Cape Girardeau History and Photos

May 4, 2024

May 4 déjà vu

Several years ago, John J. Lopinot, my old friend and chief photographer, thought that after half a century we were pretty much done with the topic of May 4.

He’ll probably continue to send me “NEVER FORGET” notes, though, until we lose either the transmitter or the receiver (or both).

What caused me to take another bite of an aging apple?

Why the change?

I was listening to an old playlist the other afternoon when John Fogarty came on singing this snippet:

Did you hear ’em talkin’ ’bout it on the radio
Did you try to read the writing on the wall
Did that voice inside you say I’ve heard it all before
It’s like Deja Vu all over again

Day by day I hear the voices rising
Started with a whisper like it did before
Day by day we count the dead and dying
Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score

I’m hearing some of the same red-hot rhetoric that we heard in the 60s.

We’re getting older

[Note: this was taken when I was having breakfast in Scott Quad in 1967. The annotation was done by an irreverent Curator (now Director) Jessica of the SE Ohio History Center ]

A Facebook friend posted some memories noting that we were coming up on the 54th anniversary of the Kent State killings. I’m thinking about what could be a major project for Year 55.

The sad fact is that a lot of us may not be around to observe Year 60. So, we have to tell our stories while we’re still around.

I’m going to post links to many of the photos I took during the protest era. I’d love to have names and current contact info for as many as possible so I could interview and photograph some of us who lived through this era.

On our way to get riot gear

We were on our way to Kent

This post appeared on my bike blog in 2009. It recounted about how another photographer and I were going to stop at a surplus store in Marietta for gas masks and other riot gear before heading up to Kent State.

Along the way, we got the word about the shootings, picked up our gear and headed back to Athens.

Shortly after we crossed over into Athens county, a deputy pulled us over.

“We got a call from a surplus store over in Marietta that some student hippy-types were buying up riot gear and heading to Athens. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

I confessed that “that would be us.”

“Do you know anything I should know?” he asked.

“Just being ready,” I replied. “Your guess about what’s going to happen is as good as mine.”

Protest era timeline

From start to finish, first pass

This was my first pass at going through my film an creating a timeline from peaceful marches to the closing of the university.

There’s a huge gallery, but the software that created it was “improved,” so it’s a little hard to navigate. Sorry.

Frat boys attack

Student vs students

A line of frat boys and jocks lined up to administer some street justice to students who didn’t look like them. It was one of the few student-on-student encounters I saw, and it didn’t last long.

Chubb Library occupied

A night spent in Chubb Library

The empty Chubb Library was occupied. Damage was minimal, if any.

On the other hand, this was the night newlywed Lila was going to host her first ever dinner party for us newsies. Unfortunately for me, all of us were otherwise occupied, and cell phones hadn’t been invented yet.

Sings of the times

A mixture of sign-carriers

It might have been a cold night in Athens when I shot these in 1968.

O.U. is not your mother

The birth of student rights

Restrictions on OU women were less draconian that those at SE MO State College, but the women challenged dorm hour rules.

Martin Luther King National Day of Mourning

Not the usual rites of spring crowd

A solemn salt-and-pepper crowd spontaneously took over Court and Union. A miscue by Athens PD Capt. Charlie Cochran came close to touching off a serious riot.

Dean Kahler is an inspiration

Paralyzed by a Guard bullet

Dean Kahler, was paralyzed when the National Guard opened fire. He was an innocent bystander 300 feet away from the closest shooter.

Follow the link to hear Dean in his own words.

“I knew I had been shot because it felt like a bee sting. I knew immediately because my legs got real tight, then they relaxed just like in zoology class when you pith a frog,” he said.

Kent State Pagoda

Seeing it made it real

I remember the first time I went to Washington, D.C., and was overwhelmed when I discovered that buildings I had only seen in print and on TV were real.

Seeing the Kent State Pagoda where the Guard went on their killing spree brought May 4 to life for me.

It’s not all grim

I was amused at this exchange

The student was offering a state trooper sandwiches and drinks. The lawman’s good-natured expression seems to be saying, “You’ve got to be kidding me if you think I’d eat something you made.”

Different memories

Compare and contrast

Jackson High School students were preparing for their prom in 2014. They will have entirely different memories of May 4 than us Boomers.

How soon they forget

You mean something happened here?

I climbed the steps of Lindley Hall to recreate this photo in 2013 when I was in town for an exhibit.

Some students saw me, so I walked over and said, “You know, the last time I stood on that landing and took a picture looking down Court Street it was May 15, 1970. Tear gas was wafting through the air and there was a National Guardsman with a rifle spaced about every 25 feet.”

“Really? Something happened here?” one of them asked, giving me a “is this old geezer harmless?” look.

Portrait of a pandemic

So much for going back to Athens

Curator Jessica and I were well on the way to making plans for the 50th anniversary of May 4 when the plug was pulled on the world.

Maybe you all will give me the info I need to do a proper accounting for 2025.

March 7, 2024

Mario and Angela’s Italian Eatery

I’ve chased these fine folks from Jackson to Cape, and now, back to Jackson at 215 West Main Street.

Angela greeted me like a long-lost friend when I showed up to pick up my food. (Wife Lila insisted that I stop calling her “Crazy Angela” when I first started eating at the place on a regular basis.)

Here’s an account of one of my first visits to the original Jackson location.

Only open 10-3

I wish they stayed open longer than 10-3, but they do a booming takeout business. They really aren’t set up for on-site dining.

Angela keeps busy taking phone orders while her dad is ready to cook them.

