Cape Girardeau History and Photos

December 21, 2012

Graham and the Christmas Lights

There’s a neighborhood around Gabriel Lane, just down the road from us that has been known for its holiday decorations for decades. Wife Lila wanted to walk Grandson Graham through it in his stroller like she had done with our boys.

Unfortunately, she picked the first night of the winter when we were under a Wind Chill Advisory. Temps in the low 50s don’t sound cold to you folks who experience wind chills in the negative 50 range, but this is FLORIDA.

Traffic is usually heavy in the neighborhood, so the game plan was for me to drive to a side road where Lila, Adam, Carly, Graham and all the paraphernalia a nearly-two-year-old needs would be off-loaded. When they were through walking around, I’d swing by and load up the survivors.

As it turned out, we found a parking spot close enough that we could all go. That’s when I realized that I had dressed to sit in a nice, warm car, not face Arctic blasts. It’s hard to hold your camera steady when you’re shivering.

Photo gallery of Christmas walk

I shot everything available light (available dark?). From time to time, I’d try to time my shot for when a car headlight would throw some fill onto Graham, but it generally made for an ugly effect. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

We’re getting into a few days when folks are going to be busy with family activities, so I’ll probably post some light-weight topics until after the holiday. Since the Mayans didn’t get us, our family wishes your family a Merry and a Happy.

December 21, 2012April 12, 2021

Did the World End?

Just in case all this Mayan Calendar stuff is real, I decided not to spend a lot of time working on a post for Friday. I’ll just revisit the last time the world was supposed to end in the Year 2000.

My boss, the IT manager, saw it coming a long way off, so he started working on modifying the mainframe computer programs years before the crunch was going to hit in 2000. Suddenly, though, our corporate folks started running around with their hair on fire hiring consultants and making us fill out reams and reams of meaningless CYA forms. At one point, I can remember saying, “We have a choice: we can either be prepared for Y2K or we can fill out the forms.”

By the time 2008 came around, the stickers on the window looking into my office had faded, but they still proclaimed I was Year 2000 Compliant. Above it was a sticker with the word “SWEAT” that once had a circle around it with the international slash symbolizing NO, as in NO SWEAT. Telecom was ready.

New Year’s Eve 1999

All of the IT staffers, including my telecom techs, had their days off cancelled as 1999 ticked down. Mike Turpie, my #2 Guy and I were going to be at the office. Telecom Tech Terry Williams was on standby with orders to have a sober New Year’s Eve in case we needed him. I thought at least ONE of us should get a good night’s sleep in case Mike and I were swatting flies through the wee hours of the morning.

We were confident: most of our equipment had been replaced in 1998-99 with new gear that was certified to work in 2000 and beyond. People with Nortel phone switches like ours were members of a big international users group and had been comparing notes for months. The canaries in the coal mine would be the people on the other side of the globe who would see the New Year hours before we would in Florida. As the day went on, they kept checking in with AOK messages.

An hour before midnight, we dropped off the commercial power grid and switched to generator power “just in case.” I photographed Mike sitting under the clock as we got closer and closer to what I said was going to be either the most boring or the most “interesting” night of our lives.

Seconds before midnight, Mike placed a call – probably to his wife – and waited to see what happened.

Nothing unusual happened.

We turned to a carefully prepared checklist: dialed into all our remote switches; placed local and long distance calls; looked for alarms, made sure voice mail was up, confirmed that the call centers would open in the morning, and waited about half an hour to see if anything started smoking. Life was so good.

Then we looked outside

When I designed the switchroom, I made sure it didn’t have any windows so it would be pelican-proof in hurricanes. To see what was going on, we had to go down the hallway to the fourth-floor lobby where we could look out west over the city. When Mike and I got to the end of the hallway, the city was dark. I mean like, REALLY dark. No lights as far as we could see.

This was Not Good in capital letters. Here we were in a four-story lighted tower of light surrounded by primeval darkness. I expected angry and panicked West Palm Beacheans to charge us with torches and pitchforks at any moment.

With a bit of trepidation, I picked up my two-way radio, switched over to the newsroom channel and said, “545 to Base 30, Uhhhh, any idea what’s going on? It’s realllllly dark out there….”

“Base 30 to 545. A drunk took out a utility pole.”

And that’s the way of the world ends. Not with a bang; not with a whimper, with a drunk hitting a power pole.

December 19, 2012February 20, 2015

SEMO Plans to Erase Landmark

There were a number of things that let me know I was getting close to home: going down that last hill at Thebes Gap, catching the first glimpse of the Mississippi River as it curved around Gray’s Point, spotting the Common Pleas Courthouse and the dome of Academic Hall poking above the trees… Once we made the white-knuckle passage across the Traffic Bridge, I’d look off to the left, not to see St. Vincent’s College, but to spy the strange brick structure on its lawn. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was a sign that I was home.

