Cape Girardeau History and Photos

It’s amazing how readers can come up with the strangest permutations of story ideas. Yesterday I wrote about how a big tire went bouncing down Broadway in 1965, wreaking havoc (OK, breaking a window and denting a car).

Among the photos I posted was Pete Koch’s Sinclair Station. Read the comments on yesterday’s posting to see what it’s being used for today. (You might have to press CTRL-F5 to bring up the latest ones when you get there.)

Cape gasoline prices

A comment I made that I thought gas would have been about 36 cents a gallon in that era prompted Spokesrider to say that sounded high from his perspective in Michigan. I still think 36 cents was right, except for the occasional price war kicked off by Thoni’s.

Bro Mark sent  me this photo of his living room wall, along with this note: “Saw your piece this morning. I bought these paper gas price signs in Cape and framed them a long time ago. Ah, the good old days of cheap gas and polio and cold war threats…I’ll take the high price of gas today, thank you.”

Snow ice cream and strontium 90

All the news about making snow ice cream and Mark’s comments about Cold War threats must have been in the back of my mind when I picked up The Week magazine and saw an obituary for Dr. Louise Reiss. If you are of an age to remember Duck and Cover, your parents may have sent your baby teeth off to Dr. Reiss.

The St. Louis doctor had hit on the idea of testing children’s baby teeth for strontium 90, a radioactive byproduct of atomic bombs that were being detonated in the atmosphere. Her analysis of 320,000 teeth showed that children born in St. Louis in 1963 had 50 times as much strontium 90 in their teeth as children born in 1950.

Her findings were largely responsible for the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union agreeing to a partial ban on testing atomic weapons in the atmosphere.

That’s why you’re safer eating snow ice cream today than when we were kids. (You still want to avoid yellow snow.)

On the same Missourian Youth Page as the Tucker Lamkin kindergarten aide story, I had two photos of Campus School third graders “measuring up.” They were applying arithmetic facts to everyday life.

Here’s the caption that appeared under the May 6, 1967, photo: At left, working with measures of liquid capacity, are: John, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Schneider, 2522 Meadow Lane, and Susan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. James McHaney, 1425 Bessie; time, Elizabeth, daughter of Mrs. Bobbie Henderson, 1453 Howell, and Melinda, daughter of  Mrs. Morley Swingle; and, solid volume, Debra, daughter of  Mr. and Mrs. L. Edgar Massey, 564 North Boulevard, and Lyn, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. W. A. Williams, 1235 Normal.

I hated shooting school feature photos (except for the five bucks). You can see what a hassle it was to get not just the names of the kids, but their parents and their addresses, too. Can you imagine what that would be like in today’s blended family environment?

At least this assignment had some neat props. The killers were ones where all the class did was make a poster or a bulletin board. Deadly dull.

Rulers, yardsticks and scales

The photo caption read: Learning about rulers, yardsticks and scales are Stuart, son of Mr. and Mrs. Don Caldwell, 372 North Park; Kathleen, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. C. E. Williams, 336 North Lorimier; Susan, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Barklage, 2427 Brookwood; Martha, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Walker, 1235 Sailer Circle; Scott, son of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Friedricksen, 535 North Sprigg; and Stephen, son of Dr. and Mrs. Bryce D. March, Kage Road.

Judy Crow captured good quotes

Staff Writer Judy Crow captured some good quotes from the children. You can find her story about the third graders at this link.

Some Missourian reporters resented having to do school features and asked me to leave their bylines off them. I have a testy memo from Judy where she wrote that she took the school assignments seriously and lobbied me to keep putting the bylines on the stories to shame the others into doing a good job.

I sure didn’t want to get on Judy’s bad side, so I heeded her wishes.

Tucker Lamkin, left, was featured on the May 6, 1967, Missourian Youth Page, in a story by Margaret Randol headlined, “Kindergarten Class Has a Unique Helper (She’s a He!)”

Tucker, son of Mr. and Mrs. J.T. Lamkin, 702 North street, was the first male to participate in Central High School’s kindergarten aid program.

[Editor’s note: The story referred to Tucker as an “aid,”which didn’t feel right to me, so I checked an online reference which said, ” In American English, a personal assistant is usually an aide (nurse’s aide, presidential aide) but an inanimate object or process is always an aid (hearing aid, first aid).”  I actually SAW Tucker move, so I can attest that he was NOT an “inanimate object,” and was an aide. I didn’t write the original story, but I probably edited it and should have caught it 43 years ago. It’s probably too late to run a correction.]

Signs of acceptance

I’ve discovered over the years that there are two steps that have to be taken before a minority group can be said to be integrated into a larger group.

Step 1: You do “First” person stories:

• First woman firefighter
• First black firefighter
• First woman construction worker
• First Hispanic Representative
• First gay mayor (Get the idea?)

Step 2: (and more importantly) The LAST time you do one of those “First” person stories. That’s when it stops being unusual to see that group as news.

Little girls want to marry him

Margaret did a good job on the story. There are lots of funny quotes:

• “Isn’t he handsome?”
• “I’m going to marry him when I grow up.”
• “No, you aren’t. He’s going to marry me. Maybe he’ll even let me ring the bell when it’s time to go in.”

It’s worth following this link to read the whole story about Tucker’s Adventures in Kindergarten.

Uncharacteristically, the children in the photo with Tucker aren’t identified. I’m pretty sure jBlue chewed me out for that.