Photos around Cape Archives

May 4, 2021

A Different May 4 Post

May 4 is traditionally the day when I heed the admonition of my old friend and chief photographer, John J. Lopinot: “Never forget,” referring to the killings at Kent State on that date in 1970.

Last year, he and I agreed not to forget that date, but the pandemic that was just starting to crank up made Kent State feel like ancient history.

Here is the 2020 post, Portrait of a Pandemic. It contains a lot of links to past pieces I did on the era.

My new world

For more than a year, my world has contracted to a few grocery and hardware stores, Phoebe the Bleeping Cat, and the view out the windows on Kingsway Drive.

The PTBC photo above is the precursor to the lead shot. I try to give her as much outdoor time as she’ll eat, but she seems to have gotten too addicted to the great indoors. The webcam picked up the deer in the background, so I headed over to the door for a better view.

The Phoebes took that as an invitation to come in. Unfortunately, there was no good way to frame the backyard livestock with her.

When I chanced to glance around, I saw not one deer, but two and a huge coon. Looking more to the “garden” yard, I spotted eight ears that belonged to four more deer, for a total of six deer, one coon, and an annoying cat.

The funny thing is that I had just mentioned to a friend the other day that I had only seen one deer here in the past couple of months. Maybe they’ve been vaccinated and feel more comfortable to move around.

May 1, 2021

Taking a second look

I was on my way back from getting gas in Jackson (something that I’ve only had to do about once a month in the past year) when I decided to turn into the South County Park to check out the lake.

The first thing I saw was a batch of geese (if they aren’t geese, I’m sure somebody will correct me) and goslings. They wandered away from the road before I could get stopped and grab my camera.

I was going to write it off as a missed opportunity when I saw where the birds and birdlings were headed. They must have been checking out the folks who were taking what I assume to be prom pictures.

Click on the photos to make them larger.

Let’s make another pass

I was in no hurry to get home, so I elected to make another loop of the lake. That’s when I spotted this picture which was improved by the Golden Hour late afternoon sun.

My mantra is “Shoot it when your see it,” but that doesn’t mean you should quit before you see a better picture down the way.

February 14, 2021

Is It That Day AGAIN?

Lila Perry Steinhoff – Ken Steinhoff Lila Senior Prom 1966

February 14, a day that strikes fear in male hearts. If you are dating, have you been dating long enough or too long to recognize and celebrate Valentine’s Day?

William Saffire, one of President Nixon’s speechwriters, penned a political thriller where one of the characters had something go extremely wrong, and he “experienced a Klong – a sudden rush of excrement (not the word he used) to the heart.”

That’s what the married man experiences late in the day on February 14 when he looks at the calendar and thinks, “That date sounds like one I should remember…KLONG!!!”

See if you can pick out the good sport

So, here’s a collection of old and a few new photos of couples, relationships, queens and kings and the like. Most were taken in Missouri, but some oddball shots could have slipped in.

See if you can pick out the one shot taken early in someone’s relationship that could have ended it had the girl not been a good sport.

Valentine’s Day Gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then navigate around using the arrow keys. X or Esc will get you out.

Maybe I should have used the disclaimer I used when I went to take photos in some redneck bar. I’d stand up on a table and say, “I’m here from the newspaper to take pictures. If you aren’t supposed to be here, or you’re here with someone you shouldn’t be, hang out over in that corner (pointing) until I’m done. You’ll be safe.”

December 23, 2020

The House in a Hole Is History

Back in 2014, Niece Laurie asked if I knew the story behind the “house in a hole” on Campster Drive just north of the Drury Inn. I had always wondered about it, too. so went to my best source, Mother.

She knew the woman who lived there, Mrs. Earl Siemers, from church, but she didn’t think she’d talk with me.

I gave it a shot, but Mother was right, as I should have known. Mrs. Siemers would talk with me only if I promised it would be off the record. In the real world, I’d have honored the request, but then I would have done an end-run to find a source who WOULD tell me the whole story. You folks don’t pay me enough to go to all that trouble, so I left things vague.

I posted a photo of the house and an aerial map, and, true to form, my readers told me “the rest of the story.”

Click on the photos to make them larger, then use your back-arrow to go back to the story.

Laurie the Stalker

Niece Laurie must be some kind of House in the Hole stalker because she tipped me in November that it looked like the house was going to be demolished.

It was almost sundown when I got around to checking it out, so the light wasn’t great. It did look like the white siding had been stripped off the building, so I figured its days were numbered.

What’s funny is that the photos I liked best were not of the house. I loved the trees, outbuilding and leaves in the late, Golden Hour light.

Dandelion and leaves

I was impressed with the last dandelion of the season struggling to peek out from beneath the leaves.

The Things Left Behind

I’ve always been a sucker for the things that are left behind when homes are abandoned. I raised the question, “What would you take?” to go with a blog post about an abandoned house in St. Mary.

I wondered how many flies that swatter had dispatched in its life.

Here was the naked house

I didn’t spend much time shooting the house because the light was lousy, and the building wasn’t all that interesting in its naked state. (I bet that’s the first time I’ve written that.)

Soon nothing will be left but memories

When I was running errands on Tuesday, I happened to look over the hill and saw that the yellow Cat had ripped out the trees I liked so much, knocked down the outbuilding, and crunched the house down to the basement.

If a few days, all that will be left will be memories, and those will fade, too.