Ken Steinhoff, Author at Cape Girardeau History and Photos

August 19, 2010March 11, 2021

Pete Seeger & Songs of My Life

I was trading some messages with bicycling buddy Annie O’Reilly the other day when Pete Seeger’s name came up. I mentioned that I had seen Pete in concert three or four times and photographed him in May, 1977, when he played in White Springs, FL. I said that I’d keep my eyes out for the pictures while I was working on the Cape project. “He just turned 91, so I’d better have them ready for an obit. I hope it’s later, not sooner, though.”

I’ll toss up his photos, along with random thoughts about the music of my life.

A Bushel and A Peck

One of the first songs I can remember from my childhood is A Bushel and A Peck, with the lines, “I love you a bushel and a peck, A bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.” I don’t know if Mother would sing it to me or if it was just a phrase she’d use like, “Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

Johnny Horton and The Battle of New Orleans

The first song that was “mine” – meaning I knew all the lyrics and my parents didn’t teach them to me – was probably Johnny Horton’s 1959 hit, The Battle of New Orleans. I never realized what a colorful character he was until I Googled him.

My freshman debate partner, John Mueller, owned every Kingston Trio album ever cut, so I got introduced to Tom Dooley, M.T.A, Sloop John B, 500 Miles and Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

Of course, I learned later that their rather saccharine versions of those songs had been done much more robustly by earlier singers, including Pete, but it was still a nice introduction to folk music.

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan

Marty Cearnal, a SEMO college student who worked at Nowell’s Camera shop introduced me to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan. I have to admit that I wasn’t sure what to make of Dylan, but that Joan sure could sing purty.

Peter, Paul and Mary

When Mary Travers died, I pulled out photos I shot of PP&M at Ohio University. You can read the whole account on my bike blog, PalmBeachBikeTours. Much like the Kingston Trio, PP&M made songs “sweet” and non-threatening.

They make Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right sound pretty. It wasn’t until I discovered Bob Dylan’s version that I appreciated the off-hand way Bob kinda verbally shrugs his shoulders as he dismisses a relationship gone sour because “I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul.”

After I published the story, Carol Towarnicky, a college friend, reminded me that the concert had been held April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King had been killed.

The thing I love about folks singers is that they really care for the message they’re delivering and they really care for their fans. After the PP&M show, the trio stuck around for an hour or more talking to the campus reporters and their fans. You’ll see Pete is the same way.

Florida Folk Festival

I was looking to replace a color film processor for The Post and wanted to see one like it in operation. The nearest one was at The Gainesville Sun. I noticed that Pete Seeger was scheduled to perform at White Springs, not far from there. Figuring I’d get a two-fer out of the trip, I planned to look at the processor, then go to the concert.

I ended up buying the film processor, but the high point of the trip was watching Pete up close. Unlike bigger venues, we were right up with him.

This Machine Surrounds Hate

We were close enough that we could clearly read the signature motto on Pete’s banjo: THIS MACHINE SURROUNDS HATE AND FORCES IT TO SURRENDER. With all the hate speech in the news these days, we need Pete more than ever.

I like Pete’s message better than Woodie Guthrie’s banjo that read, “This machine kills Fascists.”

Pete brings the crowd along

You aren’t a spectator at a Pete Seeger concert, you’re a participant. Grandparents, parents and grandkids are all pulled into the show. If you don’t know the song lyrics – and that’s rare for his fans – he’ll coach you along.

After the show

It’s after the show that Pete’s decency and humanity came through. There were a few reporters hanging around, but the room backstage was filled with regular folks and their kids who wanted an autograph, a photo or just to talk to the man who is a national treasure.

He took time to talk with everyone and to make each of them feel special. I didn’t see him show any impatience or try to rush anyone through.

Where’s his entourage?

When he had finally talked with everyone who wanted to meet him, he hoisted his guitar and banjo over his shoulder and walked out. This isn’t a fellow who demands a dressing room with the right color of M&Ms in it.

I’m struck by how young Pete looks in these photos, although I thought he looked old when I took him in 1977. He was born in 1919, so he was about 60 when these photos were taken. I guess when you’re 30, 60 looks old.

Pete Seeger Photo Gallery

Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

August 18, 2010October 9, 2015

Bicycling to School

Grandson Malcolm, who is going to turn 6 any second now, headed off on his bicycle for his first day of kindergarten this morning. He’s lucky enough to have a good school only a few blocks from his house in Lake Park, FL.

