Cape Girardeau History and Photos

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.

April 23, 2015

Heislers’ Heifer Highway

Brothers David and Mark and I were talking about families who have lived on Kingsway Drive over the years. The Hales had a farm on the right side of the road as you were heading toward Jackson. Their pasture was right behind our house.

They were good about giving me permission to camp out in the hill behind us. It was far enough away that my buddies and I thought it was a big deal, but it was close enough that Mother and Dad could look out the window to see if we had set our tent on fire.

Where did the Heisler cows graze?

The Hale barn was on the same side as their pasture, so I knew where their cows grazed, but where did the Heisler cows, with a barn on the left side of the road, munch grass?

Mark said they grazed across the highway, where the Osage Center is today. When Highway 61 was widened, the state put in a culvert that both drained the area and let the cows go from the barn to the pasture.

Based on the vintage aerial, I would say that the cow culvert would be approximately where it looks like Cape Splash is expanding. I was tight on time and there was some orange plastic fencing blocking off the area, so I can’t swear the culvert is gone, but I didn’t see it.

Of course, Mark COULD have been pulling our collective legs. He has been known to do that.

April 22, 2015

Why Weren’t We Killed?

Looking at this photo from Steve McKeown’s collection of his dad’s old family photos made me think of the red Radio Flyer wagon Brothers Mark and David and our buddies used to streak down Kingsway Drive.

Our wagon had a tongue which folded back so a rider could steer the wagon, unlike the rope contraption in the photo.

We trudged up the hill time after time for a 45-second ride down from in front of 1618 Kingsway Drive to the fishhook-shaped J-curve at the bottom.

A physics lesson

We discovered the elemental law of physics that heavy objects at the top of the hill have lots of potential energy that gradually bleeds off by the bottom.That was the advantage of loading up the wagon with brothers and buddies. It also meant you had people to help pull it back up to the launch site. The brothers, unfortunately, would frequently beg off, saying they were “too tired” to walk back up the hill, leaving us to pull them AND the wagon back. It was amazing how their tiredness went away when it was time for another run.

Too often, the blast to the bottom would be interrupted by the cry of “CAR!!!” that would result in the tongue being abruptly twisted in whatever direction would throw us off into a ditch for safety.

Check out the socks

This wasn’t a generation of white sock wearers. Looks like Mom must have bought his jeans with the idea that he’d grow into them, and until he did, then rolling up the cuffs would keep them from dragging in the dirt.

Looks like his shoes are holding up well. I had a lot of pairs that had been half-soled. Late in grade school days, I would nail “taps,” onto the heel. Ostensibly they were to keep your heels from wearing down, but the real reason for putting them on was to make a cool noise when you walked the hallways in school. They came in various sizes – from tiny to huge horseshoe-shaped ones that were suitable for clogging.

The coolness factor was negated if you happened to hit a slick patch of floor that would cause your legs to spread apart like a guy with one leg in the boat and one on the dock.

April 21, 2015

On Their Permanent Records

Just to show you how your permanent record can come back to haunt you, here is a note I found stuffed away between the pages of a book. I was captain of the Trinity Lutheran School Safety Patrol in the eighth grade.

Mr. Mueller, the eighth grade teacher, was also advisor to the safety patrol. He evidently caught two of my patrolmen leaving their post three minutes early (with an exclamation point, no less). He wanted me to mark them down for five demerits each.

I won’t tell you who they are

At this late date, it’s really not worth it to add to their shame by publishing their last names, but they DO appear in this photo.

Here are other school safety patrol stories and photos: