Cape Girardeau History and Photos

May 16, 2014

Warriorettes Hit Florida

I got Road Warriorettes Anne and Curator Jessica over the Florida line without too much difficulty. I’m tired enough, though, that I told ’em the best gift would be for us to check into a joint without a WiFi connection so I’d have an excuse for not filing

Anne suggested we name this the No Bad Food Tour, because we haven’t had a single bad meal. Part of that is from stopping at places I’ve discovered over the years, and part is from our rule of thumb: stop only at locally-owned restaurants that have a bunch of cars in front of them.

Cypress Inn Restaurant

It’s been at least 20 or 25 ars since I ate at the Cypress Inn Restaurant in Cross City. I don’t remember if I was covering a flood or a hurricane or if it was on a vacation trip with the family.

I had the seafood platter that was every bit as good as the shrimp and oyster combo I had at a fish camp in Gastonia yesterday. The oysters weren’t quite as big, but everything on the plate was tasteful. Anne had a ribeye that was tender and had good flavor. Jessica was craving a big, greasy burger, and got her wish fulfilled.

It won’t be another 25 years before I go back. This moves up to a prime spot on my list.

We’re going to try to get into West Palm Beach early enough for Anne to wrap loose ends before she leaves Florida for her home state of Texas. Gonna miss her.

May 14, 2014

A Rainy Night In Georgia

My Road Warriorettes, Anne and Curator Jessica, don’t understand that a man has strong biological needs: the primary one being lots of sleep. Against my better judgement, I was convinced to set my alarm for 8:27 a.m. and not the usual 9:37.

I have other photos of our Beckley, West Virginia, to Athens, Georgia, leg of our trip, but they expect me to get up early again tomorrow, so the rest of the pix will have to wait.

The sky opened up

We’ve had good weather up until the last 35 miles, when the sky just opened up. Traffic wasn’t too heavy, and Rain-X kept the windshield clear (Anne is a great window washer, but Curator Jessica is going to require some training), so I didn’t mind the deluge.

The first place we checked out in a line-up-the-animals-two-by-two downpour was full, but we heard of another one on the other side of town that was even cheaper (and perfectly acceptable).

On the way to it, we spotted what would have been a really nice shot of lights on a glistening street, but I couldn’t grab the camera before we were past it. In the confusion, we missed 0ur turnoff and had to make a U-turn. Since we had to go back anyway, I decided to check out our rainy night in Georgia.

I don’t know if it’s as good as what we saw on the first pass, but it’s good enough to let me go to bed early. You can click on it to make it larger.

May 14, 2014

A Photographer’s Dream

It was finally time to put Athens in the rearview mirror. Friend Anne and I were waiting for Curator Jessica to come back from fighting the Civil War over in Marietta for a bunch of school kids (the Yanks won again), so we headed out to pick up some more road food and for me to get cash for the trip. It was seriously warm: the temperature was 85, with a heat index of 89.

As I turned down State Street, Anne asked, “Did you see the blow-up swimming pool in front of that house? It looked like it had a couple of college girls in it.”

I glanced back and acknowledged her vision acuity: “I’d have killed for something like that in 1969,” I muttered.

‘The girls? I thought you were married by 1969,” she noted.

Taking the pressure off

“No, not the girls, the chance to knock off a piece of feature art at the start of the shift. Having something in the bag for the next day takes the pressure off.”

With that, I did a U-turn and headed back for some easy blog content.

Kayla Wickersham, Dayton, and Mallory Widmar, from a suburb of Cleveland, had just moved into the house behind them a couple of days ago so they could start their senior year at Ohio University. Feeling like I was back at a freshman mixer, I asked the usual lame question, “What’s your major?” I didn’t write the answer down, and I retreated before asking for their signs.

The guys in the first photo had been talking to the gals when I walked up, but I must have spooked them. They leaned on a parking meter for a few minutes, but then meandered off.

This third guy wandered up just as I was starting to cross the street to climb into my car. Before I could even get my seatbelt fastened, he had jumped into the pool with the girls. The bait, clearly, was working.

May 13, 2014May 13, 2014

Ken at the Kennedy

Curator Jessica said we needed to go to the Kennedy Museum of Art at The Ridges to see a couple of my photos that are on exhibit.

I fit in well there because the Kennedy is housed in what was once the administration building for the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Within two years of its opening in 1874, it was rebranded The Athens Hospital for the Insane.

That was only the first in a long list of names it would wear as public sensibilities changed until the facility closed in 1993. The hospital would be called, among other things, the Athens Asylum for the Insane, the Athens State Hospital, the Southeastern Ohio Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health Center, the Athens Mental Health and Mental Retardation Center, the Athens Mental Health and Developmental Center, and then (again) the Athens Mental Health Center.

It is still a stunning building

Despite the fact that parts of the facility have been allowed to deteriorate, you can see how ornate the fixtures were. The patient rooms were designed so that each would have a window. The original plan was to make the rooms so small – roughly 100 square feet – that they wouldn’t house more than one patient. Curator Jessica said that overcrowding forced them to put two and three to a room at times.

I’m uncomfortable with the A-Word

Even though I went through Ohio University under a fine arts program, I was never comfortable using the Art-Word in connection with my photos. I saw them as news when they were taken, though they have become history now that they’ve acquired some whiskers.

Part of that reticence is that art galleries like to search for hidden, deep meanings, and expect art to make bold statements. This, for example, appears in the room that houses my two prints.

I have always contended that my photos are straight-forward, what-you-see-is-what-you-get frozen slices of time converted to ink squirted on toilet paper and pitched in a puddle in front of your house.

Two shots from the protest era

The two photos the museum elected to display as examples of testing boundaries aren’t what I would consider to be my strongest images from that sequence, but I’m honored that they made the cut at all, I suppose.

The picture on the left is of graffiti on the Main Green’s War Memorial. The boundary it was stretching was polite discourse: one of the words written on the statue was a less euphemistic term for male bovine excrement.

The second photo was of a line of male and female protestors linked arm in arm marching exuberantly down the town’s main drag.

You can see the photos in this Kent State era post. The first shot is number 9 of 86; the marchers are in number 15 of 86.