Book Archives

November 18, 2013December 14, 2013

Snapshots of Cape Girardeau

I keep forgetting to pitch my 2013-2014 Snapshots of Cape Girardeau calendar, but I’d better get on the ball if I want enough gas money to make it back to Florida.

Snapshots of Cape Girardeau is a collection of vintage photographs from roughly 1963 through 1967. Some were shot for The Tiger or The Girardot at Central High School; others might have been for The Jackson Pioneer or The Southeast Missourian. Some might have been taken just for the heck of it.

You can’t find a better holiday gift for someone who grew up in Cape Girardeau. (If you want to make it a super special gift, write down all the important family birthdays and special dates in it before you wrap it up. Wife Lila has been doing that for years and it’s always popular.)

How do I get one?

If you are in the Cape area, Annie Laurie’s Antiques at Broadway and Fountain has copies of both the calendar and my work-in-progress Smelterville book for $20 each. I’m even willing to bring one to lunch (Dutch treat) if you catch me in the next few days before I head back to defrost in Florida.

How to shop at Amazon

The gas and motel bills are starting to filter in from my trip and my bank balance is starting to disappear. This is a good time to make a pitche: if you shop on Amazon, click on that big Click Here button (or the one that’s at the top left of every page). It will take you directly to Amazon just like always, but it will contain a code that will give me about 6% of whatever you purchase without adding a penny to your bill. It’s a painless way to say “Thanks” for the stories and photos I send your way almost every day. Here’s more info that Kid Matt wrote.

How to order by mail

If you’d like your calendar or book mailed, press the DONATE button at the top left of the page and make a $25 donation. After you do that, there’s another box where you can tell Wife Lila your mailing address and whether you want a calendar or the Smelterville book.

Sneak peek at the pictures

Here’s what you’ll find inside the calendar. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery. I tried to pick photos you wouldn’t mind looking at for a month.

July 6, 2013July 27, 2013

Meeting and Greeting

I usually post the blog sometime after 1 a.m., so I’m not a morning person. Still, I couldn’t pass up a chance to appear on Faune Riggin’s KZIM/KSIM morning show the day after the 4th to talk about Smelterville: A Work in Progress. The station and the host are a bit to the right of what I’m comfortable with, but Faune did a good job of playing it down the middle. She seemed to really like the photos and asked good questions.

I gained a new appreciation for what happens when the station in short-handed and the host is simulcasting on two stations, doing promos, reading the news, giving the weather and screening telephone calls. She had a lot of balls in the air, but still had time during pauses to talk about how we were going to do the interview.

First Friday at Annie Laurie’s Antiques

Laurie Evert, my wife’s niece, was kind enough to give me space (and sweet iced tea) at Annie Laurie’s Antiques to meet folks who were interested in the book and the Snapshots of Cape Girardeau calendar. Jon Selph, Class of 1964, showed up a little early.

Fast and furious

After Jon got settled in, there was a steady stream of former classmates, some, like David Hahs, who went back to Trinity Lutheran School kindergarten days. I discovered that I have lost the ability to talk and take pictures at the same time. I kept kicking myself for not shooting (photographically, that is) the folks who were kind enough to stop by to say a nice word and to pick up a book or a calendar.

I loved it when someone said this blog was her morning newspaper. Looks like I’m back where I started in 1959, except that now I’m pitching prose and pictures into virtual puddles instead of the kind that go “Splash!”

How do I get one?

Annie Laurie’s is going to carry a limited supply of books and calendars. If you can catch me before I leave Cape in a couple of weeks, we can arrange to meet. Or, if you aren’t local, Wife Lila is standing by to take your order. If I can hand you the publication, the price is $20 for either. If it has to be mailed, it will be $25. The easiest way to handle the mail order is to press that Donate button at the top left of the page. Make a $25 donation per book or catalog, tell us what you are ordering, your name and your mailing address. Wife Lila will get your book or calendar in the mail as quickly as she can saddle up the horse.

