Jay Versen, an old South Sider, called to ask if I remembered the miniature golf course and driving range at Juaniata and Kingshighway.

I remember the golf course because in the 1930s, miniature golf courses sprung up all over the country.

I think it cost about a quarter to play nine holes.

I don't remember the driving range, but I remember a softball park at that intersection. It cost 10 cents to get in and you saw two games, first a women's game, then a man's game.

I don't know why we paid to watch softball because we played it all day.

I don't know how the parks made money because they had to have a ground crew, keep the bleachers in shape and pay for a strong lighting system and pay umpires.

There was another such park at Chippewa and Kingshighway.

It was across from a Parkmoor restaurant. That was a popular restaurant chain. The last one on Clayton Road and Big Bend Boulevard closed in 1999. The one on Chippewa gave way to the Famous Southtown store.

The girls who played softball were in a church league. They also played in Tower Grove Park.

My friends and I followed a team from Clifton Heights Presbyterian Church. They had a pitcher named Sis Davis. I had a crush on her, but she was a teenager and I was just a kid, so she was never aware of my feelings.

The Parkmoor was done in by Uncle Bill's and Phil Medart's restaurant.

A late bloomer in the neighborhood was the Avalon Theater, which is being razed. It was too far away for me to walk there, but the Southhampton streetcar went by my corner at Arsenal and Roger Place. It later went right past the Avalon, so it was about a ten-minute ride.

The miniature golf courses are about gone, so is the Parkmoor and so is the Avalon.

I guess every generation comes up with something that lasts a short time.

We have to learn that nothing lasts forever.

Maybe my generation contributed to drive-in movies, but they are about gone now too.

Jim Fox, a retired newspaperman who lives in Affton, writes a weekly column for the Journals.