While I was walking around down on Main Street last month, I vaguely remembered covering some kind of late night sale on Main Street on June 6, 1966. (The 6/6/66 Sale is was billed, I think.)
While looking for something else, as usually the case, I found one sleeve of negatives marked Midnight Madness 1964. I don’t know if it was the same sale or not. I think there are more pictures, but these were the ones that bubbled to the top.
I recognize some of the stores and maybe even some of the people, but I’d rather have you leave comments identifying the places or people and any memories you have of either. That’ll mean a lot fewer corrections for me to make. I was always lousy with matching names and faces.
You get to see the good, the bad and the ugly
I got a great piece of advice in early in my career: “The difference between a good photographer and a bad photographer is that a good photographer never shows his bad pictures.” I’m going to break that rule on CapeCentralHigh from time to time. I figure folks might like to see a picture of themselves, even if it isn’t technically or artistically top-rate.
I’ll put these up as a gallery. Click on any image to make it larger, then you can step through the pictures by clicking on the left or right side of the picture.
Midnight Madness, Main Street, Cape Girardeau, MO, 1964
Staying open late was a big deal in 1964
Stores didn’t stay open past 5 or 6 P.M. on weeknights and Blue Laws kept most of them shut on Sunday. In the days before 24-hour Walmarts, getting to shop late at night was a big deal.
I guess Midnight Madness was as close as Cape ever got to a Black Friday, with customers lined up in front of stores waiting for them to open.
The sad thing is that I think only two of the stores on Main Street from our era are still in operation. Everything else has turned into a bar, an antique store or an empty storefront.
[Editor’s note: I just stumbled onto a story in the Southeast Weekly Bulletin from June 13, 1963. Sounds like it might have been the same event or one from a year earlier.]
The middle boy of the three boys sitting on the sidewalk is Rodger Deimund; I don’t know the other boys but they look familiar. Rodger went to College High.
Yes, I went to College High too, and I remember Roger Diemund. the guy to his left with the white socks and black loafers is Mike Slimme.
Bill,
I thought Roger was the most familiar looking of the bunch, but I couldn’t pull his name out of the ozone.
Maybe someone else can fill in the blanks.
I have another one coming up where not only do not know who they are, I don’t know what they’re doing or why. I’ve reached out for a person in one of the pictures before I post them.
Those years were a blur when I was living them; they are REALLY out of focus these days.
The one guy in the Ball hat is Richard Rayburn…I ran with him in Cross Country and he was pole vaulter in Track in the spring. He was a great natural athelete.
Thanks for the pictures. I worked at Gaylors shoe store back then, now Browns. When I was in Cape earlier in the year I went down to main street and looked around. The shoe store looks about the same as it did then.I knew alot of people in the pictures but the names have left me. I will look them up and let you know. Thanks again. Jerry
Ken, thnx for the memories. Downtown was soooo much better than the mall. Glad I grew up in a true ‘little town” atmosphere. Who needed drugs when we had Midnight Madness and you knew almost everybody you ran into. What a shame Cape has become the capitol of commercialism with billboards and fast food places.