This was the week for shooting panoramas of the Mississippi River. Friends Bob and Claire Rogers are walking to the very tip of Illinois where the Ohio (left) and Mississippi rivers join at Fort Defiance. The Mississippi must be running slightly higher, because you can see that it is holding the Ohio back. Click on the photos to make them larger.
There are seven frames stitched together by Photoshop in this panorama. What’s amazing is that Bob and Claire were walking away from me when I swept the scene, so they appeared in two photos and different locations. The program was smart enough to know that there’s only one Bob and Claire in the world and not to duplicate them.
View from Trail of Tears
The overlook at the Trail of Tears State Park offers a beautiful view of the river. While we were there, we spotted a guy in a rowboat making his way downstream. The way his gear was packed, we figured his destination was New Orleans.
“If he lands in Cape,” I commented to my friends, “I wonder who is working the Huck Finn Beat now that I’m gone.”
Bob, Claire and I were walking around on Water and Main Streets when they spotted some knitted / crocheted (don’t ask me) objects on the park bench at the southwest corner of Themis and Main. I looked behind me and saw some sewing patterns in the store window, so I dismissed them as having to do with sewing notions.
Claire and I went in to quiz the shopworkers in the store behind the bench. They disavowed all knowledge and weren’t much help in formulating a cool rumor to spread. They DID think they had seen the colorful “bombs” on Spanish and Broadway.
Bob documents the yarn bombs
We spotted more of the craft objects on a bench on the northeast and southeast corners.
We saw some folks standing in front of the Cup and Cork and started to ask them if THEY knew what this was all about. The new owner of the place, a nice guy named Patrick Abbot, said they were in the middle of dedicating the place, and he’d explain in a couple of minutes. We watched as a guy splashed the doorway with a clear liquid, then sprinkled a little on Abbot and a woman. It was a killer hot day, so I hoped I’d get a spritz, too, but it didn’t happen.
Abbot said that he watched a woman – a “unique individual.” was the way he put it – put the squares on the bench across from him. When she moved to the bench in front of his store, he asked her what she was doing.
International Yarn Bomb Day
“It’s for International Yarn Bomb Day,” she explained.
I did a quick Google News search and could come up with but two stories referencing anything about Yarn Bombing.
The Salisbury Journal(in the United Kingdom) had a story, “Visitors to Salisbury Citycentre this week may notice something a little bit different about the statue of Henry Fawcett in the Market Place. The statue was adorned with knitted decorations by a group calling itself the Ninja Knitters, marking Worldwide Yarn Bomb Day.“
nj.com reported, “FRENCHTOWN — More than two dozen yarn bombers descended on this tiny Delaware River town in Hunterdon County last night, June 8, to tie colorful knitted and crocheted handwork on trees, signs, posts and benches throughout the downtown. Yarn bombing, sometimes called guerrilla knitting, is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of yarn or fiber rather than paint.“
A search for “yarn bomb” didn’t turn up any info in The Missourian.
[Note Homeland Security: if your searches turn up repeated mentions of the word “bomb,” be sure to read it in the full context of what has been written. I would hate to have an innocent post blown up out of proportion. (Oops.)]
The Thebes Courthouse is on the list of places that out-of-town guests get to see. I took Spokesrider and his wife there when he rode his bike from Michigan to New Madrid. Today it was Bob and Claire Rogers from Arizona who got the tour. I worked with Bob at The Athens Messenger in the late 60s. You’ll hear more about him as the week goes on and I drag him to all my favorite haunts.
Museum not open
The museum wasn’t open, but we heard noises inside while we were on the balcony overlooking the Mississippi River. Claire peeked through a crack in the door and saw that the main door was open. Never missing a chance to walk through an open door, we did just that. I was surprised to see how well the place had been fixed up. The last time I was inside the building in the 1960s, the place was empty except for a bust of Lincoln in one of the windows.
Bust of Abe Lincoln
I don’t think this was the Lincoln I saw, but he still looks nice in the window’s light. The Thebes Historical Society has been working hard to preserve the old building, and their efforts are showing. We were lucky to get a sneak peek. The organization’s website says the museum will be closed for awhile to replace some windows and do other repairs. You can check it to see when visitors are officially welcome again.
Back in the late 60s, I worked with a photographer named Bob Rogers at The Athens Messenger. I guess I should say I worked FOR Bob, since he was the Chief Photographer and nominally my boss. Here he is in a lighting finger exercise I did for a lighting class. (I was supposed to use two lights. I did: a strobe at the camera, and Bob is touching two wires together to fire a flashbulb mounted in the ceiling of the phone booth).
But, that’s not the point of the story.
“When are you guys getting married?”
One day – maybe even on the day when this photo was taken – when Lila was hanging around our office, Bob asked, in his normal diplomatic way, “So, when are you guys getting married?” (That’s Bob’s foot, bottom center, next to the phone.)
Responding in my diplomatic way, I responded, “Bob, pick a date.”
“June 27,” was his answer.
For some reason, that date didn’t work out, so we got married June 23, 1969, 43 years ago. To this day, when anyone asks when we got married, I always say June 27, because that’s the date that stuck in my memory.
Where’s Bob?
I lost track of Bob in 1970 when he sent me a postcard photo of himself climbing a mountain somewhere. I had no idea if he was buried under tons of snow and ice or if he had just lost my address. A few Internet searches over the years turned up way too many people with that name to track down. Finally, out of the blue, he found my bike blog. That’s where I discovered that he and his wife, Claire, are an extraordinary couple who have had adventures most of us have only dreamed about (in some cases, you might classify them as nightmares.) You can read about their world-wide meanderings all over the world by bicycle on their blog, The New Bohemians.
Bob happened to mention that they were traveling in their RV from Arizona to his 50th high school reunion in West Virginia and would love to see if Cape was anything like he’d been reading about. We arranged to get together, coincidentally on our wedding anniversary.
Anniversary celebrated with musical tribute
Bob and Claire cooked a wonderful supper, then Mother joined them in a musical tribute to us. Wife Lila recorded the action on her iPhone.
Stunned silence
Me, I just sat there in stunned silence, much like I did 43 years ago.
Lila was much more articulate. She said, “Old friends, old song, old married couple. Good times.”
The overlook at the Trail of Tears State Park offers a beautiful view of the river. While we were there, we spotted a guy in a rowboat making his way downstream. The way his gear was packed, we figured his destination was New Orleans.
