Long Time No Post

School got busy and all of my blogs have been neglected, sadly...!

Also haven't really found any new descansos...although I did take road trip from St. Louis, MO to Pittsburgh, PA and I found TONS of them all over. But sadly no time to stop for pictures!

So instead, I leave you with this article.

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/peta-seeks-memorials-to-cows-killed-on-illinois-roads-20111230

Descansos for animals?! Actually, my boyfriend's friend, Adam, said the guy who lives next door to him put one up for his dog. I need to get a photo of that sometime.

Katie Campanella

A pink-colored cross that simply reads: "Katie"...

I discovered this recently, about 2 weekends ago (I wanna say Oct 15th) whilst driving home with my boyfriend after he was done at work. He was driving and I was looking out the window on 170SB when I saw a reddish looking cross...I could barely make out any other details...

Sean snapped these pictures of the memorial on his ride home from class today...thank you, Sean!

It wasn't difficult to find the story behind this descanso on interstate 170 Southbound near St. Charles Rock Road because it happened so recently. A very terrible tragedy. Here are some links:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_daf30dd0-f279-11e0-a685-001a4bcf6878.html

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_694949d2-f667-11e0-9714-0019bb30f31a.html

11 year old Katie Campanella died at the scene of the accident. Her sister, Beth, managed to survive in critical condition with many broken bones.


Photo source: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_694949d2-f667-11e0-9714-0019bb30f31a.html


Photos courtesy S. Hunter.

KMOV story: http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Hazelwood-girl-killed-after-sisters-car-spins-out-of-control-on-I-170-131419118.html



Rest in peace, Katie.

Long time no post.

Found this one over the summer in front of a Phillips 66 Gas Station on Elm Street.

No name, no date, nothing... just a small tribute to someone who died at this street corner. A descansolito, if you will.

Officer Scott Armstrong

http://www.odmp.org/officer/17542-patrolman-scott-morgan-armstrong

"Patrolman Scott Armstrong was killed when his patrol car was struck head-on by a vehicle being driven the wrong way on I-370, near I-270. The driver of the wrong way vehicle, who was drunk at the time, was also killed in the incident.



Patrolman Armstrong had served with the Bridgeton Police Department for 2 years and had previously served with the Oak Harbor, Washington, Police Department, and Sunset Hills, Missouri, Police Department, for a total of 3 years. He is survived by his son, parents, sister, brother-in-law, and girlfriend."

Another descanso on highway 370. I heard from my boss at work that this guy died in a head on collision with another office who was off duty returning home from celebrating something? Not sure if that's true or not or if they just didn't want to mention that in any news article. Hmm. Still, really sad and unfortunate that he had to die this way. Alcohol and driving do NOT mix. RIP.

"We Live" by Superchick

Today I was sitting at work listening to Pandora Radio when a song by Superchic[k] came on my playlist. I was surprised when I heard the lyrics to the opening verse, especially because I had just shot a photo of a newly-discovered descanso on my workbreak.

"There's a cross on the side of the road
Where a mother lost a son
How could she know that the morning he left
Would be the last time she'd trade with him for a little more time
So she could say she loved him one last time
And hold him tight
But with life we never know
When we're coming up to the end of the road
So what do we do then
With tragedy around the bend?

We live we love
We forgive and never give up
Cuz the days we are given are gifts from above
And today we remember to live and to love"

Great song!


Here's the embedded video if you want to watch it:

J.P. Rosciglione

You can see the white cross better in this Google Earth image. Sorry for my terrible photo!

This was one of the first memorials I noticed on my morning commute to St. Charles on I-370W. It took me a while before I was able to make out the name on the memorial, and finally I thought to snap a quick pic whilst driving by since the idea of pulling over on the side of 370 gives me the heeby jeebies!! The memorial itself is a simple white cross with his name on the horizontal portion and the word "Colts" written on the top part with their horseshoe logo. Apparently the victim was a fan of Indianapolis Colts football.

This memorial is for John "J.P." Rosciglione. He was struck by a drunk driver while on his way home from work on February 5th, 2005, westbound on 370 near the Mills Mall exit. He was headed to a friends house to play cards when another driver struck the back of his Nissan Pathfinder, causing J.P.'s car to roll over and impact the median. Poor J.P. was ejected from the car and landed on the other side of the highway where he was hit by a minivan and a tractor trailer heading eastbound. I pray that he died quickly and with minimal pain...

Photo source: www.bpusastl.org/images/Newsletters/Webcopies/BPStL_J-F_06.pdf

I see his memorial every single day on my way to work now. I began to wonder who he was and what sort of person he was like.... so I read some news stories online. In one such article, he was described as having a "big heart" by his family. His father, Jay Rosciglione said, "J.P. was the son every father dreams of having. His sister said he was "the life of the party." How tragic that he had to perish like this...reminds me of the importance wearing a seat belt. Seems like most of the victims who are ejected from a vehicle are without seat belts. Of course airbags play a significant role in saving lives but perhaps due to the nature of J.P.'s accident, even the airbags couldn't save him. Seemed like it was an older vehicle and once airbags deploy, they cannot be redeployed as far as I know...Oh well, this is just speculation on my part, and not the purpose of my blog. But I definitely think of him everytime I drive past....

J.P.'s 1998 Nissan Pathfinder post-accident:

Truly terrible! And unfortunately the man responsible for this only got two years in prison after he fled the scene of the accident. If it weren't for witness testimony, the drunk driver might have gotten away with this!

New Story

An older one, so whole article isn't available but here's the gist of it:
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-9304367/Driver-in-fatal-crash-gets.html

J.P. is survived by his mother, father, sister, and other numerous family members. His family owns a bakery in St. Charles called Rosciglione Bakery and his father, Jay Rosciglione, was a power weight lifter. I am sure his family holds him in their hearts and treasures their memories of him dearly.

Rest in peace, J.P.

Kidnapped/murdered child?

A friend of mine saw this descanso recently in the city of St. Louis and he decided to take me to the spot so I could see it too. It's in a really bad neighborhood so I didn't get out of the car despite it being daylight. I snapped the photo quickly with my phone and he drove off.

This photo also begs the question: How does one make a descanso in the city? You rarely see white crosses on street sides.... and I have a feeling if there were, people could more easily deface or remove them versus say on an interstate where it's sort of dangerous to pull over even just to snap a photo (a whole separate post on that later!) It seems like photos of the deceased, some words written paper and taped to a telephone pole or tree, and stuffed animals in abundance are all common sights for a "city descanso." We saw another one like this but apparently the stuffed animals had since been removed/deteriorated/whatever and all that remained was a photo of the woman who was killed. But I couldn't really get a clear photo due to the photo being high up on a tree and partially obscured in darkness from the leaves and branches. But it seems like stuffed animals---maybe not just for kids---are a big part of the city memorials. I am not sure what happened to this little girl (or maybe she was a teen? or adult?) but there is a tiny white cross pinned to the side of the pole and one of the bears has signatures of friends and family all over. A crimestoppers yellow tape is wrapped around the top suggesting foul play. I don't think they've caught the criminal yet....it says call to leave tips.