Cape Girardeau History and Photos

January 20, 2014

Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

It all depends on when you did it

If it was on the side of a building in your neighborhood, it would be called “tagging” and you’d be annoyed.
If it was high up on the side of a water tower, it would be called graffiti and you would lament the stupidity of kids.
If it was scratched on a rock over 600 years ago, it is called a “petroglyph,” and there’s a whole site dedicated to to the art near Tularosa, N.M.

The Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

The Bureau of Land Management’s website says that the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site is one of the few locations in the Southwest set aside solely because of its rock art. It is also one of the few sites giving visitors such direct access to petroglyphs. The number and concentration of petroglyphs here make it one of the largest and most interesting petroglyphs sites in the Southwest. More than 21,000 glyphs of birds, humans, animals, fish, insects and plants, as well as numerous geometric and abstract designs are scattered over 50 acres of New Mexico’s northern Chihuahuan Desert. The petroglyphs at Three Rivers, dating back to between about 900 and 1400 AD, were created by Jornada Mogollon people who used stone tools to remove the dark patina on the exterior of the rock. A small pueblo ruin is nearby and Sierra Blanca towers above to the east.

Why vacation photos all of a sudden?

I had a hard drive crash. I didn’t lose any data because of the way the system is designed, but I didn’t want to dip into my Cape photos until the “mirror” as it is called is completely rebuilt. (Hint: that’s why I keep bugging you to click on the big CLICK HERE button when you shop on Amazon. A few pennies here and there keep those hard drives spinning.)

Photo gallery of the art

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to mover through the gallery. These photos were taken in June 2009, when we went back to the Southwest where Wife Lila grew up before moving to Cape.

January 19, 2014

White Sands National Monument

I thought you folks might like to see some white stuff that’s not cold. In fact, when Wife Lila and I took a vacation trip out west in June of 2009, it was anything BUT cold at the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.

Don’t believe them when they say, “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” At some point, it IS the heat, particularly if the humidity is so low that the sweat is being sucked out of your body like a vacuum was attached to your pores. It was worth a little dripping and dehydration to see the natural beauty of sand on the move. We’ve got us a beautiful and varied country.

Turning the pictures loose

I can’t come up with words better than the pictures, so here’s a gallery of the Monument. Click on the photos to make them larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

January 19, 2014

Old Washington School Aerial

I was looking over some aerials of the Red Star from April 2011 area when I saw a white parking lot west of the area being cleared for the Casino. When I got to thinking about it, that was where Washington School was located. All that’s left are a few trees and a little green space. Click on the photo to make it larger.

The street running left to right is North Fountain. The street on the south side of the school is Mill Street. On the north side is Pearl Street.

Earlier stories about Washington School

January 17, 2014

The Folsoms

One of the blessings and curses of Facebook is the feature that tells you who has a birthday coming up. Seeing Linda Folsom’s name pop up reminded me that I had run across this photo of her in a box last summer. The original was a Polaroid taken by her brother, Steve.

I made a deal with Steve

Linda and I dated briefly (the briefly part was her idea). Steve was a fellow photographer on either The Tiger or The Girardot (or both), so I cut him a deal: I’d give him a roll of Tri-X 35mm film for him to shoot informal candids of Linda.

(Whenever I tried to take her picture, she’d threaten to pummel me with my Pentax, something I noticed girls, including Future Wife Lila, were prone to do.)

Steve is the guy with Central’s most unique eyebrows on the left. You’ll have to go to my Mad Men of CHS post to get the IDs of the other guys.

Rat Fink Steve didn’t bring back 36 photos of Linda. In fact, he must have used the roll for something else, because all I got was the single Polaroid above. I wouldn’t tell him, but I always liked the way he captured her smile.

Other Steve photos

Steve the debater
Steve in the Red Dagger play. I think he’s in shots 18, 67, 69 and 70, but I’m not sure about all of them.

The Twin Game

Linda had a twin sister, Laura. The night I walked up to the door for our first date, Linda and Laura played the twin game with me, challenging me to pick the right one. Their grandfather, who must have seen this game before, was standing behind them. He give me the high sign without them seeing him. It wasn’t long before I didn’t need the grandfather’s clue to tell them apart.

Laura is the girl on the far right in the front row of the bus headed to an out-of-town debate trip. This link has a bunch of the students identified by readers. Click on the photo to make it larger.

Betty Folsom

I was looking for some photos of the twins’ mother, Betty, who taught English and Journalism. I came up blank on any photos, but I DID find this press pass she signed for me.

It was fun reading the Facebook comments of the younger relatives of Linda, Laura and Steve who had never seen the trio in their high school days.