Cape Girardeau History and Photos

March 3, 2012May 27, 2022

Rush Limbaugh: “Horse’s Patootie”

Ray Seyer, Wife Lila’s uncle, was going to turn 90 in 2012, so we sat down with him on Oct. 20, 2010, for a wide-ranging discussion about what it was like to grow up in Southeast Missouri when much of it was still swampland. The result was a collection of ten videos that we put together for his family to pass down to their kids. I’ll get around to posting them one of these days.

Rush Limbaugh Remembered

Here is Uncle Ray talking about one of his first encounters with high schooler Rush Limbaugh. As soon as school would let out, Rush would run home and fire up his CB and monopolize Calling Channel 9, making it impossible for truckers and others in the community to communicate.

[Channel 9 eventually became set aside for emergency use only. Truckers, who first migrated to Channel 10, moved to 19 about the time C.W. McCall’s song Convoy put two-way radio antennas on just about everything on the road.]

Despite a career in the Navy during World War II, Uncle Ray contented himself by labeling Rush a “horse’s patootie.” I’m sure he would have been more colorful, had Mother, Lila and Aunt Rose Mary not been in the room.

Rush Limbaugh and Terry Jones

September 9, 2010, when Terry Jones was international news because he was threatening to burn a Koran, I pointed out that Terry and Rush Limbaugh were both members of the Cape Girardeau Central High School Class of 1969. The story didn’t hint that they were in cahoots, it just noted the interesting coincidence that Cape’s two best-known exports were in the same class.

The Terry Jones / Rush Limbaugh story was picked up all over the world and got more traffic in three days than I usually get in a month. It also attracted 150 mostly respectful comments. I rode herd to make sure that they STAYED respectful.

Rush has been immortalized on Cape Girardeau’s Mississippi River floodwall mural displaying pictures of prominent Missourians. I don’t think they’ve reserved a space for Jones.

So, you are welcome to comment on an 88-year-old’s recollections of a young Rush Limbaugh, but we’re going to keep it civil, right?

March 2, 2012

“Titanic Collision” Spawns Tornadoes

What The Missourian described as “the titanic collision of warm, moisture-laden air from the south with a rapidly advancing cold wave from the northeast brought not only severe weather over Southeast Missouri, but the prospect of up to three inches of snow.

The Dec. 21, 1967, story said the rare winter storm spawned tornadoes that struck McBride, Frohna and Potosi. Temperatures dropped from 30 to 35 degrees in a short period of time.

The McBride storm struck the Beldex Company hangars at the Perryville Airport.

The State Highway Patrol reported 18 injuries to workers who had been in one of the hangars that had been built when the airport was used a World War II flight training center. The airport is located about two miles northeast of McBride, near the Mississippi River.

Plane flipped on its back by the wind

A more complete story the next day dropped the number of injured from 18 to 13, the most serious a fractured hip.

Brad Estes wrote that a funnel cloud hidden by fog and sheets of rain demolished two hangars where workers had no warnings.

“It all happened in about 20 seconds”

David Bierk of Perryville, who was not injured, said that it was raining very hard, getting dark, and then the lights went out. “A man working with me called my attention to a roar, but I didn’t hear anything. That was just before the walls and windows started collapsing. Everybody tried to crawl under benches and tables. It all happened in about 20 seconds. We then took roll call to see if anyone was covered up.”

The Beldex plant, which repaired aircraft commercially, employed about 110 men and had leased space from the City of Perryville for about 15 years.

The storm moved from the south to the northeast. It took down power lines, cutting power to an electric clock in a nearby grocery store at exactly 11:43 a.m. Only one building of a five-building complex at the airport was not damaged. It contained 10 planes, ranging in size from large jets to small single-engine planes.

Seven aircraft received considerable damage.

Three DC-3s were sitting outside and the winds flipped one over. Four other airplanes were in the demolished hangar. The roof fell on a Convair, two jet Sabreliners and a smaller single-engine aircraft.

East Perry Lumber Company hit

What was thought to be a different storm hit Frohna about 11 a.m.

Its force was concentrated in the area of the East Perry County Lumber Co., where it destroyed a warehouse filled with lumber and equipment. Lumber and debris were scattered all over the 40-acre yard.

Three houses across the road suffered only minor damage. The worst was a house owned by Omar Steffens. One wall of an attached garage was torn loose, but the roof stayed intact and a car inside appeared undamaged.

Potosi tornado killed three

A tornado that dropped out of a pre-dawn thunderstorm killed three and injured 52 in Potosi. The town of 2,800 is about 50 miles west of Perryville.

Gallery of McBride, Frohna tornado photos

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

March 1, 2012March 1, 2012

Puxico’s Leap Year Day Tornado

I checked the weather before I turned in around 2 a.m. Wednesday and saw a fast-moving narrow band of ugly weather headed toward Cape. When I got up, news reports indicated that Cape had dodged the bullet, but some other local communities, including Puxico, hadn’t. That was significant because Wife Lila’s brother, John Perry, had come down to do some odd job repairs for us. His Wife Dee’s parents and brother live on farms near Puxico.

Tree came through roof

She called him to say that her brother Don’s house was destroyed and he was feared dead.

He was later dug out of debris in his basement. He was pretty badly battered, but didn’t go to the hospital. Her parents, D.L. and Fern Douglas, who live nearby, had a tree come through their roof, several outbuildings destroyed and a tractor blown into a pond. A neighbor in a mobile home was killed.

