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Lifesaving Class

I should have run these photos when it was unseasonably warm back in Cape a couple of weeks ago. They’ll have to serve as reminders of warmer days now that smoke is coming out of Cape Girardeau chimneys.

I’m assuming that it was a lifesaving class at Capaha Park Pool in 1964. I see some faces that look familiar, but I’ll let you put names to them.

Other pool photos

Lifesaving photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery. Name guesses are encouraged.

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Bill Hopkins’ Courting Murder

Buddy Bill Hopkins has published his first Judge Rosswell Carew murder mystery, Courting Murder. I’ve had a chance to read the book (Bill made me pay retail for it), so I should catalog my first impressions of it.

I need to make some disclaimers first. Bill is paying me to run an ad for four months. If you click on the ad which may or may not be running in the upper right-hand corner of the page (depending on whether or not his check clears) or this link, you’ll be taken to Amazon where you can buy his book. If you buy his book, I make about 98 cents without it costing you anything. That might make you think I have a vested interest in saying something nice about the book and/or Bill.

Offsetting that, though, are my memories of the great job Bill did as campaign manager for my run for student body president. With him guiding my campaign, I garnered only 163 votes out of a student body of 1,200. Future Wife Lila told me years later that even SHE didn’t vote for me. That effectively derailed my plans to run for President of the United States in 1984. I think that, on balance, qualifies me to write an unbiased review.

Bill interacts with teacher

I’m not exactly sure what’s happening in this photo, but the body language would suggest that the teacher isn’t exactly happy with Bill and his unidentified cohort in crime.

After we left Central, I went into newspapering and Bill launched his legal career in 1971. He served as a private attorney, prosecuting attorney, an administrative law judge, and a trial court judge. We didn’t really keep in touch until the days of Facebook. I’d see his name in The Missourian from time to time in connection with his judge work. I don’t think I ever saw the words “brilliant” and “judge” used in the same sentence, but they also didn’t use “judge” and “indicted,” either, so, on balance, he didn’t do too badly.

Bill’s wife becomes author

Bill’s wife, Sharon Woods Hopkins, beat him to to the bookshelves with her two mysteries. I covered the book launches of Killerwatt and Killerfind.

All of the Hopkins’ books are set in Southeast Missouri. Their common themes are coincidence, confusion, crimes and incompetent law enforcement officials. Oh, yeah, and lousy cell phone signals. It seems like every time the heroes get in trouble they are out of range or their batteries are dead.

Killerwatt review. You can buy it from Amazon here (and I get a cut).

Killerfind review. You can buy it from Amazon here (and I get a cut).

Courting Murder

Bill’s book, Courting Murder, was a perfect addition to the Steinhoff One-Stall Reading Library. Its short chapters are just the right length for picking up and setting down during brief reading sessions. I enjoyed the twists and turns in Judge Carew’s attempt to decide how two people ended up dead on a riverbank and how to protect his girlfriend who is in danger from the killer/s.

Bill’s plot had more twists than a Bollinger county gravel road. In fact, I kept looking at the diminishing number of pages and wondering, “Just WHEN is this thing going to wrap up the loose ends?” It was sort of like watching a one-hour mystery on TV and looking at the clock to see that they had better get the killer in the next six minutes or it’s going to be continued to the next episode.

I won’t say that the ending was totally unexpected, but it kept my interest right up to the last page. Bill is a heck of a lot better mystery writer than he was a student body presidential campaign manger. Again, it’s available through Amazon.

 

 

 

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Droppin’ a Dime

Want to know where the phrase “droppin’ a dime” on someone came from? It was what a phone call cost Back in the Day. These coeds are waiting their turn to step into iconic phone booths outside Scott Quadrangle, my old dorm at Ohio University in 1967.

They are probably waiting because you were lucky if one of the three were actually working. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

No helicopter parents in our day

Buddy Jim Stone, who attempts to pour physics into student heads at Boston University, was talking about “helicopter parents” the last time we got together in Cape. In these days of cell phones, email, Facebook and texting, parents are involved in their kids’ lives to an unhealthy degree, he contended: parents don’t give their kids an opportunity to solve their own problems. The world conspired to force us to be more independent, he pointed out.

