits (jeweled, wide-collared, bell-bottomed) and black pompadour wigs, parachute into a canyon of glass-walled, high-rise commercial buildings? Sixteen years ago this week, the marketing agency where I worked was a hive of activity, ...

In the summer of 1993, my ties to St. Louis were growing thin, though they were also at their strongest then, too. I had left law school during the spring semester, had trained as a volunteer with the Sexual Assault Response Team, and had also landed a public relations internship in a boutique-style marketing firm. I was fortunate to work for and with incredibly generous people, and together we did amazing things in the city. During the day, I learned how to write press releases and good industry newsletters; I helped plan special events to boost awareness for local businesses, and to raise money for charity. (The year I was there, I got my first taste of NASCAR culture, when the racing association teamed up with Northwest Plaza for a flood relief fundraiser.) At night, I stayed on call at home in the event I was needed in one of the area emergency rooms to comfort survivors of assault. It was a busy, intense time. My former law school colleagues were, many of them, away for the summe...

I remember quite a few things about St. Louis, but the quirk that after a while came to represent the city to me, like shorthand, is this: in St. Louis, no matter how old you are, no matter your professional standing or the other details of your life, your resume, or your CV, when you meet a new person there is a single question you are almost certain to be asked (really, without fail if I recall), and that is, "Where did you go to high school?" Your answer matters. Pretty much says it all.

One thing you do not do when you live in New York City is buy bulk; well, some people might, but generally not those of us who are renting cramped apartments. I have lived in big cities almost all my life, and mostly in small spaces. This suits me fine. Yes, occasionally I would really like to have more room to eat, sleep, breathe in. There are problems with clothes not fitting in the closets and where to store things like in-line skates. Only recently have my husband and I managed to upgrade to a place that has, while not really a dining room , at least something resembling an alcove that's reserved for meals; it's more than just a table in the corner of the living room. Living and eating are, in terms of spatial relation, finally separate in our home (psychically they still often seem the same, though). This is luxury. Anyway, the point is that there's just no room to store extras, and even the one box of . . . let's say cereal . . . had better be the small and not th...

The lights in the studio were cut. I stood in one darkened corner, then walked diagonally across the padded floor toward a man who approached me from the other end of the room. No one else was there. Every nerve in my body tingled with the anticipation of attack. He started a patter of trash talk that began with "Hey, baby, where you goin '?" and ended in four-letter obscenities. His wiry body advanced quickly, and I called up the tactics of self defense I'd been practicing for weeks. Let's call this a final exam. Let's say I flunked it miserably, right from the words "called up." It is an illusion, the idea that in a moment like this there is time to remind yourself of anything; your moves must be without thought, swift and accurate. The man approaching was the teacher of a scrappy "street style" self defense class offered in St. Louis in the spring of 1993. Since I'd been working for S.A.R.T., the Sexual Assault Response Team run out ...

It's late at night, and you're alone in your apartment, tired but on high alert, unable to sleep. In the dark, you pray. Despite the fact that at this time in your life you would never describe yourself as a "religious" person, it is definitely a true prayer, not the bargaining offer of an exchange ( I'll reform, if only . . . ); you are not the one in need. You are the one whose job it is to help those in crisis, and although you signed up for this gig, you wish desperately that your job didn't exist, wasn't needed—not tonight, not anytime. Not while you are the volunteer on call, committed to driving at whatever hour of the night to whatever hospital emergency room phones in a case of sexual assault. Given that a possible career in criminal law was what brought me to St. Louis, it's easy to see how I found my way to S.A.R.T., the city's Sexual Assault Response Team. The program was (still is) based out of the Metro St. Louis Y.W.C.A. For voluntee...