Cape Girardeau History and Photos

August 2, 2015August 2, 2015

Picture This

I was going to write something profound about the 2015 reunion, but I need to let my thoughts simmer for awhile.

Maybe it’s my family’s brush with mortality lately; maybe it’s looking at that looping series of photos of our classmates who have graduated to the next level; maybe it’s just that the doggone stairs in the Arena building seem steeper than they used to. So, rather than post the rather melancholy thoughts that are floating around in my head right now, let’s just go straight to some happy pictures of the celebration we had.

2015 Reunion photo gallery

Click on any picture to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery. There are a lot of images of the photographer herding cats to set up the group shots. I’ll add that job to the list of career opportunities to avoid.

August 1, 2015August 1, 2015

CHS 2015 Reunion

Folks from the 1960s decade of Central High School classes gathered at the Arena building for a mixer Friday night. We’re getting to be a grayer group, but Terry Hopkins can still don his letter sweater without splitting the seams. Others – too many of us – are no longer around.

I kept looking around wishing I could see Bill East, who was at the 2010 reunion. Alas, he was one of the good guys taken way too early by cancer in 2012.

I apologize for the quality of some of the photos. The building was dark as the inside of a whale’s belly, and the lighting color balance was all over the charts. Maybe I should say the fuzzy pictures were a feature to make us look better rather than a technical drawback.

Reunion photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery. On a personal note, thanks to all of you who said nice things about this blog and who told me how much they appreciated Mother, even though most of you had never met her in person.

July 31, 2015July 31, 2015

Solving for the Unknown

What do the numbers 1965, 2015, Miss Rixman and X all have in common?

They have to do with solving for the unknown.

Staring into the eyes of my 50th Central High School Reunion weekend, the unknown I can’t solve – like X in Miss Rixman’s algebra class – is where in the heck has half a century gone?

Past reunions

July 29, 2015July 31, 2015

Making Math Difficult

When I started out as a substitute paper carrier making a whopping $2.50 a week, The Missourian cost 30 cents a week, making math easy when I went to collect on Saturdays.

We learned the times-three tables early in grade school, so figuring out 2 x .30 = .60, 3 x .30 = 90, and a month’s payment was $1.20 was no challenge.

Then the paper bumped up to 35 cents a week, making math much more difficult. I was not sorry to see the next increase take it to a much more easily multiplied 40 cents a week.

The receipts were issued in pads that were held in collection books like this one.

I hope this fixes it

I’ve been getting messages from folks saying that the email notification they are getting of new content has been broken. They were right. My best guess is that an automatic security update busticated something. Kid Matt deleted the email program and reinstalled it, so this is a test to see if it’s working again.

How much is it today?

I have a digital subscription to The Missourian, but I was curious how much home delivery costs today for someone living in Cape. What cost $1.40 in 1959 goes for $16.95 today.