Each year, through some combination of slick brochures, well-orchestrated campus tours and enticing scholarship packages, the admissions department manages to win another freshman class for Saint Louis University. Many of these freshies don’t have to travel too far from home come the August move-in date. It’s no secret that SLU attracts a plenty of St. Louisans, or at least natives of the suburban and rural-ish districts in the city’s orbit.
I find it intriguing, however, that admissions also can entice young scholars from more distant places. The Billiken’s belly is rubbed by many an Ohioan, Wisconsinite and Texan, as well others from farther afield, even-I’m not making this up-Hawaiians. And I haven’t even mentioned international students.
I was definitely one of those freshmen who didn’t have to travel very far from home. In fact, given light traffic and fair weather, one can easily make the journey from my parents’ McMansion in suburban St. Louis County to Midtown in less than 20 minutes (this, of course, assumes the driver has a manly disregard for posted speed limits).
It’s more than just a question of proximity, however. My roots run deep in St. Louis’s alluvial soils. For at least a century almost all of my forbearers have lived and died in the city or in nearby counties. I can trace my family’s presence in these parts back to the mid-18th century, just as France had begun planting settlements on the west bank of the Mississippi.
Yes, I’m as St. Louis as toasted ravioli warshed down with beer at a Cardinals’ game on a suffocatingly humid summer day. And, just like any not very ambitious (or talented) member of the region’s Catholic bourgeoisie, I chose to attend SLU. As a high school senior I flirted with the idea of going to college in Chicago or on the East Coast, but in the end I just couldn’t tear myself away from the Gateway City.
In light of my deep attachment to the Lou, I always am interested to hear what out of town students have to say about my homeland. Their opinions tend to fall into one of two categories. Those in the first group just barely tolerate St. Louis and swear the moment they graduate to relocate to anywhere besides this boorish, dirty, crime-ridden excuse for a city.
Members of the second camp are a bit fonder of their adopted burg. They accuse naysayers of not spending enough time off campus, praise Forest Park and then mumble something about MetroLink and bike racks.
As a native, this sort of debate just amuses me. I don’t have the luxury of passing judgment on the city like this. Instead, my relationship with St. Louis is like a son’s with his father. You have to love your dad no matter what, even if he has objectionable foot odor and a fondness for cheesy ’70s prog rock.
Likewise, I have to love this city. It has been the setting of my life’s drama, and I am tied to its past and invested in its future. Admittedly, St. Louis can sometimes be a rather bland place, at other times a little depressing. But it also has its share of beauty, and it can still surprise me.
There was a time when I was a bit ashamed to be one of those SLU students who hadn’t travel too far from home, one of those born and bred in the University’s namesake city. Spending my college years elsewhere once seemed like it would have been a more adventurous choice. No more. Staying here took its own sort of courage, and I’m glad I entered adulthood in this misunderstood little river city. In the end, it’s the one place on earth where I feel most like . myself.
Ian Darnell is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is news editor at The University News.
