Cape Girardeau History and Photos

January 17, 2013January 17, 2013

Quarries and Corrections

I did a couple of pieces about what I thought was the Strack Quarry in Fruitland near Saxony Lutheran High School. Several readers gently suggested that I might be wrong about which quarry I had photographed and I had this sinking feeling they might be right.

Laura Simon had an aerial photo in the January 16, 2013, Missourian that confirmed my fears: yep, I had been photographing the Heartland Materials facility, which is immediately south of the high school. I focused on it because it was the closest to the school.

When I was home in October, I made it a point to track down the REAL Strack quarry off Hwy 61 coming into Fruitland. Their permit to mine is back on hold pending an appeal.

Just scratching the surface

So far it looks like Strack has been just scratching the surface by hauling away the overburden and using it for fill along the highway. You can see here how they’ve been scraping away the hillside.

Nobody working the pit

Nobody was working the pit the day I was there. I didn’t see any Keep Out signs, but the heavy gumbo mud that nearly sucked my shoes off provided an effective barrier to getting close.

Setting the record straight

So, much to my embarrassment, these two stories show the Heartland site, not Strack.

January 15, 2013May 13, 2022

Kitty Cat

I don’t remember where he / she came from, and I must have been away at college when he / she fell between the cracks of memory. To make the account easier, I’m going to arbitrarily classify the feline a female. You can click on the photos to make them larger, but try to ignore the dust specks.

We weren’t really cat people

We weren’t really cat people. Dad, in particular, could see a certain utility in a dog, but cats were beneath his radar. Until Kitty Cat came along. To be honest, I’m not even sure that Kitty Cat was her name.

Anyway, shortly after Dad would sit down in his basement recliner to unwind from work and catch a little TV, the kitten would jump up on his lap and it was game on.

Suffered indignities kindly

The cat figured a little indignity was a decent tradeoff for a warm lap.

She knew who was in charge

Funny hat or not, Kitty Cat knew who was driving the bus.

True example of coffee can film

This had to have been one of my famous “coffee can” films, based on the number of dust spots I had to touch up. I must have shot an assignment on the first part of the roll, then banged off these frames and pitched them into the garbage pail under my enlarging table.

I finally decided this shot wasn’t worth spending any more time on. If the white dust specks had been black, I’d have tried to pass them off as fleas.

January 14, 2013

Putting Horse Before Cart

These youngsters have the horse on the right end of the cart, but that’s about all I know about the photo. Does anyone recognize them? You can click on the photo to make it larger.

Speaking of horses, Monday was Wife Lila’s uncle’s birthday. Ray Seyer, who is old enough to know about horses, labeled Rush Limbaugh as a “horse’s patootie.” I’m not too conversant with horse anatomy, but I don’t think that’s where the oats go in.

January 14, 2013

Matt’s Savings Bonds

Wife Lila has been doing some major reshuffling of her office since she retired in November. Part of it is moving all the DedicatedIT business records and stuff to Son Adam, her co-owner’s, care. One of the things she’s finding is that your kids may move out, but some of their stuff lingers behind “so it doesn’t get lost.”

One of the things that lingered was a envelope with two U.S. Savings Bonds and the gift envelopes they and other bonds had lived in. Dad and Mother gave Son Matt bonds when he was a baby, and Mother made some out in memory of her parents – my grandparents, Roy and Elsie Welch.

“For when you are a big boy”

This one was for his first birthday. “From Pa Pa and Grandmother: Matt, this is for something you need when you are a big boy. Love forever.”

For his 4th Christmas

Mother wrote “My dear little boy, this coming year will be a special time for you! I know this paper means very little to you today, but in a few years it could become something very good to have – Have a wonderful day! I’ll be thinking of you this Xmas day. Love Gran.”

$25 DID grow over the years

Matt sent this note:

The back of the envelope shows when the bond was purchased and the amount for which it was exchanged. I’m pretty sure every bond was $25 face value and each was purchased for $18.75. Those bonds were
redeemed in December 1998.

The two remaining bonds are worth…

October 1975… $133.15
December 1975… $134.75

Both stopped earning interest in 2005. You can calculate their value here…

I would have sworn those bonds paid for part of my Stidham house furniture but, given the 1998 date, those bonds probably paid for my Kirkman apartment furniture… which is still in use in my Camellia house 14 years later. So, many thanks to Pa Pa and Gran.”

Three generations of furnishings

We’re going to use the proceeds of those last two bonds to open a savings account for Malcolm. I’m sure he’ll need to furnish an apartment in a few years and it seems only fitting that his great-grandparents buy him a sofa since they bought me and you both a sofa.
Three generations of furniture from those two, right? Didn’t they buy your original fold-out sofa?

He was right. When Lila and I got married, the only things we had in our living room were some concrete block and board bookcases and a twin bed mattress Lila had covered with corduroy, plus a few cushions, that served as a couch.

The first time Dad and Mother came for a visit and had to sleep on the floor on the “couch,” he pressed $300 in my hand and said, “Before we come back, make sure you have a hide-a-bed sofa for us to sleep on.”

Here Lila, Brother Mark and Dad sitting on the sofa in our first house in West Palm Beach. The Cape Steinhoffs had come down to Florida for Christmas.