Cape Girardeau History and Photos

March 4, 2016

Firestone’s Shocking Radio

This Firestone Fire Chief 4-C-3 radio was born the same year I was – 1947 – if Google info is correct. It was the size of a small suitcase, and quite shocking in its day (more about that later).

You can click on the pictures to make them larger.

Dad and Roy Welch would take it fishing

Dad worked at the Firestone store in downtown Cape for awhile, so he might have been the one who bought the radio, but I usually associated with my grandfather, Roy E. Welch. A huge 9-volt battery made it portable.

You can see it on the bank behind Dad while he’s fishing.

The radio’s innards

The battery is long gone. I find it interesting that the case and the side brackets are all wood.

A spec sheet on the Radiomuseum website said the “Reception principle was Superhet with RF-stage; ZF/IF 455 kHz; 2 AF stages.”

Tubes, remember tubes?

Tube testers could be found in all kinds of stores. If your radio or TV stopped working, you’d pull out all the tubes and drag them to your nearest drug, grocery or hardware store. There, you’d stick them in the tester gizmo one at a time until you found the bad one, pay a buck or so for a replacement, then go home to plug them all in again.

There was nothing that made you feel more like a scientific genius than seeing your gadget come back to life.

Radio made in Akron

A handy-dandy sticker said the radio was made in the U.S.A, in Akron, Ohio, to be exact.

It was even nice enough to include a little schematic showing the type of tubes it used and their locations. In case you are playing along at home, here are the six tubes it took: 1N5GT, 1A7GT, 1N5GT, 1H5GT, 3Q5GT and 117Z6GT.

A couple knobs are missing

The top opened up to expose the volume and tuning controls and a tiny selector switch in the middle that determined if you were running on AC power or the battery.

The knobs are missing, which proved problematic when it was plugged into a wall outlet. The radio was poorly grounded, so as soon as you touched any metal part on it, you would find 60-cycle electrical current passing through your body, a distinctly unpleasant experience.

One learned very quickly to approximate how loud you wanted it to sound BEFORE you plugged it in, and to turn it off by pulling the plug.

Always set to 960 AM

There was no need to tune the radio: it was always set to 960 AM, KFVS radio. That’s where Dad would listen to Harry Caray calling the St. Louis Cardinal games, hoping to hear his signature line, “It might be … it could be … it IS! A home run! Holy cow!”

I was tempted to see if it still worked, but I think I cheated death enough when I was a kid. That device might have been hiding up in the attic for 45 years just waiting for me to plug it in, thinking, “That fool is going to give me one more crack at him.”

March 2, 2016

No. 7-1/2 Erector Set

Many an hour was whiled away building stuff with my “Sensational New No. 7-1/2 Engineer’s Erector Set.” (Lincoln Logs came first.)

Based on an excellent reference, Gilbert Erector Set Guidebook by Bruce H. Hansen, my particular set was a 1957 model. The giveaway is the illustration of a walking beam engine.

Mine is a piker compared to the 1931 #10 Climax of Erector Glory set which weighed in at 150 lb. Fewer that 10 of them are known to still exist.

Parts, parts and parts

You’ll be able to see when you get to the manual how complicated some of the projects were. I don’t know how complete my set is today because Dad was known to dip into it when he needed a particular screw or nut for something that needed fixing around the house.

A. C. Gilbert was born February 15, 1884 and died January 18, 1961, Hansen reported. After winning a gold medal in pole vaulting at the 1908 Olympics, he earned his degree in medicine at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut. Instead of practicing medicine or becoming a college athletic director, he started the Mysto Manufacturing Company in 1909. He introduced the Erector set in 1913.

Made for a simpler time

A.C. was a frugal guy. If he found some old spare parts left over that didn’t match the current set, he’d throw them in anyway, figuring a 7-14-year-old wouldn’t notice the difference. In Gilbert’s 1954 biography, he estimated that over 30 million sets had been sold, and sales hadn’t reached their peak yet.

Erector sets were widely advertised, but parents back then didn’t have to worry about explaining to Little Johnny why he might have to go to the hospital if the project lasted longer than four hours.

Erector set gallery

Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

February 29, 2016

Another Jackson Pickin’

I know I did a story about the monthly “pickin'” at Jackson’s Cape County History Center recently, but I was there again Saturday night and couldn’t help shooting more pictures. It’s officially promoted as a “Traditional Music Night,” but everybody just calls it a “pickin'” where anybody with a musical instrument can sit down and play away. Miscues, false starts and forgotten lyrics add to the fun.

The first performance I attended had maybe a dozen or so people singing, toe tapping and clapping with the musicians. Attendance Saturday night was just under the number where the Fire Marshall might get interested. (Director Carla Jordan is working on that problem.)

Gary R. Lucy exhibit still up

The panels for the Gary R. Lucy exhibit took up the center portion of the room, but there was plenty of seating around the edges. If you haven’t been in to see the exhibit, it’ll be up until April 10.

Doc – a Leap Year baby

Carla’s husband Steve Jordan – better know as “Doc” – looks on while Carla sings a song with a confusing chorus that most of us were afraid to join in on because we weren’t sure what would come out if our tongues got tangled. He was born on February 29, the same date as the bass player, so they are going to be carded for a long, long time.

History Center photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around the gallery. Toe-tapping is allowed, but mouse clicks work better.

Cape County History Center Pickin’ 02-17-2016

February 27, 2016

Bald Headed Men of America

In 1973, I sponsored Dad to a lifetime membership in the Bald Headed Men of America. He started losing his hair in his 20s, so I knew I was going to be destined to comb my hair with a washrag. He was self conscious about it, Mother said, and always wore a hat when he was younger.

When he got older, he said one of the few things he missed about having hair was the protection it gave you against sunburn and scraping your head on stuff.

Check out my comb-over

I didn’t have any room to talk. By 1976, this photo taken in the Palm Beach Post photo department, will demonstrate I was sporting a serious comb-over. In my defense, I can only say that when you are combing your hair, you are look straight into your face, not at the top of your head. You’ve been parting your hair since childhood, so you don’t sense that your part keeps creeping closer and closer to your ear.

My moment of truth came when I was riding in an open National Guard jeep on the way to photograph their summer camp. I felt my hair streaming out about a foot and thought, “Kid, your hair is going to get caught the in rearview mirror of a passing semi and you’re going to be dragged to an ignoble death.”

I visited a barber when I got back to town, and said, “It’s time.”

(I don’t think it’s necessary for you to click on the photo to make it larger.)

Founder J.T. Capps III

I did a quick Google search for BHMA founder J.T. Capps III, figuring his obit would have some interesting tidbit I could add to the post. It turned out that he’s still alive and promoting beautiful heads – at least as late as 2015.

Maybe guys who don’t waste energy growing hair live longer. I certainly hope so.

The organization even had a newsletter that came out quarterly. The July 1974 noted that Vice President Gerald Ford had been made the group’s first honorary member.