When I researched a piece on the 5th anniversary of the River Campus, I discovered a report filed with the National Register of Historic Places saying the court was constructed in 1843 and was supposed to have been the first handball court west of the Mississippi River.

James Baughn reads the fine print

The December 16 Missourian ran a routine story about the SEMO regents approving 96,000 square feet of new construction at the River Campus. There was an aerial photo overlay, but I’m sure most readers didn’t look at it closely. I’m guilty as charged.

Missourian webmaster James Baughn, who does one of three must-read blogs in the paper, is one of those detail kind of guys who notices things. He discovered that the new construction will erase one of the oldest structures in Cape Girardeau, one built by Joseph Lansman. Who is he? Thanks to Baughn’s research, we find that he was the guy who was probably responsible for SEMO being in Cape in the first place.

Baughn notes “[Louis] Houck was able to work his magic to steer the newly formed Board of Regents toward Cape, but Lansman helped seal the deal. He agreed to donate land he owned at the site of Fort B, the old Civil War fortification on a hilltop north of town, well away from the mosquito-laden swamps. During a crucial meeting at the St. Charles Hotel (built by Lansman), the regents made the final selection of Lansman’s site for the new college.”

SEMO, which touts one of the few undergraduate historic preservation programs in the country, assures us that they will incorporate a “select” number of bricks from the handball court into the facade of the new River Campus building. If they were in Philadelphia, they’d probably scrap The Liberty Bell and incorporate the clapper as a door knocker. I mean, why hang on to that old thing? Nobody’s going to ring it with that crack in it.

Holy Crapola! I’ve been ripped off

I followed a link on Baugn’s blog to a SEMO publication that details the constuction project. Guess what they have on the first two pages? This copyrighted aerial photo showing the River Campus I shot November 6, 2010. I can’t wait to make some phone calls tomorrow morning to SEMO and the Lawrence Group to talk about appropriating photographs for commercial use without compensation. (As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.)

Frame Two of my purloined photo shows clearly that they are targeting the lawn and handball court area that gives the site its quiet beauty, second only to the trees area and terraces overlooking the river. (They’ll go next and SEMO will sell “preservation toothpicks” made of the trees.) It would appear to me that there is plenty of space occupied by parking lots that would be perfect for the expansion. Put two floors of parking under the new buildings and you could leave the lawns and terraces alone.

Thanks, Mr. Baughn, for the heads-up.

December 18, 2012March 27, 2016

Archie Smiley’s Family Christmas

The Christmas Eve Missourian caption reads “It’s Great to be Home! ‘Especially for Christmas’ was the comment of Archie T. Smiley, 49, of 903 South Pacific, who recently won his battle for life following open heart surgery in Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. Here, Mr. Smiley decorates the Christmas tree in his home with the help of his wife and children. From left, standing, they are Thomas Wayne (Butch), Beverly Ann, Mrs. Smiley, Mr. Smiley and Theresa Lynn. Sheila Kay is seated on the floor.” (You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

I had heard of Mr. Smiley before, but didn’t remember shooting his photo or much about his story except that he had lost his hands and that he ran a bicycle repair shop. The 1966 story, which unfortunately has big chunks of type missing in key places, said that his hands were injured in a fireworks accident. Gunpowder entered his bloodstream after the explosion and caused blood poisoning. He was in the hospital on his graduation day, the story said, and the Chaffee High School principal “took him his diploma early for fear the lad might not live” to accept it later.

Stories mentioned that he played football in high school, repaired bicycles in a shop located in his home, drove a car and “managed handwriting better than most persons do with two hands.”

Lots of news for a nickel on July 5, 1928

While looking for the original account of the 4th of July accident, I stumbled across these stories in the July 5, 1928, Missourian. You sure got your nickel’s worth THAT day.

Four Chaffee Boys Hurt in Cannon Blast (The Archie Smiley story)
Europe’s wealthiest man, traveling across the North Sea with his “two girl stenographers” on his private plane went missing after he left his companions to use the washroom. There was early speculation that he might have gotten confused and stepped out of the exit door instead of into the washroom.
A Sikeston man whose ice cream truck broke down was run over by a motorist who feared he was being set up for a robbery.
A boy, 10, drowned in Whitewater River at Baker’s Mill.
Funeral rites were held for Arthur L. Oliver, former U.S. district attorney, prominent lawyer and former member of the Missouri legislature. Oliver had been found dead in the kitchen of his home by W.E. Martin, manager of the Bug Death Disinfectant Company, who had gone to release gas which had been used to kill insects in the home.
Jean A Lussier went over Niagara Falls in a rubber ball

Community rallies for Smiley

When Smiley needed heart surgery and family resources ran low, friends and strangers from all over the world started sending money. By Christmas Eve, the family had received about $2,200. His operation was to install a heart valve in a plastic cage inside his chest, said the story by Skeets Sonderman.

“Not only will this help pay my expenses, but now my family can have a nice Christmas. The children, however, will get mostly clothes and useful items. There will be toys for the younger ones, too,” he said.