The night before its wake on Saturday, January 30, when the public would be invited to say goodbye to the Central High School gymnasium, the lights were burning brightly.
I had forgotten I had taken more photos in the gym when I wandered the halls in 2009. I was impressed then with how well the overall building and the gym had held up since it was built in 1955. Maybe its defects are hidden.
Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the images.
The countdown has started for the gym we old Central High School students remember. The Missourian reported that the 84-by-50-foot gym, built in 1955, will be replaced by administrative offices and other features sometime in March.
The public is invited to see the gym one last time on Saturday, January 30, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. I guess it won’t matter if we walk across the polished floor in our street shoes this time.
Here is a collection of stories I’ve done where the gym was featured.
Kid Adam looked at this picture and commented, “Did dark socks not exist in that time frame?” The post has several random CHS photos in it. (Click on the photos to make them larger. Click on the links to go to the original story and more pictures.)
The dreaded rope climb
I remember how much “fun” PE was. I always wondered whose job it was to inspect the “Jesus Nut” that held the rope to the ceiling.
“All you could hear was breathing”
Students gathered around a TV hastily pulled into the gym so they could hear details about the shooting of President John F. Kennedy. Our Age of Innocence was over, and it was only going to get worse.
I envisioned my female counterparts being ushered into individual cleansing facilities where there would be soft music playing, the water would come out at the perfect temperature, towels wouldn’t be needed because each compartment would be equipped with air-drying fans and there would be a gentle spritzing of the perfume of the girl’s choice on the way out. Attendants, probably freshmen, would take care of nail and hair maintenance and see that clothing was restored with nary a muss.
There’s no telling how many queen crownings I shot in that gym.
The September 21, 1967, Missourian listed the 1967 Girardot Queen court: Miss Mary Hirsch, center, daughter ofMr. and Mrs. Ralph Hirsch, 1855 Thilenius, was crowned Central High SchoolGirardotQueen at ceremonies last Friday in the school gymnasium. Her attendants are, from left,Miss Holly Lueders, daughter ofMr. and Mrs. Paul Lueders, 1115 North Henderson;Miss Jane Dunklin, daughter ofMr. and Mrs. Maurice T. Dunklin, 839 Alta Vista;Miss Georganne Penzel, daughter ofMr. and Mrs. George Penzel, 1844 Thilenius, andMiss Debby Holland, daughter of theRev. and Mrs. W.T. Holland, 2221 Brookwood.
Gym Jim putting up decorations
Jim Stone and some other classmates were decorating the gym for something or other.
More decorating pictures
Right after I published Jim, I discovered more pictures of the gym being transformed into something special under the watchful eye of Miss Sackman.
Secretary Helen Ketterer watching wrestling
Quiet Helen Ketterer became a different person at a wrestling match.
Coach Bob Goodwin 1925-2014
Bob Goodwin taught a total of 33 years in Southeast Missouri schools, including Lilbourn, Chaffee, Cape and Jackson. He died in 2014.
Principal Dallas Albers, an inveterate suspenders-wearer, noticed Sylvester Johnson admiring the pants-holder-uppers at an assembly one day, so he made a “deal” with him: if the team won the homecoming game with Sikeston, Syl wouldn’t have to worry about his pants falling down at the dance – they would be securely held up by the coveted suspenders.
This pep rally made me think of the TV series Friday Night Lights.
Looking for contact lens
I’m pretty sure this was the first game I covered that involved a lost contact lens. Follow the link to check out the pep band in their tiger-stripe jackets.
1965 Majorettes
After taking several outside shots, we moved the 1965 Majorettes indoors to the gym.
1970 aerial shows new gym being built
This aerial view of Central High School from the early 1970s is looking from the southeast corner roughly to the northwest. Caruthers Ave. is running along the right side of the photo. The new gym is under construction and the swimming pool with its bubble hasn’t been started. The post also has more recent aerials of the school.
World’s ugliest cheerleaders
I’ve shot scads of cheerleaders at high school, college and pro games. Every organization must have used different qualifications. Some girls were picked for looks; some for popularity; other for spirit; others for athletic or dancing ability; others must have been daughters of community movers and shakers. This group must have been selected for having the hairiest legs.
I remember Anne Buchanan
One of the pictures I found of Anne Buchanan was with the other cheerleaders collecting for the March of Dimes in 1963. She’s on the right.