Dee’s Facebook updates

Here are some of Dee’s Facebook posts to friends and family Wednesday evening. John and Dee’s son Wyatt was kind enough to share these photos.

WOW, what a day!

9:21 p.m. – WOW, what a day!……The storms in Puxico flattened my brother’s house. My parents’ farm and home look like a war zone. Everyone is fine, shook up, but fine. My heart just breaks for everyone…..I spent the afternoon doing what I could do for my parents with Wyatt. I just cried when I saw my brother’s house. I am so thankful that everyone is alive.

We thought my brother was dead

9:46 p.m. – My brother was thought to be dead. That was told to my Mother, so we were touch and go for awhile, I thought it was going to put her under, but she is one strong woman. My brother is pretty banged up, but I got to kiss him and hug him and that is all that matters!

10:41 p.m. – [Referring to wire service photo of her dad looking at his barn] He is so pitiful, all he has ever worked for was on that farm, but I still have him and Mom and the rest of my family, so for that I am thankful!

Pine trees snapped off

11:08 p.m. – As Mother puts it – and I saw it – it’s like a war zone, but I can tell you, that it was really awesome to be able to hug and kiss and talk to each and every one of my family. It almost took my knees out from under me…….it was so hard to have to stay at work today.

John’s on his way home

John’s Missouri family needs him more than his Florida family does right now, so we’re putting him on a plane Friday morning to help his in-laws dig out. Wife Lila says the folks at Southwest Airlines were great in letting him change his return flight with no additional charge.

February 29, 2012April 15, 2021

Covering Simon and Garfunkel

When I shot this photo of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel in concert at Ohio University on Oct. 29, 1968 (if you can believe the negative sleeve), I didn’t know then that the body language might be a hint of the breakup of the duo coming just two years later.

The two singers met in elementary school in 1953 (where they appeared in the school play Alice in Wonderland) and recorded their first record as Tom and Jerry in 1957. The went off to separate colleges, but got together after Paul Simon wrote some folk songs, including one dedicated to murdered civil rights worker Andrew Goodman. Goodman had been a friend of both men and a classmate of Simon’s at Queen’s College. They cut Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which initially flopped when it was released in 1964.

Is THIS Paul Simon?

I recognized Garfunkel right away, and the sleeve was tagged Simon and Garfunkel, but this guy didn’t look like the Paul Simon I was used to seeing. I wondered if he was a backup singer. It wasn’t until I covered up the scraggly beard and mustache that I saw Paul emerge. His eyes and nose definitely give him away.

Simon and Garfunkel were at their peak

After a few stumbles, they caught fire. The single Sound of Silence became a #1 hit in 1966 and the album by that title made it to #21. Wednesday Morning came back and climbed to #30. The songs kept coming in 1966: Homeward Bound; I Am A Rock; The Dangling Conversation; Parsley, Sage Rosemary & Thyme; A Hazy Shade of Winter. They definitely provided the soundtrack of our lives that year and for the next few.

Mrs. Robinson was the biggie

In January, 1968, Mike Nichols’ film The Graduate was released. Peter Bart wrote in a May 15, 2005, issue of Variety that Nichols had been obsessed with S & G’s music while he was shooting the film and had producer Larry Turman cut a deal with Simon to write three new songs for the movie.

By the time they were nearly finished editing the film, Simon had written only one new song. Nichols begged him for more but Simon, who was touring constantly, told him he didn’t have the time. He did play him a few notes of a new song he had been working on; “It’s not for the movie… it’s a song about times past—about Mrs. Roosevelt and Joe DiMaggio and stuff.” Nichols advised Simon, “It’s now about Mrs. Robinson, not Mrs. Roosevelt.”

Personal tensions and creative differences caused a strain that reached its breaking point during the production of their last album, Bridge Over Troubled Water in 1970. The album was originally supposed to contain twelve songs, but Simon refused to record a Garfunkel pick and vice versa. It was finally released with only eleven songs on it.

What do I remember about the concert?

Not a lot. When you’re shooting something like this, you have all your visual senses working. You’re concerned about angles, light, shutter speeds – technical stuff – not the music. I’m sure they played all the favorites, but I don’t know that I actually heard any of them.

I learned early on that I couldn’t count on being the best shooter at an event: I had to be the one who showed up earliest, stayed the latest and was willing to scout out the odd positions. I’d cover myself by shooting the standard, “safe” shot, then go looking for the unusual.

I took these high-angle photos from the lighting catwalks high above the concert floor. You don’t ask permission to do something like that because people will find a dozen ways to turn you down. If you just do it, though, everybody assumes that it must be OK.

Not every shot works. This one doesn’t, but you don’t know until you try. It’s always a mistake not to push the button when your instinct tells you to. Something drew your eye there, and if you don’t shoot it at that moment, the magic will leak out if you stop to think about it. You can always discard; you can’t recreate.

Look at the audience

I was surprised to see how well-dressed the audience was. This is a folk-rock concert, so you’d expect to see a lot of casual hippie-type clothing, but most of the guys have on suit coats, if not ties. Hair lengths are Kennedyesque, not shoulder-length. Skirts are delightfully short.

Other concert photos

Simon and Garfunkel photo gallery

There are a lot of “magic moment” photos in this selection that I knew at the time would never make it into the paper, but were recorded anyway. Now that I’m not constrained by the cost of dead trees and ink, you’ll get to see them. Like I said before, most of them don’t work, but they do give you some insight into my thought process and how a picture evolves. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery. Humming of music is allowed.