Cape Girardeau History and Photos

April 27, 2015

Vinton County Padiddle

Curator Jessica and I had been roaming around in SE Ohio’s Vinton county looking at iron furnaces, cemeteries, the haunted Moonville Railroad tunnel (I’m getting around to that) and sunsets.

Just as I was pulling up to the main road, my headlights lit up a stop sign, much like one I photographed on Water Street. (Click on the photo to make it larger.)

Padiddle

Just then, I noticed a padiddle – a car with one headlight out – coming around the bend. I know all about padiddles because my Road Warriorette asked me if I had ever played the game after she spotted a one-eyed 18-wheeler on our road trip last fall.

Not being up on what games youngsters are playing, I hit Google for an explanation. I was enlightened by the Urban Dictionary: A game in which you look for cars with headlight or foglight out (padiddle) [also spelled pididdle] or tail light (pedunk) and call it out. When someone correctly calls a padidle or pedunk, all members of the opposite sex present must remove an article of clothing.
Example: Padiddle! You have to take off your shirts.

“Are you getting too sleepy to drive?”

Right after I declared “PADIDDLE” and waited expectantly for something exciting to happen, Miz Jessica said, “Ken, if you are getting sleepy, I can drive us back to Athens.”

“What do you mean ‘if I’m getting sleepy?’ I’m fine.”

“I figured you must be sleeping, because if you expect me to play by Urban Dictionary rules, then you have to be dreaming.”

Well, you can’t blame somebody for trying. I mean, what’s the use of doing research if you can’t put your knowledge to good use?

April 26, 2015

The REAL Dutchtown Tavern

Back on April 4, I did a post on a foundation down in Blomeyer that I thought was the Dutchtown Tavern. I hedged my bets by putting a question mark in the headline. Some readers had memories of the tavern, but at least one of them thought it was at the base of the high hill in Dutchtown proper, not across from the Montgomery Drive-In.

Saturday afternoon, I stopped in at that building, which now sports a sign that reads “Dutchtown Used Furniture.” Painted on the side is a Coca Cola ad and a sign that says, “Slaughter’s Stor.”

Click on the photos to make them larger.

Don and Cathy Heuring own the place

Don and Cathy Heuring established the Dutchtown Used Furniture Store in 2004. The building, which is more than a hundred years old, they said, was the Dutchtown Tavern until 1993, when it closed after owner Jim Slaughter died. His widow sold the place, and it served several different businesses until the Heurings took over.

Was tavern and liquor store

The Heurings said the bar was on this side of the archway, and the liquor store was on the other side.

I’m still a little confused. The previous story mentioned that Raymond John “Tiny” Ford owned and operated several regional bars and nightclubs, including Tiny’s Danceland, The Jamna, The Ozark Corral, Dutchtown Tavern, and Edgewater Bar. Mr. Ford died in 2002 at 85, so he may have been involved in the tavern business before Mr. Slaughter.

Can anyone clear that up?

April 25, 2015

Finn Levi Steinhoff 04/24/2015

I got an email from Son Adam at 8:33 a.m. Friday: “We are at the hospital.”

That was followed by a Facebook announcement from Carly Steinhoff: “We would like to introduce Finn Levi Steinhoff. Born at 12:59 p.m., 7 lbs 9 oz, 20″. {Swoon}”

Gosh, those things are tiny

You forget how small those babies are (Carly might differ). It doesn’t take long for them to grow up, though. Sarah Steinhoff posted a photo that shows that Wife Lila is now shorter than Grandson Malcolm.

We’re an “L” of a family

Through accident and design, we are a family with lots of L middle names. My brothers and I are Kenneth Lee, David Louis and Mark Lynn.

Our boys are Matthew Louis and Adam Lynn. The grandsons are Malcolm Lee, Graham Louis, Elliot Lane and, now, Finn Levi.

Finn’s brothers Graham and Elliot (left and right) and Cousin Malcolm in the middle (isn’t there a TV show by that name) celebrate Birthday Zero.

I’m in Cape, so it’ll be awhile before I meet Finn in person, but I was able to break the news to Mother that she had another great-grandson. That almost made up for it.

April 24, 2015

World Book Day

I was driving down the road this afternoon when someone on the radio mentioned that this was World Book Day. That caused a flashback to some photos of the side-by-side offices Dad and I had in the basement.

This was my desk, which is uncharacteristically neat and clean. I’m normally a stacker. The radio dial is set somewhere to the middle, so I was probably listening to KFVS, which I think was 960. It’s doubtful I could have picked up my favorite stations: WLS out of Chicago, WLN out of New Orleans or KXOK out of St. Louis.

The reference books I still have on my shelf nearly 50 years later are to the left of the radio. The Olivetti portable typewriter followed me to Ohio University and points beyond. I passed it on to Brother Mark at some point, and he still has it.

My darkroom equipment was eventually set up behind me on a table and Dad’s workbench. These photos must have been taken before I bought my enlarger and other stuff.

Shari saving me from Algebra

Maybe I cleaned up my desk because Girlfriend Shari was coming over to try to drill algebra into my skull. If you blow it up big enough, you can see a hand-scrawled note on the wall that says, “When I’m right, nobody remembers; When I’m wrong, nobody forgets.”

Dad’s side of the world

Dad had a real office where he did most of his book work, but he’d also work on things at home. There’s a blueprint on the left side of the desk. That lamp hanging down is still in use, and the fan is still there. The book shelves gradually filled with books, mostly about Scouting, but there are still a lot of Pinewood Derby cars and wooden neckerchief slides gathering dust. There is a stack of aluminum film cans containing our 8mm home movies to the left of the light.

Getting back to World Book Day, I’ve always been surrounded by books and magazines. When we lived in a tiny house trailer that Dad pulled from job to job, there wasn’t a lot of storage space, so my comic book collection was housed in a wooden seat with a hinged lid back in my bedroom. When you are an only child (at the time) and living out in the boonies, your books become your closest companions.

Dad and my grandfather liked murder mysteries

I asked my grandfather, who lived with us, why he liked Earl Stanley Garden and Perry Mason books and not the fishing magazines I subscribed to.

“Because I can read a mystery without wanting to kill someone, but if I read a fishing magazine, I’d want to go fishing,” he answered.

Our family subscribed to The St. Louis Globe-Democrat in the morning and The Southeast Missourian in the afternoon. We must have gotten at least half a dozen magazines. If nothing else was available, I’d read the cereal box.

When I finally got a library card, I checked out as many books as I could carry. I made a tiny mark inside the books when I finished them. A few years back, I prowled the aisles of Cape’s library until I saw some old friends that still had the marks in them. If any of the book police are reading this, I hope they will forgive my youthful transgression.