It was a Good Friday, the religious holiday, and it was a Good Friday for Midwesterners looking for nice day after a long winter.
Trees and flowers were blooming and green was popping out all over. Lawn mowers were puttering away in neighborhood yards.
A perfect day for SEMO baseball
A healthy crowd, many in shorts and T-shirts, turned out to watch a double header between SEMO and Western Kentucky. (SEMO won the first game 17-9 and the second 7-4, if anyone cares). I love the sound of baseball games, but I still haven’t gotten used to the “CLINK” of aluminum bats. There’s something wrong about it.
Bell & Howell 8mm movies
Late in 1959, Dad brought home a Bell & Howell 8mm movie camera outfit. In the days before Super-8, 8mm cameras actually used 16mm film. You’d shoot the first half of the roll, open up the camera, flip the film over and shoot the rest of your movie on the other half of the film. The processor would develop it, split it down the middle and splice the two 25-foot lengths into one 50-footer.
This wasn’t an ideal setup. First off, it was easy to fog the film when you were doing the open-the-camera, rethread-the-film operation. Then, when you went to project it, only one side of the film had sprockets to pull it through the projector. That made it easy for the film to slip off. If you didn’t get to it in time, the heat from the projector bulb would burn a hole right through the film.
Brother Mark took on the task of converting the 8mm film to VHS tapes ab0ut 15 years ago. It wasn’t a high tech solution. I think he mostly took a picture of a moving picture. I didn’t complain. At least, I didn’t have to do it.
With VHS going the way of 8mm, I got a good deal on a VCR that outputs to a computer USB port. Considering that the original film quality wasn’t great to begin with, and that Mark’s copy didn’t improve things, the digital result is acceptable if you don’t mind fuzzy, blow-out images.
I say that to lower expectations.
Here’s an Easter Egg Hunt on Cherry Hill
Bro Mark appears in these pictures along with his Trinity Lutheran School kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Tickel, so Mother and I are guessing that this video was taken around 1961. Mark is the cute kid who can’t seem to keep his shoes on. The Capaha Park Band Shell is in a few frames.
Spring makes you forget winter
Since we normally come home in October to celebrate my mother’s Birthday Season, we get to see the fall colors. I had forgotten how much I loved seeing the countryside come to life in the spring. It almost makes you forget those gray, gloomy days.
Almost.
Flowering tree is Liriodendron tulipifera, commonly known as the tulip tree. The red shoes that would not stay on my feet that day (better traction hunting eggs in bare feet) were Converse tennis shoes. Look around the house now that you are back in town for a short stay, you might that exact Easter basket in the attic with some vintage jelly beans still in it (probably the green ones….)
Thank you, Sir.
My knowledge of flora is extremely limited. I divide trees into two categories: big and little.
I used to be able to divide those two groups into two subgroups: dead and alive. That ability has been blunted somewhat by my stay in Florida.
My kids, who were born in FL, were shocked when we flew into RI one winter when you were living there.
“What killed all the trees?” they wanted to know.
Not that it matters but SEMO was playing Eastern Kentucky which is in our conference the OVC. Happy Easter……
Miz Janet, Mam,
My face is so red. Not only am I flora challenged, I’m geographically challenged. You are, indeed, right. It WAS Eastern Kentucky, not Western Kentucky. I got the state right, do I get partial credit?
For those who don’t know, Miz Janet is Cape County Recorder of Deeds. I’ll be writing about her later. I don’t know exactly what she does, but it sounds like she’s somewhere between Santa Claus and St. Peter. If that’s the case, I guess I have another blot recorded on my permanent record.
Aluminum bats not only sound bad, but they cause more injuries, too. And I suppose you could argue that they make the game more boring by making less of it take place in the infield. Their only advantage is that they don’t break, so save money.
I had never before thought of the recorder of deeds recording that kind of deed. I had thought that’s what blogs and Facebook were for.
Mr. Spokesrider, Sir,
I’m honored to see you following this site.
John Gorentz, AKA Spokesrider, is a fellow bike blogger / historian who, in his own words, “lives in southwest Michigan. He goes on bicycling expeditions to places where he can say, “Black Hawk Slept Here.” But that phrase gets interpreted very broadly. Almost any excuse to ride to a place of settlement-era history will do.”
If you like this blog, you should visit him.
Are there any older pics taken from the Press Box At Capaha Park? The baseball field has changed a ton over the years…
I’ll look for them when I get back to FL. I covered a lot of games there.
Here’s an aerial that shows the field in the background.
I shot a fresh aerial today (April 17) and a bunch of stuff on the ground last week that’ll run when I get some old photos together.