After I started school, we quit following Dad from town to town in the trailer he’d park in whatever space he could find for us. That meant that he was living in hotels, motels and boarding houses for weeks at a time, maybe making it home every weekend or two.
There wasn’t a lot of entertainment options when you’re building roads and bridges from cain’t see to cain’t see, even if you weren’t too tired to avail yourself of them.
That’s when he turned to paperback murder mysteries.
He preferred Perry Mason
His first choice was Erle Stanley Garnder’sPerry Mason mysteries. If nothing else, the story descriptions on the backs of the book were almost as good as the book.
“You find too many bodies, Mason,” said Lieutenant Tragg coldly. [Tragg was the cop who always seemed to be the one accusing Mason’s clients of murder.]
“Don’t be silly,” Perry Mason answered, “I had no idea this man was dead. I brought you here to hear him confess.”
Pocket books became popular during WW II
Pocket Books, now a division of Simon and Schuster, produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback book in 1939, but they became really popular when material shortages during World War II worked to their advantage. The books would fit in a pocket, were easy to read and cheap to produce.
Most of Dad’s books cost a quarter, although I did see the price start to creep up over the years to 35 and 45 cents. They generally had brassy colors and semi-revealing models.
Mickey Spillane and others
If he couldn’t find a Perry Mason, he’d dip into a Mickey Spillane or Shell Scott or whoever else happened to be on the shelf. Their covers tended to be a bit cruder (both in execution and subject matter), and their tease copy wasn’t as well done.
I read lots of paperbacks, but they were mostly non-fiction I picked up at Metro News on Broadway across from the Rialto. I never read the mystery genre, so I’m going to dip into Dad’s stash to see what I missed.
I asked my grandfather why HE liked to read murder mysteries, but never picked up any of my sporting or adventure magazines like Field and Stream or Argosy.
“Reading a murder mystery doesn’t make me want to go out and kill somebody. Reading about fishing would make me want to go out and do that, and I can’t,” he explained.
Mystery book photo gallery
Here are some other books cluttering up the shelf. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.
Road Warriorette Anne and I were rocketing up the Interstate through Alabama on a dark night. She was straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of Birmingham’s bare-bottomed statue of Vulcan perched high atop the Red Mountain overlooking the former steel town.
Anne, despite having written a book called Kiss and Tell: Secrets of Sexual Desire from Women 15 to 97, was not looking for any prurient reasons; she was looking to see if the Vulcan’s torch was green or red; the latter meaning that there had been a road fatality in the past 24 hours. (More about that later.)
Alas, she saw neither the bare bottom, the lighted torch, or, truth be told, ANYTHING about Vulcan. We kept on truckin’, with her swearing that I had been pulling her leg.
As always, clicking on a photo will make it larger.
Moon Over Homewood
The statue’s nakedbuttockshave been source of humor for many years. Chick Churn and the Chillydippers recorded a novelty song, Moon Over Homewood, that refers to the fact that the statue “moons” the neighboring suburb ofHomewood, Alabama. If you play the song, it will soon become obvious why you’ve never heard it before.
In ancient Rome, Vulcan was the god of the forge, a shop with a furnace where metal is heated and hammered out into useful items. His father was Jupiter, the supreme ruler of the universe, and his mother, Juno. Unlike all the other gods and goddesses, who were perfectly beautiful, Vulcan was ugly and lame. He was thrown from Mount Olympus, the home of the gods. After falling for an entire day, he landed on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea and worked as a blacksmith, using a volcano as his forge. The one-eyed Cyclopes were his helpers. He made weapons and armor for all the gods but was kindly and peaceful himself. Vulcan married Venus, goddess of Love and Beauty.
Birmingham in the distance
But what does an ancient god have to do with a modern city?
Birmingham was founded in 1871. The area where the city grew is unique because it contains coal, iron ore and limestone, the raw materials for making iron and steel. Birmingham’s founders knew this would be a good place to build an industrial city. By 1900, Birmingham was called the “Magic City” because it grew so quickly. [It was also known as “Smoke City” on the CB because of the way the valley held the industrial fog in it.]
A city of the industrial South
City leaders wanted to advertise Birmingham and the state of Alabama to the world by entering an exhibit in the St. Louis World’s Fair. James A. MacKnight, the manager of the Alabama State Fair, decided a statue of Vulcan would best highlight the area’s growing industrial abilities. MacKnight searched for a sculptor, and finally found Giuseppe Moretti, an Italian immigrant who had come to New York City in 1888 and was becoming well known for creating large and beautiful statues.
