Parks College, Cahokia, IL.

I grew up in Cahokia, IL. It's a small town on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River across from St. Louis. Parks College was part of life in Cahokia, it was an aviation college that was part of St. Louis University. In 1997 the College was moved across the river to the main campus of SLU. The buildings in Cahokia have remained abandoned and left to vandals and nature.

I couldn't resist getting a few pictures of the place. A police officer stopped in, checked on us and what we are doing. He said there were plans to convert one of the buildings into a new police station, but the cost to renovate was to great. They have built a YMCA on part of the campus.

I added more pictures from the college on flickr.

This seems like a lifetime ago

Today is a roadtrip back in time.

An old friend from my Air Force days recently got in contact with me through Facebook. We were roommates in what seems like another life. Back in early 1990, when I returned from Germany I wasn't able to bring back all of my possessions, they would only allow so much weight to come back. Some of the things left were my old high school yearbooks. My old Air Force friend, who held on to those books for almost 20 years, mailed them to me last week. I have been spending a lot of time thumbing through the pages. I can't believe he held on to them for so long. I owe him a big thank you. Thanks to him I have all four years from high school AND my 7th grade yearbook.

This is a picture I scanned from my senior yearbook. It was the third year radio students. I am in the front row on the right in the Air Force shirt. We were WRTE 89.5 FM. Cahokia, IL. Class of 1982.

I was a nerd in high school. Who would have guessed?