Cape Girardeau History and Photos

March 2, 2013

I-55’s Big Rock Cut

If you are in a family where the Dad builds roads and bridges for a living, going for a ride is a whole lot different than it is for most families.

For one, Dad would slow to a crawl anytime he passed another contractor’s job so he could see what techniques the guy was using. If his competitor had some kind of new, spiffy piece of equipment, he’s say, “I wish I had his and he had a better one.”

We couldn’t make a trip from Cape to St. Louis without him pointing this area out as “one of the biggest rock cuts on I-55 in Missouri.”

By the time I got to St. Louis on February 25, those clouds were dropping snow from the sky. After I finished my exhibit in Ohio and drove back to Cape from St. Louis on March 1, more clouds were causing snow to swirl across the road.

What IS it with snow this year? It seems like everyplace I’ve gone lately has had snow. I’m afraid to go back to Florida next week for fear I’m going to cause it to snow on Wife Lila’s new vegetable gardens.

February 28, 2013May 28, 2021

Communication: 1967 – 2013

While I was in Athens for my photo exhibit, I wandered around campus looking for familiar landmarks. One stop was the dorm I lived in my junior year – Scott Quad. I remembered it being on top of the hill at the heart of the campus. When I got to where I thought it should be, it was missing.

Surely they didn’t tear down the dorm where Paul Newman lived when he was an OU student.

I looked about half-way down this steep hill and, there it was. Man, I sure don’t remember that hill being that steep in 1967.

How WE called home

In December, I hauled out a 1967ish photo of coed lined up to talk on pay phones on that very corner, probably about where the light pole is.

Modern communication

Just before I crossed the street, I looked to my left and saw how different things are nearly half a century later. When the student was through texting, I told her about the old photo and asked her, “How do you think YOUR kids will communicating when they stand on this corner>”

She just gave me the “crazy old geezer look” and smiled before quickly walking away.

February 28, 2013

St. Francis Growing

A Feb 24, 2013, Missourian story said that St. Francis Hospital broke ground in November on a $127 million expansion and renovation project. I spotted the work on my way to Best Buy the other day.

Big hole and lots of rock

It’s incredible how big the facility has grown and how much bigger this is going to make it.

Earlier St. Francis Stories

February 27, 2013March 29, 2021

Dawn of Mourning Exhibit in Athens

I was back in Athens, Ohio, on February 26, walking on rain-slicked cobblestones and helping set up my exhibit of photos of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Mourning taken in 1968.

“Dawn of Mourning” is presented by Sigma Gamma Rho, Inc. in conjunction with the College of Arts and Sciences, the Athens Historical Society and Museum, the Foster and Helen Cornwell Lecture Series, University College, the Campus Involvement Center, The Athens Messenger and The Post.

Here is a radio interview the local NPR station, WOUB, did with me. (To be honest, I could only listen to about five minutes of it. I always cringe when I hear myself being interviewed.

Danielle Echols, who has been the Sigma Gamma Rho coordinator on the project, did a great job of keeping me more or less between the lines during the radio program. I could tell she had a basket of questions to ask if I was one of those laconic “Yes, Ma’am,” “No, Ma’am” subjects, but she need not have worried. Rambling is one of my better things.

Photo gallery of show catalog photos.

Here is a catalog of the key images showing a highly emotional day at Ohio University. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.