Cape Girardeau History and Photos

October 18, 2026

Mother Wood Be Proud

Mother would have been 105 years old on her Oct 17, 2026, birthday. She literally kept the Steinhoff fires burning in the basement fireplace.

She didn’t cut the wood, split it or stack it, but she kept a fire going on cold days and nights. The chimney ran up the wall between the kitchen and living room, so it added heat to the upstairs at the same time.

I bought this garden cart for her birthday in 2004. The only problem was that it was too heavy for her to move if it was fully loaded, and it barely fit through the basement door.

A few years later, I bought her a smaller, more maneuverable cart. She declared it “too nice” for wood, so she used it as a laundry cart to go down the hill to the clothesline.

Storm splinters walnut tree

Back in August, we had a storm blow through and I didn’t think much of it until the next day when I saw the top of one of our walnut trees had split off. Fortunately, it missed hitting anything except other trees and the ground.

Time to play lumberjack

I thought about calling a tree service to evaluate several aging trees in the back yard (they were big when we moved there in the middle 50s, so some of the walnut trees must be 150 years old).

When I looked at the wood on the ground, it seemed to be a good time to replenish my wood pile. We’ve had some relatively warm winters, so I hadn’t ordered wood in at least three years.

The 12-inch DeWalt cordless chain saw did OK lopping branches, but I quickly saw (pun not intended) that I’d need something bigger for the trunk.

The 16-inch Ego cut through the wood like butter. I was never a fan of gas saws because I used them so seldom they never wanted to play nicely when I needed them. To keep from having to juggle dissimilar batteries and chargers, I’ve moved into the Ego ecosystem for the saw, hedge trimmer, string trimmer and blower.

I’ve had some experience

When I was a high school kid, Dad would drop off a truckload of wood from a jobsite, and charge me with splitting and stacking it. I got the job done with an axe, wedges and a sledge hammer.

With age comes wisdom

Splitting wood from storm damage 09 – 10-2026

I’m looking at hitting the four-score mark next year, and it became quickly apparent that I’m not 15 years old now.

When I priced rental splitters, I found that I could buy an electric 5-ton splitter from Harbor Freight for about what two days of rental would cost, and I wouldn’t have to figure a way to get the beast to the back yard.

I started the project when the heat index was in the triple digits, so my power was exhausted before the saw batteries went dead.

That cart should look familiar – it was the same one I gave Mother for her birthday in 2004. Over the years, I added plywood sides and bottom. I decided to put the splitter on it to raise it higher and make it more portable.

First rack is done

I bought two steel racks from Shelter Logic three years ago, but had never assembled them (for the record, the racks are substantial, but don’t believe the instructions that say that one person can put them together in 15 minutes).

I put together the second rack Saturday and still have the big wood to cut and split. I’m sure I have more enough to fill both of them.

There’s an old adage that says that the wood you cut yourself warms you twice. I’ll think of Mother with every stick I throw in the fireplace.

June 22, 2026

Dad’s Wallet

Sometimes I think I have a good grasp on what I’m going to write, then I take a nap and find myself going down a different rabbit hole. I was going to comment on what Dad kept in his wallet, but then I flashed to Tim O’Brien’s book The Things They Carried, a fictional collection of interconnected stories about American soldiers in the Vietnam War and what they carried both physically and emotionally.

That got me thinking about what Dad and I carried over the years and the similarities and differences.

Wallets and rituals

Wallets are probably the most intimate thing a man carries, sometimes for years, if not decades. Over the years, I’ve found it hard to give up the old, retired wallets, and they’ve found themselves hibernating in the back of my sock drawer.

That led me to thinking about my four-tap ritual that I conduct several times a day. Check the right rear pocket, the left rear pocket, my fly, and my phone/radio.

Then I realized how I’m a creature of habit in other ways. My right pocket contains a Buck knife I bought as a pair with Son Matt when he joined Scouts, pocket change, and three silver dollars. Two of the coins are engraved with the birth dates of my two boys (which have become almost unreadable in the past 50+ years), and one of my Dad’s dollars that he carried so much that it has devolved into a smooth silver disk that you wouldn’t recognize as a silver dollar.

The left pocket contains two sets of keys, a Swiss Army knife, a small bottle of hand sanitizer and some nail clippers.

The other constant in my life is the notebook, writing instrument and glasses case in my shirt pocket. Wife Lila learned early on that I wouldn’t wear a shirt without a pocket. Here we are doing an American Gothic pose in The Athens Messenger photo lab in 1968 before we got married. I DID quit using a plastic pocket protector after I left Cape for Ohio.

Scouting was a big deal

His Scout committee membership card was the first slot in his wallet.

