Weeds and Windshields

Fields in N Cape County 08-25-2015I was blasting down State Route C on the way to Cape from Altenburg when I noticed tall stalks of what I took to be corn in the middle of what I think is soybeans (my farm knowledge is somewhere between erroneous and inadequate).

Traffic on C can move pretty fast, so I turned right onto 516 at New Wells, and took the next right onto 517, which put me on a little-traveled road on the backside of my field. There was a cornfield on the driver’s side of the car.

It was from there that the errant corn must have escaped. Or, maybe the farmer hadn’t cleaned his equipment off when moving from field to field. Or, maybe a bird dropped the seed. Who knows?

What is a weed?

Fields in N Cape County 08-25-2015Funny what sticks with you from grade school. The teacher asked the class if they could say what a weed was.

The answer was predictable: dandelion, crab grass, ragweed, Jimson weed…

“How about an oak?” the teacher asked.

“No, an oak is a tree. It’s not a weed,” the class protested.

“A weed,” the teacher explained, “is a wild plant growing where it is not wanted and in competition with cultivated plants. So, wouldn’t you consider an oak tree in the middle of a wheat field to be a weed?”

She had us there

So, somewhere back at Trinity Lutheran School, in the middle of the 20th Century, the seed of a weed oak tree was planted in my head.

You can click on the photo to make it larger. I’m sure somebody out there will tell me that that’s not corn in a soybean patch, that’s really a radish popping up in a field of rutabagas.

Lyndon Moore of Bloomfield

Lyndon Moore Altenburg 07-30-2014Last year about this time, I met Lyndon Moore at his exhibit of tools at the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum. Not only did he have a fabulous collection of vintage tools, he could tell you in minute detail every factoid related to them. The guy is also a natural storyteller.

Dropped in on him

Lyndon Moore 08-24-2015He made the mistake of saying, “If you’re ever down in Bloomfield, stop by.” I was IN Bloomfield on Monday and decided to take him up on his offer. With careful turn-by-turn directions over the cell phone by his wife, Margaret, I managed to find his shop on the outskirts of town.

As soon as he sat down, a dog the size of a small pony hopped up on top of him. Lyndon said the 7-year-old got accustomed to being a lapdog when he was a puppy and never gave up the habit when his paws got almost as big as my hands.

Travel all over the country

Margaret and Lyndon Moore 08-24-2015The couple are on the road all the time (along with their dogs) looking for more tools to add to their collection.They’re headed off to Indiana next.

They are leaning on their drivable 1915 Model T. It’s not a restoration, Lyndon said. Most of the parts are original.

Driving was an art

Lyndon Moore 08-24-2015Looking down at the floorboard, I noted three pedals: “Gas, brake and clutch?” I hazarded?

Not even close. The throttle was a lever on the steering column that looked like a turn signal. The pedals, in conjunction with the emergency brake handle and used in a mystifying combination would allow you to start, stop, go forward in two speeds, and back up. They could do 30 to 40 mph if the roads permitted, but few were that good.

Lefthanders had fewer broken arms

Lefthanders like Lyndon had an advantage. They were less likely to wind up with a broken arm if the engine kicked back when it was being hand-cranked.

The 1915 model had some major advances, like electric lights and an electric horn. Just to be safe, though, they kept the kerosene lights for backup.

I could have spent all afternoon with the Moores, but I had other folks to annoy.

324 William Street

324 William Street 06-17-2015I’ve always wondered about this house at 324 William Street. It was right on the border of Happy Hollow and just down the street from Louis Houck’s railroad overpasses. It’s nice to see that it looks like it has been spiffed up a bit lately.

Not much in the paper

A quick search of The Missourian’s archives didn’t turn up much. There have been some minor police blotter entries in recent years, but these are the only two stories I could find from “back when.”

  • July 6, 1937Mr. and Mrs. J.E. Fox and Mr. and Mrs. Harry Converse of Granite City, Ill., spent the weekend with Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie Seabaugh and Mr. and Mrs. Roy Eifert, 324 William Street. They came Saturday and returned Monday night. Mr. and Mrs. Fox and Mr. and Mrs. Seabaugh together celebrated wedding anniversaries Monday, the former having been married one month, and the latter, one year. Before her marriage, Mrs. Fox was Miss Arline Chippio of Granite City. Mrs. Seabaugh was formerly Miss Golda McCart of this city.
  • August 6, 1945Mr. and Mrs. Stein Hinton of Flint, Mich., arrived Saturday to spend two weeks with his mother, Mrs. H. H. Hinton, 22 North Lorimier street, and her sisters, Mrs. Lester Groves, 324 William street, and Mrs. Richard Hargraves of Sturdivant, and her brother, Jack Morton of Advance.

Ford Vs. Carter, 1976

720 1976-10-20 Missourian Ford-Carter AdThe hall closet was a catchall for seldom-worn coats, bottles of booze given Dad by vendors at Christmas (some have unbroken seals dating back to 1965) and general domestic detritus. On the top shelf was a stack of yellowing newspapers. Almost every time I came home, Mother would say, “Why don’t you go through those papers and either take them with you or throw them out.”

Every time, I’d answer, “Next time.”

A treasure trove of history

“Next time” finally came the other day. I discovered they were newspapers that had headlines of most of the major stories between the mid-1950s and the early 1970s. Space launches, Martin Luther King assassination and the riots in its aftermath, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Robert F. Kennedy assassination. Some were from The Southeast Missourian and The St. Louis Globe-Democrat, but there were also covers from papers all over the country.

It dawned on me that in the days before the Internet, newspapers would subscribe to a couple dozen publications, most of which never got read. I must have gone through the stacks and grabbed those significant headlines. Or, maybe I snatched them up from Metro News on Broadway.

I liked Carter, but voted for Ford

Let me go on record as saying that I believe that Jimmy Carter was an honorable man who got dealt a bad deck of cards during his term. I would have voted for him except for two things:

  1. I admired the way Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, sparing the country months of turmoil, even though he had to have known that he was committing political suicide. He took one for the country.
  2. I covered Gerald Ford when he came to South Florida on an uncharacteristically cold, rainy day. He rode in an open car waving at crowds and stopping to shake hands from time to time the whole length of Palm Beach County. I leapfrogged from spot to spot to catch him at several vantage points, and thought to myself (while wet and shivering), “This guy REALLY wants this job.”

A gentle attack ad

Jimmy Carter’s announcement that he has cancer made this Oct. 20, 1976, ad particularly memorable for me.

Carter made the mistake of being honest in a Playboy interview: Christ said, “I tell you that anyone who looks on a woman with lust has in his heart already committed adultery.” I’ve looked on a lot of women with lust. I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times. This is something that God recognizes I will do—and I have done it—and God forgives me for it. But that doesn’t mean that I condemn someone who not only looks on a woman with lust but who leaves his wife and shacks up with somebody out of wedlock. Christ says, don’t consider yourself better than someone else because one guy screws a whole bunch of women while the other guy is loyal to his wife. The guy who’s loyal to his wife ought not to be condescending or proud because of the relative degree of sinfulness.

The religious right, predictably, went nutso and condemned one of the most honorable and Christian presidents we’ve had for simply telling the truth.

I have to grudgingly respect this ad and its quiet message, though. It is factual, understated and effective.

Still, I’m sure Playboy circulation skyrocketed for that issue: I mean, you had to run right out to by a copy “to read the interview,” right?