New Life for Lorimier Apartments

Lorimier Apartments 04-01-2016A reader sent me good news the other day: the old Lorimier Apartments across from Indian Park at Lorimier and William are being worked on.

When I photographed them in July of last year, I figured they would keep deteriorating until they fell in.

Laura Simon wandered around

Lorimier Apartments 04-01-2016There was nobody around to ask permission to go onto the property when I drove by, but Missourian photographer Laura Simon spent some time documenting the place if you want to wander over to see her gallery.

Bridget Brown reported that Jason Coalter and Dustin Richardson of Centurion Development are doing the renovations. What’s interesting is that Bridget wrote the apartments were built in 1925, but I found Missourian stories mentioning the place as far back as June 7, 1919.

I’m in Hot Water

Old hot water heater 04-30-2016No, I’m not in trouble with Wife Lila. Well, I MIGHT be, but that’s not the topic of this post.

For the past five, maybe even ten years, Mother’s water heater in the basement has been making strange banging and clanging noises. Guests have been alarmed, thinking someone is breaking into the house or maybe a gaggle of deranged raccoons is running amuck in the basement tangling with a posse of possums.

Goggle said the noise was caused by pieces of sediment stirring around in the tank.

I’ve noticed recently that the water that used to be scalding when I washed the dishes was only slightly hot, and that my showers had to be cut short if I didn’t want to have ice cubes coming out of the shower head. My theory was that there was so much sediment in the tank that there was no longer room for water.

When I took a close look at the heater, I saw a scrawled note in my handwriting that said, “6/19/87.” I’m pretty sure that pushing 30 years old indicates that we got our money’s worth.

Installation challenges

I know better than to touch plumbing. If I go to change a simple washer, I can expect to see the city start digging up the street in front of the house. I opted to have a guy who knew what he was doing hook it up.

The pro arrived with the heater, tools and a bunch of pieces / parts. He had a challenge breaking apart fittings that had lived together happily for three decades. At one point, I reached up to the tools hanging on the workbench. “Want a hammer?” A few minutes later, I asked, “Want a BIGGER hammer?”

Around 7:30, he asked, “How late is Ace Hardware open?”

“A negative 30 minutes,” I said. “What do you need.”

“One of these,” he said, holding up a goofus firmly attached to the end of a spaghetti of pipe.

“I’ll go get one.”

Well, there was a serious Noah’s Ark thunderboomer sitting right on top of the house. My Low Fuel light came on somewhere the far side of Thebes yesterday, and now the needle was sitting on E. This was NOT a good night to run out of gas, so I filled up in a driving rain and slopped through deep puddles of water to Menard’s plumbing section where, uncharacteristically, there was an employee restocking the shelves. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

“This is between me and a hot shower”

New water heater 03-30-2016Holding up the widget, I said, “This is what is standing between me and a hot shower.”

She cast her gaze on the woofuspus, and said, “It’s a half incher.

“I don’t like to discuss size, so I’ll let you be the judge. I would have guessed at least two inches, but I’m a guy.”

She turned to the shelf and started to reach into a bin.

An empty bin.

Next, out in the rain to Lowes. Uncharacteristically, there was a guy in the plumbing section restocking shelves. I held my whangus up in the air, he looked at it sadly, shaking his head, then walked down the aisle directly to a replacement 1/2-inch whifflebobble.

I waded through puddles again, handed my guy the whosis, and he finished assembling the plumbing puzzle and put fire in the hole.

The next morning, there was no water on the floor, I couldn’t smell gas, and I wasn’t dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. You can’t beat that with a stick.

Shouldn’t this be more efficient?

New water heater 03-30-2016I was confused by the yellow Energyguide stickers on the old and new heaters. The 1987 sticker said the estimated yearly energy cost was going to be $238. The new one, supposedly more energy efficient, was going to cost $263. What gives?

The old adage, “The big print giveth, and the small print taketh away” held the answer.

In 1987, the estimated rate was based on a natural gas average price of 62.7 cents per therm (whatever that is). The 2016 estimate is based on an average national price of $1.09 per therm.

Whatever it costs, a warm shower is worth it.

 

Marty Riley’s Glenn House Exhibit

Marty Riley art exhibit 04-01-2016Marty Perry Riley, Wife Lila’s sister, was the featured artist at the landmark Glenn House on April 1. I have long admired her work, but I didn’t realize she had done so many pieces. She is a member of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri and the Visual Arts Cooperative, and a frequent winner of contests.

Marty, a retired RN, was the person we’d call when Mother needed help with something over the years, and Wife Lila had her number on the speed dial whenever one of the kids broke or bent something. Her’s was the voice of comfort that would say, “Don’t worry. Just stick Adam’s arm back on with super glue and a couple bandages and he’ll be fine.”

She likes street painting, too

Marty Perry Riley LW Street Painting Festival 02-27-2011Her work isn’t confined to canvas, either. She’s been down to Lake Worth, Florida, a couple of times to participate in the annual Street Painting Festival, one of the biggest in the country.

LBJ: “I will not seek; I will not accept”

Ohio University students watch LBJ annouce he won't run for POTUS 03-31-1968Walter Borton, an old Ohio University friend jogged my memory today with a comment on Facebook:

“Forty eight years ago today – I was in the front row of a student government meeting upstairs in Baker Center at Ohio University – I think Rita Corriel was presiding and suddenly from the back of the room, if memory serves, Tom Price, holding a small portable radio to his ear, interrupted excitedly to announce that Lyndon Johnson had just withdrawn from the Presidential race. I’m not sure what happened next but I suspect we recessed to the Union bar & grill to drink.”

OU Post reporter Carol Towarnicky chimed in: “From a different angle: While you were all at the Student Government meeting — what was the issue that had everyone there? — I was in The Post office with, I think, one other person and we were listening to LBJ’s speech. When he said, “I shall not seek, nor will I accept” I screamed. Then I didn’t know what to do because there was no way to reach people, but it turns out everyone knew anyway. What an exciting time putting out the paper that night.”

Post editor Bill Sievert remembers it this way: “Those of us Posties who were present (and most of the people in the room) cheered Tom Price’s announcement. Then we finished covering the meeting and went back and joined Carol Towarnicky in putting out the paper. It was hard work but somebody had to do it. (We drank much, much later in the night.) Tagging Ken Steinhoff; he’ll remember if he took the picture. He has a photographic memory.”

How I remember it

Ohio University students watch LBJ annouce he won't run for POTUS 03-31-1968

My perspective: Nobody knew what Johnson was going to speak about on that March 31 evening. The speech started off sounding like he was positioning himself to steal thunder from challengers Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy by announcing measures they had been advocating, demonstrating that his was the power to act, while his critics had only the power to propose, wrote The New York Times.

I’m not sure where this group was watching the speech on a TV. It could have been in the Scott Quadrangle dorm lounge where I lived, or it might have been in the Baker Center Student Union, where The Post had its offices in the basement. I shot a few half-hearted frames early in the speech, even resorting to my fisheye lens, signalling that I wasn’t expecting much to happen. When I blew up one frame, I’m pretty sure I saw my future Athens Messenger colleague Bob Rogers lolling in the doorway, equally as disinterested in what was happening as I was.

When LBJ said, “I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party as your President,” there was an audible gasp in the room. If I captured any emotion, it’s on film that I haven’t found yet. Right after he spoke those words, I looked over at a calendar, thinking, “Surely the President of the United States won’t follow that up by saying ‘April Fool!”

It was March 31, not April First, and, no, he wasn’t kidding.