Florissant is a bedroom community of ranch style track homes. Most of the people worked at McDonnel Douglas about 5 miles away. When I lived there, the city had a population of about 150,000. It was almost entirely of young families with lots of kids. Since then all the kids have grown up and moved away. Now the population is under 70,000. Back in the 1970's there were lots of new schools built to handle the large number of children. Now most of those schools have been closed.
This is the house that I lived in from the time I was 10.5 until I was 18. My mom and stepfather bought this when they got married. Originally, it had three bedrooms, then we added another in the basement.
This is McCluer North Senior High, where I went to school for 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. I was a member of its fourth graduating class. I graduated 227 out of 753. (I'll have to look those numbers up to verify that.) Not exactly stelar numbers. I was never National Honor Society, never on the Honor Roll. While I was very smart, emotional stuff at home got in the way.
Written 8-2-96