Dad wasn’t much of a joiner (he came home from his first – and only – meeting of the Jaycees complaining that the members thought it was funny to throw buttered rolls at each other instead of talking about serious matters), but he found a home in Scouting when Brothers Mark and David were active.

He made lifelong friends of other adult leaders, and put his construction and organizational skills to good use at the troop and district level.

Order of the Arrow Vigil card

He was proud to have been selected as an Order of the Arrow Vigil member, and later, a recipient of the Silver Beaver, the highest distiguished service award that can be awarded an adult leader.

We had his Scouting awards carved on his tombstone.

Family was important

I’m embaressed to confess that my wallet doesn’t contain any family photos, but Dad had pictures of Ken, Lila, Matt, Mark and David Steinhoff. I guess having cellphones with those kinds of pix has replaced prints.

Mother’s message

Dad and Mother weren’t big on public displays of affection, but there is no doubt that they were in love. This message to Dad from Mother earned a place in his wallet.

Bald Headed Men of America

In 1973, I sponsored Dad to a lifetime membership in the Bald Headed Men of America. He was still sporting his membership card when he died in 1977.

I was excited

When I saw the corner of what looked like a 50-dollar bill peeking out of the corner, I thought I had hit the jackpot.

Alas, it was just an attention-getting business card.

Business cards

Here are a few of the business cards he carried.

Paul Steinhoff was Dad’s brother. They didn’t associate much after Paul moved to Texas. I think I only met him once.

Dad’s Chauffeur’s License

I’m not sure what the A restriction was for. It didn’t say on the back of the card.

Surprising conversations and discoveries

Despite that I called Cape every Sunday night at 7:30, we rarely talked about stuff of substance. It was usually about the weather, work, Scouts, Kentucky Lake and the like. We rarely talked more than 10 minutes.

His wallet contained several of these notes describing some health issues and the meds he was on. I first became aware that everything might not be right when he helped me do some modifications on our back porch shortly after we bought our house in Florida.

He climbed down from a short stepstool and said that he was going to have to quit because he was getting dizzy. He had been told that the arteries in his neck were clogged, and there wasn’t anything they could do for it.

That’s when I also noticed that he had lost a lot of muscle mass in his arms. He had joked that he didn’t need to go to a gym because he spent eight to ten hours a day pulling on dragline levers that took 17 pounds of force to move.

Living close to the edge

Not long after that, we had a conversation unlike any in the past.

“You kids never had any idea how close to the edge we skated from time to time. Lots of small contractors went belly-up if the weather hit at the wrong time, or if a piece of critical equipment broke down. I didn’t carry life insurance, because I thought it was better for me to put every penny into the business, gambling that was the better use of the money. If something had happened to me, though, you’d have been in for tough times.”

I was amused when he told me about how a friendly insurance agent helped him out. You had to have permits to transport heavy and oversize equipment on the highway. One of the requirements was that you had to have insurance for the move.

His agent would write up the policy and stick it in his desk drawer. If the move was sucessful, Dad would call and say, “We’re good. Tear it up.”

The agency has changed names several times over the decades, and the agent is long dead, but my house is still insured with that company in honor of Dad.

Earlier posts

May 20, 2026

Signs you live in Missouri

I never got a message from a Florida neighbor like the one Rhonda Bolton sent me here on Kingsway Drive:

“You have a dead armadillo in your drive. Lol was not there when I left at 9ish this morning.”

Yep, the prime example of road kill on the half shell was right where she described.

Brother Mark and his buddies would decorate animal carcasses with party hats and ballons.

I had neither, so I reached for my root-cutting shovel. When it barely scratched the concrete-hard clay, I turned to a grubbing hoe. After it met similar results, I loaded Mr. Amadillo onto a snow shovel and carried him down the hill. (I know it was a He because he expired in an obvious happy state.)

The Bolton neighbors

Bill and Rhonda moved into the tiny house across the street on Memorial Day, 1994, long enough ago that we no longer refer to the property as the Tinkers. They are the perfect neighbors. They kept a close eye on Mother, and are the kind of folks you feel comfortable asking to borrow a cup of sugar.

Bill’s a great craftsman

Bill Bolton bench made from Dutchtown lumber

We gave Bill permission to harvest old lumber from one of Dad’s sheds in Dutchtown. He turned many of the old boards and signs into wonderful primative furniture.

Bill Bolton table from Dutchtown lumber 11-02-2016

He gave me this bench, followed by a table mounted on a sewing machine base. He would donate pieces to charity raffles, and I was lucky enough to win another table and bench over the years.

Rhonda and Mother were friends

They enjoyed cutting up in a photo booth at Rhonda’s 50th birthday party.

I’m more comfortable BEHIND the camera

I was persuaded to join Mother in the photo booth. Dad was someone who could wear a hat. The hat gene skipped Brother Mark and me.

