Cape Girardeau History and Photos
News photos that have grown whiskers and have become history
I’m not big on religious shrines and the like, but I’ve always liked seeing this one on the west side of Highway 61 between Ste. Genevieve and St. Mary. It, like some of the other landmarks along the road, signaled that I’ve survived the big city of St. Louis and I’m getting closer to home.
I just “drove” about 60 miles using Google Streetview to confirm the actual location of the shrine without seeing it. I’ll have to let someone else tell me exactly where it is.
Curator Jessica and I were killing time before meeting up with Jon Webb, the Athens Messenger photographer who originated the Picture Page concept before I started working there. She enjoys sewing period costumes, so she was quivering with excitement when she saw the Frazier History Museum had an exhibit Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Art, Fashion and Luxury in the Gilded Age.
While we were walking down Museum Row on Main on a cold, windy, drizzly day, I thought it was going to be a long time before anybody swings the bat at the Louisville Slugger Museum.
Based on the the size of the man standing next to the 120-foot tall, 68,000-pound steel bat, I’m pretty sure you’d have to choke up on it when you got to the plate.
I watched Jessica when we went to the ticket counter to see if she gave any secret curator handshakes or whispered any passwords to get us a discount, but I had to pay full price to get into the Frazier.
Spend enough time in a car with Road Warriorette Jessica and you’ll find out more about period underwear than you ever wanted to know. I’ve gotten pretty adept at the head-nod and “Uh huh, that’s really interesting.”
I DID learn why the Can-Can was so scandalous (but I’m not telling).
Here’s Miz Jessica is counting the whalebone stays that made up this corset. I observed that anything that compressed the waist that much surely must have made the woman’s toes swell. When you squeeze a balloon in one place, it HAS to bulge out somewhere else. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)
Along one was was a bunch of silhouettes that showed the shapes of womens fashion over the years. Miz Jessica backed up to the display and asked me which silhouette most closely resembled her profile.
I’ve been married 45 years. I knew better than to answer THAT question.
While she was hustling amidst the bustles, I wandered over to a display that showed a World War II gas mask just like the one I wore when I was teargassed covering student protests at Ohio University. At some point in my Boy Scout career, I carried a canteen that looked like that, too.
I hope it worked better in combat than mine did in riots.
Friend and photographer Ed Pieratt shot me in my riot gear. I had to wear my glasses on the outside of the mask because I was blind without them. The old WWII mask kept the gas out, but the lenses fogged up so badly I couldn’t see WITH the mask or WITHOUT it. (By the next riot, I had a state of the art M16 mask courtesy of a policeman who “liberated” one for me. I had it fitted with prescription lenses and used it for another two decades.
I told Curator Jessica that I thought I could lay my hands on the mask, helmet, press card, camera and strobe for an exhibit she’s planning for May. The only thing missing is the jacket and the skinny guy wearing it.
Well, I’m back home after leaving the first part of July for Missouri and Ohio. I had enough energy to empty most of the van, but not enough to set up my desktop computer equipment. Don’t expect much from me.
A workman saw me taking the photo and explained the area was infested with water moccasins. “Another guy was doing some trimming with a weedeater the other day and got into a nest of three of them about as thick as your wrist. They came up striking.”
“That sign’s not quite as scary as the one at the Welcome to Florida rest area when you cross the border,” I noted.
“Really? What does it say?” he asked.
“Rick Scott – Governor.”
He gave me a smile and went off to wrestle with water moccasins or something.
I rolled out of Athens, Ohio, in late middle afternoon on Monday and made it through the mountains in West Virginia in the dark. I ran out of steam around Jonesville, NC, and decided to call it a night after having a big piece of country ham and some scrambled eggs at the Waffle House next to the motel.
After a breakfast of waffles and bacon at the – surprise, surprise – Waffle House, I pedaled on south. I stopped for a 9-minute nap in North Carolina at a rest area that was loaded with big pine cones. Mother would have gone crazy picking them up.
Late in the afternoon, I pulled into the shade at rest area in South Carolina for a 14-minute nap. When the alarm went off, the first thing I saw were these plants, some kind of grass, I suppose.
My low fuel light came on near the Darien, Georgia, exit, so I took that as a sign I should get gas and stop for the night. On the way to my cheap motel, I spotted a restaurant that advertised a seafood buffet. I’m a little hinky about seafood buffets, but the front desk clerk said the food at The Seafood Cabin was good.
I was going to write about them tonight, but I’m going to wait until I get back home to a real computer monitor and keyboard. Short version: good food, super nice people, and brand-new – only open since Saturday.
You can click on the photos to make them larger. If they don’t look right, it’s because it’s hard to judge subtle colors and tones on a laptop screen.