Cape Girardeau History and Photos
News photos that have grown whiskers and have become history
Back on July 15, I ran some photos of Wyatt Perry, Wife Lila’s nephew, at his going-away party before he shipped out for Marine boot camp.
It gives me great pleasure to say that the high school boy who went away is now a Marine. After a too-short visit, he’s headed to Camp Pendleton. From left to right, Dad John Perry, Sister Laurie Everett, Wyatt and Mom Dee Perry.
After my preview presentation of Ordinary People in Altenburg Tuesday night, the staff of the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum surprised Mother with a cake, flowers and balloon, kicking off the start of her 91st Birthday Season. Several of Wife Lila’s Class of ’66 showed up, including Terry Hopkins, who came all the way from Florida.
Friend Shari and her mother attended. It’s not often that someone can say that his first high school girlfriend and his last high school girlfriend are attending an event. Brother Mark came down from St. Louis.
A very receptive group of 37 (if I heard correctly) watched my photos and videos and listened to my war stories. They were actually TOO receptive. My goal was to figure out how to cut about 30 minutes from a presentation I did this summer. Riding Partner Anne warned me that if I played off my audience’s reaction, I was going to go long, not short. That’s exactly what happened. Now I have 46 minutes to cut. I needed someone to yawn or check their watch to clue me in that the listeners were getting restless.
Thanks to Carla Jordan and her staff for doing a great job hanging my photos, offering hat-stretching compliments and recognizing Mother’s Birthday Season. I would go into more detail, but my brain is fried. I don’t see how teachers do this kind of thing every day.
This 1942 lithograph, Emblem of Freedom, hung on the wall of my grandfather’s liquor store in the Prather Building in Advance. I was always fascinated by the perspective.
I lost track of what I had done with it. It was over the mantle in our living room for a long time, but we shuffled other images up there over the years.
When I was packing for my trip back to Cape Friday morning, I looked in the back of our guest room closet for some stuff I had stashed there. It was behind some framed collections of old press passes.
The flag picture isn’t visible in this 1946 photo of Roy Welch’s store. That’s Mother and Grandmother Elsie Welch in the photo.
The store had been rearranged by the time I was old enough drive my toy tractor round and round the floor, looping through the small store room in the back left. In the winter, some of the regulars would cluster around the old stove visible toward the back right.
I remember the counters being on the north or right wall. The shelves with the bottles were on the left wall.
A copy of the flag picture showed up frequently in the background of a TV situation comedy. I’m pretty sure it was Spin City, starring Michael J. Fox. It got so I would look for it as the camera panned the room.
I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to Pinterest. Still, when I think about it, I’ll “pin” some of the more interesting photos on the blog to my board. In some ways, It’s kind of cool how you can see the wide scope of pictures I’ve written about. If you click on the photo above, it’ll take you to my Pinterest page.
The most “pinned” of all my photos is Son Adam carving the Thanksgiving turkey at his house in 2010 I’m seeing more folks looking at the photo now, so thoughts must be skipping over Halloween and jumping straight to Turkey Day.
Top on my list of things to be thankful for will be that it’s after election day. I may not be happy with who won, but at least the ads and phone calls will stop.
I finally got my presentation for Altenburg whipped into shape. I’ll decide what to cut after the preview show Oct. 16 at 6:30 pm. Son Matt is busy printing two calendars and the show catalog/book. All I have to do now is load the car and drive 1,100 miles. My tentative day of departure was Oct. 10, but I never get out of town on time. If I load up on the 11th, I should be able to go wheels up early on the 12th. Early for me is anything before 2 in the afternoon.
If I see anything interesting along the way, I’ll post it; otherwise it’ll be slow for a few days.