Brother David pumps up his tires

Here’s Brother David in his baseball uniform pumping up his tires. Note the speedometer. I had one of those on my bike, too. I pegged it going down the steep hill gravel road leading from Old McKendree Chapel. It’s the kind of thing you do just once in your life if you survive it.

Technical note: the black and white photos were taken with a half-frame camera that would get two photos in a standard 35-mm frame. You got twice as many photos per roll of film, but the quality was only half as good.

Brother Mark with his Sears Spyder

Mark had a Sears Spyder with a rare leopard skin banana seat. When he outgrew it, it ended up in a shed in Dutchtown where it went underwater in at least two floods. Read about my quest to fix it up for him as a present.

After I wrote that piece, I was surprised at how many bicycle collectors there are out there and wrote a second story. After discovering how much it was going to cost to restore the old bike, I loaded it back in the car to take it back to him. After all, you can only love your brother so much.

A fellow who read the stories knew a restorer in Henderson, KY, who had a near mint version of Mark’s old bike. Mark asked if I’d divert a few hundred miles out of my way to pick it up on my last trip to Cape. Sure. Gas was a lot cheaper than fixing his old bike.

I’ll be writing about that adventure on my bike blog.

I’m still looking for photos of MY bike. So far, I’ve found about a two-second video snippet of me pulling out of the driveway on it, and a still frame where it’s way in the background.

August 17, 2010

Old Fruitland School

When I went back to Cape in the spring, I was curious to see if the old Fruitland School was still standing near the intersection of 177 and Route W. Dad built that road when I was two years old, and I remembered having a wienie roast there with the Steinhoff, Kirkwood and Joiner families.

The photo above shows Dad – L.V. Steinhoff – me and Carolyn Kirkwood. This was a rare outing for us. Dad wasn’t much big on picnics. “I eat sandwiches sitting on the ground six days a week. I don’t want to do it on the weekend, too.”

Old Fruitland School is gone

I imagine the old brick schoolhouse used to stand right about where the North Elementary School playground is today.

“Play like these are brownies”

Funny how stuff sticks in your head. I remember the ground was a little muddy where a bulldozer had gone by, leaving perfectly rectangular pieces of compressed soil behind in the tracks. “Let’s play like these are brownies,” Carolyn Kirkwood said. Even at two, I wasn’t falling for that trick.

Attending the event were L.V., Mary Steinhoff and Ken Steinhoff; Troas (Bones), Lillian and Billy Joiner; Jim and Maurine Kirkwood and Jimmy and Carolyn.

North Elementary School

This is a pretty, new, spiffy school. I still like the old brick one, though.

I’m always amused – OK, ticked off, if you have to know – at the people complaining about cyclists on Route W. That was considered a farm-to-market road in the days when Carolyn was trying to feed me mud brownies. Since I was there 60 years ago, I figure I’ve earned the right to ride it on my bike without people honking at me.

On a sadder note, I’ve seen a lot of posting about this being the week that Elvis died in 1977. Like I wrote earlier, this is also the week that Dad died in the same year. There’s no doubt in my mind which one I miss more.

August 15, 2010

Hooligans Deface Train

I miss The Southeast Missourian. I never got to write headlines like that at any other paper I worked for. Some low-lifes, probably from out of town, maybe as far away as Jackson, defaced Rosie, the Capaha Park play train.

Class of 70: “Cape Hurts.”

If you look closely to the rear of the train, you can see a pair of legs. I suspect those belonged to the cop reporter bein’ as how this was probably the crime story of the day – if not the week – and warranted a photographer AND a reporter. As far as I know, the miscreants were never apprehended.

I’m SURE this photo didn’t run

The Missourian was big on decorum. There were advice to the lovelorn columns that didn’t run because they were “too racy.”

When I ran a story about the Capaha Park and Arena Park trains back in November, I noted that the trains look different today than they did in the 60s when these photos were taken.

Trains have been modified

Reader and model railroader Keith Robinson cleared up the confusion: both locomotives were known as tank locomotives, meaning there was a water tank saddling the boiler. In the black and white photos, the protuberances above the tank from the front of the locomotive rearward are in order; smoke stack, forward sand dome, steam dome, and the rear sand dome. The sand domes sat atop the tank while the steam dome is part of the boiler; the high point from whence steam is drawn. When the tanks were removed in the 80s because of the asbestos insulation that was underneath them, the sand domes were removed with the tanks. The bells never sat directly on the boiler in either case but were mounted atop the tank in front of the smoke stacks.