This is not a small statue
With the World’s Fair opening less than five months away, Moretti wasted no time getting to work. He made a two-foot tall clay model. Next, he made a full-size clay model, using a large, abandoned church in New Jersey as his studio. The clay was applied over a wooden form. Because Vulcan was so big, the wooden form and the clay model were actually in two pieces – the top and bottom half of Vulcan. Moretti then used this full-size model to create plaster molds, which were shipped back to Birmingham. Birmingham Steel and Iron Company used the molds to cast the statue in iron. The casting was done one piece (21 pieces) at a time.
Statue was assembled in St. Louis
As the statue’s pieces were cast, they were sent to St. Louis to be assembled. The statue of Vulcan, with his dark, burnished, metallic finish, was dedicated on June 7, 1904, in the Palace of Mines and Metallurgy at the World’s Fair. Moretti sculpted Vulcan standing with his anvil at his left side. In his left hand, he held his hammer. He held his right hand high in the air, admiring a spear he had just finished making in his forge. The statue proved to be a very popular exhibit and won the Grand Prize, as well as medals for the sculptor and foundry.
Returned to suffer indignities
In 1905, when the World’s Fair had ended, Vulcan was taken apart and brought by train back to Birmingham. His pieces lay atop Red Mountain while city leaders tried to decide where to put him. Some wanted him in Capitol Park, now called Linn Park, in downtown Birmingham. Others thought he should stand atop Red Mountain. After a year and a half, he wound up at the Alabama State Fairgrounds. Although it was to be a temporary home, Vulcan stayed there for almost thirty years. Moretti was not there to help, and Vulcan wasn’t put together correctly. He couldn’t hold his hammer because his left hand was turned the wrong way. His left arm had to be supported by a timber. His right hand was put on backwards, so he could not hold his spear. Merchants began to use him for advertising, and over the years he held various objects, such as a giant ice cream cone, a pickle sign and a Coke bottle. Later he wore a giant pair of Liberty overalls. In the 1930s he was repainted in flesh tones. Also, people only saw him for the few weeks the fair was open each year.
Moved to Red Mountain
People began to discuss bringing back Vulcan’s dignity and moving him to a park to be created especially for him atop Red Mountain. It took years for the new park to be built, partly because of the hard economic times during the years of the Great Depression. During the Depression, the United States government formed the Works Progress Administration. Also known as the WPA, this agency provided unemployed people with jobs, such as constructing trails and buildings in public parks. The WPA agreed to help get the land ready for the new park and to construct a museum as well as a beautiful stone pedestal for the statue. In May 1939, Vulcan, now painted with aluminum paint, was finally in his new home in Vulcan Park, atop Red Mountain. The hollow statue was partially filled with concrete to help anchor it in place.
Neon torch was removed in the 1999 restoration
In 1946, some safety-minded citizens decided Vulcan should remind everyone to drive carefully. Instead of his newly forged spear, he now held a cone-shaped, lighted beacon. This signal glowed green on days no one was killed in an auto accident and red on days when there was a fatality.
In the late 1960s, people began to feel Vulcan and his park should be further “modernized” for Birmingham’s one-hundredth birthday in 1971. This idea led to the addition of a huge marble-clad enclosure and observation deck, which covered up the original stone pedestal. These additions made it difficult for visitors to see Vulcan from below and hid the beautiful stone.
During this time, the statue was also painted the color of iron ore. Over the years, the concrete poured inside Vulcan in the 1930s as an anchor began to cause problems. It also expanded and contracted at a different rate from the cast iron. Since Vulcan did not have a top to his head, rain poured into the statue. These factors caused the statue to develop cracks. In 1999, Vulcan had to be removed from his pedestal.
Vulcan back on top of world
Vulcan Park Foundation was formed in 1999 to raise money to restore Vulcan to his original glory. The pieces of Vulcan were sent to Robinson Iron and Steel who repaired (and in some cases recast) the statue – using original drawings from the artist Moretti. Vulcan is now painted gray – thought to be his original color. In 2003, Birmingham watched with anticipation as each piece of Vulcan was lifted onto the restored original pedestal. That park reopened to the public in 2004. Birmingham is glad to have Vulcan back in his rightful place on top of Red Mountain.
The night before its wake on Saturday, January 30, when the public would be invited to say goodbye to the Central High School gymnasium, the lights were burning brightly.