  • College kids in our generation weren’t virtually connected.
  • Dorm rooms didn’t even have phones until late in my junior year. There would be one or two hall phones per floor that would be answered (maybe) by someone walking by when they rang. You might or might not get notified that you had a call.
  • There was no privacy. There was usually a line waiting impatiently for you to get off the phone.
  • Ohio was cold in the winter and it would rain for days, things that didn’t lend themselves to long outdoor conversations.
  • Long distance was exotic and expensive. You didn’t call home unless it was IMPORTANT (like, you were broke).
  • The coin-operated phones would become so stuffed with change that you couldn’t make a call until they were emptied by the phone company, something it took its own sweet time doing.
  • By the time you finally DID get around to calling home, you had probably already worked out your problems yourself (except for being broke).

Calls used to be a nickel

You can see from the instructions on the phone that “ONE nickel will NOT work. Use TWO nickels or one dime.”

I’ll never forget one telephone booth on the west coast of Florida. I had been chasing a hurricane all day, alternately being buffeted by the wind and deluged by horizontal rain. I needed to check in with my Number Two guy at home to see what was going on at the office, so I was happy to see the glow of a phone booth in front of a gas station off in the distance. I ran from the car to the booth, which was rocking in the wind hard enough to make me wonder if it was going to pull loose from its slab. Directly overhead was a huge swinging advertising sign. If that puppy snaps off, I thought, it’ll slice this booth and its contents – me – like a guillotine blade, leaving me both twice the man and half the man I started out with.

To make the experience worse, John and Susan had just adopted a baby and thought it was “cute” to have a long answering machine message that featured the baby crying. Never much fond of “cute” under favorable circumstances, I found this less than amusing while contemplating my mortality. I “gently” suggested that he go for a shorter greeting for the duration of the storm.

Other phone booths

 

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Ron Smith – Fan of Year

Ron Smith was one of those quiet gentle souls who seems to float through high school without making any waves. I’ve often wondered what happened to him. Everyone knew who he was, but I don’t think many people, including me, could say they knew him.

I shot him at a basketball tournament at Houck Field House on Feb. 27, 1967.

This photo ran in the March 1 Missourian with the caption, “Fan of the Year: You see him at every sporting event, whether it be baseball, basketball, football, track, or even swimming. It makes no difference whether it’s high school, college, or junior high. Ron Smith (shown holding radio), a junior at Central High School, was recently presented the “fan of the year” award by State College’s Varsity Club.”

Ron Smith died November 8

Judy Kurre Ringwald passed on the sad news that Ron died Nov. 8, 2012.

Here is his obituary from the Nov. 11 Missourian: Ronald Roy Smith, 63, of Belleview, Mo., passed away Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012, at Belleview Valley Nursing Home. He was a longtime nursing home resident, having spent most of his time at Belleview Valley Nursing Home where he was loved by staff and residents.

He was born November 13, 1948, in Cape Girardeau, Mo., to Roy and Hulda Vasterling Smith. He was a graduate of Cape Girardeau Central High School and a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Cape Girardeau. In his teens, he was an avid sports fan, following local high school and college teams and the Capahas. Smith especially loved the St. Louis Cardinals and didn’t miss listening to or watching most of their games.

Loving survivors include one sister, Rosalee (Everett) Plunk of Cape Girardeau; one brother, Ray (Linda) Smith of Scott City; nieces and nephews, Marla (Maury) Taylor, Crystal (Justin) Smith both of Cape Girardeau, Mike (Nancy) Plunk of Lake St. Louis, Mo., Kim (Brad) Schiwitz of Frisco, Tex., Ray (Brittney) Smith of Jackson; great-nieces and nephews, Christina (Lee) Dodd, Haley and Hayden Dodd all of Scott City, Jennifer Boren of Lake St. Louis, Mo., Mackenzie and Mason Smith of Jackson, and Elizabeth Smith of Cape Girardeau. He was preceded in death by his parents.

It must have been a slow game

When you look at your film and see pictures of fans like Ron and Notre Dame Cheerleader Cathy, you can surmise that the action must have been pretty slow. If you haven’t bagged something at least half-way interesting by the end of the first quarter, you start looking around for sports feature shots. (As always, you can click on any shot to make it larger.)

Yep, pretty dull

I can see why I was looking for features. This was about the best action I had from the game.

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