Also available at the Cape Convention Bureau in the H&H Building on Broadway

Calendar sample pages

The calendar covers October 2013 through December 2014, so you can start filling in appointments right away. Here is what it looks like. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery.

June 30, 2013June 30, 2013

Thanks for Stopping By

Friend Anne and I thank those folks who stopped by Hastings Saturday to look at our books and calendars. Wife Lila shot this while we were chatting with someone just out of camera range.

I’m pretty sure it was Jesse James. I’d list more names, but I don’t want to take a chance I’ll forget someone.

I’ll have more calendars and Smelterville books for sale at Annie Laurie’s Antique Shop at First Friday on July 5. Once Lila gets home next week, I’ll post how to order the materials by mail. Here is a sample of the calendar and more information about Anne’s book.

December 10, 2012

Bill Hopkins’ Courting Murder

Buddy Bill Hopkins has published his first Judge Rosswell Carew murder mystery, Courting Murder. I’ve had a chance to read the book (Bill made me pay retail for it), so I should catalog my first impressions of it.

I need to make some disclaimers first. Bill is paying me to run an ad for four months. If you click on the ad which may or may not be running in the upper right-hand corner of the page (depending on whether or not his check clears) or this link, you’ll be taken to Amazon where you can buy his book. If you buy his book, I make about 98 cents without it costing you anything. That might make you think I have a vested interest in saying something nice about the book and/or Bill.

Offsetting that, though, are my memories of the great job Bill did as campaign manager for my run for student body president. With him guiding my campaign, I garnered only 163 votes out of a student body of 1,200. Future Wife Lila told me years later that even SHE didn’t vote for me. That effectively derailed my plans to run for President of the United States in 1984. I think that, on balance, qualifies me to write an unbiased review.

Bill interacts with teacher

I’m not exactly sure what’s happening in this photo, but the body language would suggest that the teacher isn’t exactly happy with Bill and his unidentified cohort in crime.

After we left Central, I went into newspapering and Bill launched his legal career in 1971. He served as a private attorney, prosecuting attorney, an administrative law judge, and a trial court judge. We didn’t really keep in touch until the days of Facebook. I’d see his name in The Missourian from time to time in connection with his judge work. I don’t think I ever saw the words “brilliant” and “judge” used in the same sentence, but they also didn’t use “judge” and “indicted,” either, so, on balance, he didn’t do too badly.

Bill’s wife becomes author

Bill’s wife, Sharon Woods Hopkins, beat him to to the bookshelves with her two mysteries. I covered the book launches of Killerwatt and Killerfind.

All of the Hopkins’ books are set in Southeast Missouri. Their common themes are coincidence, confusion, crimes and incompetent law enforcement officials. Oh, yeah, and lousy cell phone signals. It seems like every time the heroes get in trouble they are out of range or their batteries are dead.

Killerwatt review. You can buy it from Amazon here (and I get a cut).

Killerfind review. You can buy it from Amazon here (and I get a cut).

Courting Murder

Bill’s book, Courting Murder, was a perfect addition to the Steinhoff One-Stall Reading Library. Its short chapters are just the right length for picking up and setting down during brief reading sessions. I enjoyed the twists and turns in Judge Carew’s attempt to decide how two people ended up dead on a riverbank and how to protect his girlfriend who is in danger from the killer/s.

Bill’s plot had more twists than a Bollinger county gravel road. In fact, I kept looking at the diminishing number of pages and wondering, “Just WHEN is this thing going to wrap up the loose ends?” It was sort of like watching a one-hour mystery on TV and looking at the clock to see that they had better get the killer in the next six minutes or it’s going to be continued to the next episode.

I won’t say that the ending was totally unexpected, but it kept my interest right up to the last page. Bill is a heck of a lot better mystery writer than he was a student body presidential campaign manger. Again, it’s available through Amazon.