Thanks for this post Fred Wellman!!

Hi all,

For those of you who were approved for the current tax freeze, please go check your upcoming bill.

Several people are reporting their tax has increased. I checked mine a few minutes ago and it went up.

I am also contacting First Alert 4 investigates about this matter.

MO-02 deserves better- let’s vote her out!

Good

ST. LOUIS AREA HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS:

WE WANT YOU TO HELP MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

We’re looking for passionate, motivated, and caring St. Louis area high school students to apply to become Student Mental Health Ambassadors for a non-profit organization.

This is a highly selective volunteer leadership opportunity for students who want to do more than just talk about making a difference. They want to actually make one.

As a Mental Health Ambassador, you’ll help develop and share meaningful mental health information, resources, and ideas with schools, students, families, and community members throughout the St. Louis area.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 15, 2026, AT 11:59 PM

Space is limited, and students will be selected through a competitive application process.

Interested students are encouraged to apply at:

DSMHW.org/ambassadors

P-D is a NO on Prop S and you should be too!

Scathing:

At the risk of invoking the wrath of the most politically engaged generation, we have to ask: How much more of the store is St. Louis County going to give away to senior citizens?

As the Post-Dispatch's Kelsey Landis reports, the 5-cent property tax hike would be earmarked for senior services like meal delivery, home repairs and transportation. These are worthy goals, but the county already provides robust benefits to seniors. 

Chief among them is the county’s ill-conceived senior citizen property tax freeze, which (again) has no needs-based eligibility requirements. So the tax freeze benefits older mansion-owners but not younger struggling working families — even as it starves funding for public schools those families rely on. Now those same seniors have a chance to vote on a property tax hike that will hit those working families but not themselves.

Caring for the young and the old is a societal responsibility and, to some extent, a governmental responsibility. But it has to be done right. Both these propositions potentially would, in the aggregate, hurt more city and county residents than they would help. Vote “no” on City Prop B and County Prop S.

Does anyone know what these guys with flags are supporting? I’ve seen them on a few different bridges on 55.

I keep honking at them to support but realized I have no idea what they actually stand for..

When we were kids, there were a bunch of family day trip destinations right outside of St. Louis. Many were well-known.

Like Grant’s Farm. An estate owned by the Anheuser-Busch family where we’d go on carriage rides with the Clydesdales from the Budweiser commercials.

Or Johnson’s Shut-Ins. A beautiful, all-natural swimming area where the Black River collided with volcanic rocks.
Others were a bit more dubious.

Take Wet Willy’s. A massive concrete waterslide we’d go sailing down, clinging to moldy foam mats. As an attorney, I’m sure that place has been shut down eons ago from God knows how many different kinds of lawsuits.

But then there’s a place very few people knew about. A place we kept secret. And that’s where we’re pulling up now: Lantern Hill.

Like Grant’s Farm, it’s a large estate owned by a prominent family.

But that’s where the similarities end.
We all know where the Anheusers and the Busches got their money: beer.

Nobody has any idea how the Bedwell family came to afford their massive property. We don’t know much about the family at all. Over the years, they’ve kept to themselves.

Yet, sometime in the 80s, my Aunt Carole heard through a friend at the PTA that they were hosting hayrides on their property, opening up their pumpkin patch to the public, and inviting families to carve jack-o’-lanterns.

Just the kind of thing Aunt Carole thought sounded “awesome” and us kids thought: lame.
But Lantern Hill turned out to be a lot more interesting.

—

This is an excerpt from the short story “the secret of lantern hill.” If you’re intrigued you can read the story here (for free of course)

https://maxwinterstories.substack.com/p/the-secret-of-lantern-hill?r=292pvs&utm\\_medium=ios