Quantity is great; price reasonable

The calzone I bought on my first visit a couple of weeks ago was big enough for two meals and a snack.

I ordered the lobster, shrimp and scallop in Alfredo sauce, topped with shrimp today. It isn’t particularly pretty because the sauce covers all the goodies.

Trust me, though, the Alfredo sauce was as good as any you’ll find anywhere. There was enough for two meals, but it tasted so good that I polished it off in one pass.

January 8, 2024

Country Store Lost to Memory

One of the more challenging (and rewarding) things about working at The Athens (OH) Messenger was the canvas publisher Kenner Bush gave us photographers: he opened up a 9×17 news hole five days a week for photo essays.

We drove all over Southeast Ohio photographing people and places that would be overlooked most of the time. I called it “photographing ordinary people doing ordinary things.”

Some stories didn’t pan out

I did a number of stories about country stores over the years, but these photos were never published. I don’t know if the subject didn’t have an interesting tale to tell or if I had to rush off before I discovered it.

I don’t even recall where the store was located, nor the woman’s name. Both are probably scribbled in a notebook buried in a box somewhere.

It’s fascinating to see the wide variety of goods carried.

A gallery of a few moments

So, here’s a brief portrait of a country store in the days before convenience stores and Dollar Generals. I probably should have made a Picture Page out of the images.

Click on any photo, then use the arrow keys to move around.

January 2, 2024

Mark Was No Lester

Mark’s middle name should have been “Quirky”

Mark Steinhoff, my youngest brother, is heavy on my mind. He left us on New Year’s Eve two years ago.

His birth certificate said his middle name was Lynn, but it could just as well have been “Quirky” or “Unusual.”

Do you know of anyone else who ties rocking horses to a tree in their front yard? Or attaches his Christmas tree upside down to the ceiling?

I bet there must have been 200 people at his Celebration of Life, and each and every one of them had a Mark story – it might have been about something he did; a kindness he performed; a prank he pulled, or how he touched another human being.

One of my staffers sold Mark a Sailfish sailboat that he hauled from Florida to Kentucky Lake. Later, he gave it to Matt, who hauled it BACK to Florida.

Matt inherited the Spitfire

Matt Steinhoff with Mark Steinhoff’s Spitfire

Mark promised Matt that he’d get the Spitfire some time in the future. Robin made it happen. It’s been refurbed and put back on the road.

He was a pebble tossed in a pond that created ripples that reached out in all directions.

Waking up at 4 in the morning

I rolled over about 4 in the morning thinking about Mark, then a contrasting character popped into my head.

Marion showed up in my office one day. There are some newspaper folks who are great reporters who can Hoover up all kinds of quotes and turn them into “just the facts” journalism, and there are writers who can make their keyboards sing. She was in the latter category.

I loved working with her. We spent almost two weeks on the road doing tourist stories from South Florida up through Louisiana. Cutting through a foggy swamp road late one night, she, like Bobby McGee, “sang up every song that driver knew (and a lot of new ones).

We were investigating one of New Orleans’ above-ground cemeteries when my car was broken into (“You’re lucky you had an alarm that scared off the burglar, usually they hit the car, then go into the cemetery to rob the tourists.”)

We attended a Christmas party in the country’s only continental leprosarium in Carville, LA.. Not everybody can say that. She was also a regular on weekend bike rides with other newspaper people. On a hot day, water frolicking was apt to occur.

“The well is dry”

“I’ve got to come up with a feature this week, and the well is dry,” she lamented.

“Everybody has a story to tell. You just have to find them,” I told her, falling back on one of my favorite clichés. “Grab the phone book and a thumbtack. Open it to a page at random and stab a name. We’re going to find out what that person’s story is.”

We selected Lester R. “Mosley” on Summit Blvd., in West Palm Beach, an address about three blocks from my house. [Last name changed for privacy.]

Mr. “Mosley” lived in an older, one-story home set back on a large, well-kept lawn. When he came to the door, he was dressed in clean, retiree clothes, and, while confused about why we were there, didn’t chase us away.

We talked with him for about 45 minutes and discovered that he was not only NOT like Brother Mark, he provided the exception to the rule that everyone has a story.

Mr. “Mosley” had no interesting tales of work; had no hobbies to speak of; maintained a neat yard, but without passion; didn’t mention any family nor friends.

About the only unusual tidbit he offered up was that he had married his brother’s widow. (I think I remember that correctly.) Beyond volunteering that simple fact, he never told us anything about her, whether she still lived there, had run off with the milkman or had died of boredom.

A Most Peculiar Man

( Not Mr. “Mosley” -He’s a man I shot in New Burlington, OH, for a book c 1971

A few lines from Simon and Garfunkel’s song, A Most Peculiar Man, came to mind.

He was a most peculiar man
He lived all alone within a house
Within a room, within himself
A most peculiar man

Mr. “Mosley” seemed to be content with his rather colorless life, so who are we to judge?

We didn’t do a story on Mr. “Mosley”. Somewhere in my files is an envelope containing a couple dozen frames of Mr. “Mosley”, which have probably faded away as much as he did.

Marion needed to find a Mark, and all I could provide was a Lester.

UPDATES:

A search turned up a brief obit for a man who could have been Mr. “Mosley.” (His middle name was Rembert). He was born in South Carolina in 1910, and died in Palm Beach county in 1979.

Marion left the paper, moved in with her elderly parents, became reclusive, and died at age 51 in 2002.

Here’s a not-too-brief collection of stories and photos of Brother Mark.