I found out that our place of worship was burning around 2 a.m. Back when we were still St. Louis kids, and before we had kids of our own, my friends talked about turning the long-abandoned Catholic church into a skatepark. We sat in piles of wrists and legs and hormones to claim our space on the concrete. For over a decade, I chased achievement elsewhere: New York City, Los Angeles, Boston. But it was in returning home that I became a part of building something increasingly rare and meaningful: a community.

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Persons: Louis Organizations: Shell Locations: New York City, Los Angeles, Boston