May 4, 2026

May 4 Artifacts

Ken Steinhoff riot gear used to cover protests after Kent State

Serpendipity kicked in this weekl. I was opening random boxes in the living room looking for something a collector of scout memorabilia thought I might have.

This box contained the gas mask, helmet and one of the cameras I used the Night Of Teargas at Ohio University on May 14, 1970, ten days after four students were killed by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State.

I’m going to plow some of the same ground I’ve plowed before when Palm Beach Post chief photographer John J. Lopinot sends me a “Never Forget” message on May 4.

Headed to Kent State

OU Post photographer Lew Stamp 05-01-1970

Ohio University Post photographer Lew Stamp and I heard that things were heating up in Kent, so we decided to go to an Army surplus store in Marietta to pick up some gas masks and other gear.

Whatever radio station we were listening to interrupted regular programming with an announcement that several national guardsmen had been shot and killed in Kent, (Of course, that was wrong; it was students who were shot and killed.)

We decided that we’d go on to Marietta for gear, but that we’d better head back to Athens because there was no telling what was going to happen on the Ohio University campus.

Pulled over at the county line

When we crossed the Athens county line on the way back, a deputy pulled me over. Fortunately, I knew the guy so the encounter turned out to be relatively calm.

“We got a report of a couple of hippie-types at a surplus store in Marietta buying riot gear. Do you know something I should know?”

“That be us, but I think it’s a stretch to call us ‘hippie-types.’ We don’t know anything about what might happen, but we’re preparing for whatever comes up.”

Like so many stories I’ve told over the years, I’ve often worndered if that really happened.

As it turned out, Curator Jessica found an OU security log entry at 2:10 pm on May 4 saying that “Mr. Guinn (OU security head) received a report from the Ohio State Patrol that five gas masks were purchased in Marietta by a Mr. Steinhoff of The Messenger. Mr. Guinn agreed to call The Messenger to see if they had any information concerning the purpose of the acquistion.” (For the record, I think we only bought two or three masks, not five.)

Don’t let it happen here

Meeting on Ohio University Main Green after Kent State shootings 05-05-1970

Thousands of students showed up on the Main Green the night after the killings. There was much speechifying, and the crowd was trying to figure out what it was going to do.

Just about the time it looked like things might turn ugly, a young woman who said she was a Kent State student came out of the darkness and grabbed the microphone. She said she and some of her friends had witnessed the shootings and had agreed to fan out to the other state schools to beg the students not to allow a similar bloody confrontation to happen.

“The kids at Kent are running scared,” she was quoted by Tom Price in The Athens Messenger. “Don’t bring that here. Don’t throw rocks here. You don’t know how good it is to be here tonight. Just stay this way, please. Keep cool and stay together, please – male and female – because there have been two girls killed and two guys.”

They were gone as quickly as they had arrived. I never did find out who they were or if they had actually been at Kent State. Their sincerity, though, quickly changed the mood of the crowd. Slowly, students drifted away. I didn’t need my gas mask after all.

Boys and their toys

Bob Rogers at Athens Police riot training 08-24-1968

In the summer of 1968, a persuasive ordinance salesman did a demo of all the riot control gear he had for sale. The Athens PD and the OU security department must have been impressed enough to buy a bunch of toys that didn’t see any use until The Night of Teargas on May 14, 1970.

Photo boss Bob Rogers, on the right, paused from taking pictures to make sure his hair was under control.

Teargas stayed on the shelf

Despite several Rites of Spring incidents, the teargas wasn’t used until that night on May 14.

Finally got to use my mask

OU buddy Ed Pieratt documented my attire the night of the riot that closed the school. The good news was that the mask worked against the gas. The bad news was that it was a humid night, and the thing fogged up about the time I got into the action.

Later on, a friendly cop gifted me a modern M16 mask that I had fitted with prescription eye glasses.

‘I didn’t want to be eating grass when I died’

After all of the posts I’ve done on the topic, the most moving experience I had was interviewing Dean Kahler, a Kent State student who was shot and paralyzed on May 4.

“I knew I had been shot because it felt like a bee sting. I knew immediately because my legs got real tight, then they relaxed just like in zoology class when you pith a frog,” he said. He never walked again, but he has turned into a highly competitive wheelchair athlete.

After the shooting stopped, he called out to see if there were any Boy Scouts around who could turn him over. “The only thought that came into my head was if I was turned over, would I bleed more internally than externally? I thought (shrugs shoulders) there’s a 50 / 50 chance that you’re going to die one way or the other. I knew I might die. I had a really good chance of dying, so I wanted to see the sky, the sun, leaves, peoples faces. I didn’t want to be eating grass when I died.”

I’ve done lots of May 4 posts

Here are a few of the posts I’ve done about protests in Athens and other places.