Boy Scout merit badges are designed to allow boys to learn about sports, crafts, science, trades, business and future careers. There are more than 100 badges these days, many of which weren’t even on the drawing board in the mid-60s when I was earning them.
The ones that are missing are equally interesting. The current list doesn’t include Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Beef Production, Beekeeping, Botany, Corn Farming, Cotton Farming, Dairying, Farm Arrangement, Forage Crops, Fruit and Nut Growing, Hog Production, Pigeon Raising, Poultry Keeping, Rabbit Raising, Sheep Farming, and Small Grains. In fact, the only remaining agricultural badge is Farm Mechanics.
Another indication of how times have changed is this requirement: “You must have another person with you at each meeting with the merit badge counselor. This person can be another Scout, your parents or guardian, a brother or sister, a relative, or a friend.”
Badges needed to advance in rank
My 1963 Boy Scout Requirement book lists the merit badges needed to advance to Star, Life and Eagle ranks. I made it to Life before I was distracted by girls and newspapering.
I ended up with more than 21 merit badges, but I tended to go after ones I was interested in rather than what was required. Brothers David and Mark were more diligent: they both made Eagle.
Merit badge counselors
Tomorrow I’ll run a 1971 list of all the merit badge in the SE Missouri district. You’ll recognize lots of names.
Photo gallery of merit badge books
We had a whole shelf of Scout books in the basement. Here are some of the merit badge books that were much-thumbed. They were great references, even if you weren’t working on a particular badge. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.
Brother Mark turned 60 on March 10. It’s hard to believe. It seems like it was just yesterday that Mother, Son Adam and I snuck up to St. Louis to attend a surprise birthday party for his 50th trip around the sun.
This picture was taken when he and Robin got married September 8, 2014. Dad’s construction company had a whole bunch of padlocks with a key code of 2406, so we used them over the years on family locks in at least four states. Giving a 2406 to Robin meant that she was now, officially, a Steinhoff.
One of my all-time favorites
This shot of Mother and Mark in front of the trailer at Kentucky Lake is one of my favorite pictures of the two of them. Sometimes you’d love to be able to go back and relive a moment.
Mark through the years
I’m not going to use ALL of my Mark pictures for his 60th. He may have a few more birthdays to go, and I need to dole them out. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.
I got a package in the mail this morning from Brother Mark. It contained two plastic bags of U.S. postage stamps and a letter that read, in part:
“Dad had put away several boxes of stamps years ago in the basement. He put them in old checking account check boxes and sealed them with tape. That was good and it was bad. Good, because it kept anyone from using them, but even though he separated most of the with a piece of waxed paper, the humidity i the basement got into some of them and caused the glue to become sticky.
Bought them in sheets
“Dad used to buy stamps when he went to the post office to pick up mail for Steinhoff & Kirkwood Construction. He would buy them a sheet at a time and he wanted ones that had a block number on them, probably because he thought it might be worth more like that.
“I took them to some folks in St. Louis who appraised them to be worth about $65 [he didn’t say how much more than face value, if any, they were worth]. I didn’t think it was worth selling them for such a small amount to be split three ways [Mark, David and me]. I’ve done my best to equally separate the stamps so that everyone gets a fair sample of what was there.”
Lila and I collected stamps
When I was a kid, I collected stamps, but never had anything that was worth a whole lot, then Wife Lila collected commemoratives for awhile. She checked with Sons Matt and Adam, but neither of them were interested in them, so she was going to offer them up for sale. None of mine were rare, and most had been cancelled, so I don’t think they’ll move us into a better brand of cat food.
I told her the ones Mark sent had no real sentimental value for me, so why doesn’t she just use them on mail. She pointed out that we send very few snail mail letters these days, and, even if we did, most of the stamps are of such small denominations that you’d have to cover the whole front of the envelope with them.
Got any stamp collectors out there? Or snail mailers? (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)
Newspapers are big on year in review stories because they can be written well in advance as space fillers for the slow holiday weeks. Why should I be any different (except for the part about doing it well in advance)?
I have to admit I’ve slacked off this year. After almost three years of posting seven days a week except for when there was a technical glitch, I took some big chunks of time off when I was caring for my mother before she died this spring. Once I found that the world wouldn’t end if I skipped a day or three, I started doing it more often when I was busy.
The most popular post last year was a piece I originally posted in 2011 about the burning and sinking of the steamboat Stonewall near Neely’s Landing. Two or three hundred people burned or drowned in the disaster. Sixty or 70 bodies were buried in a mass grave that I have searched for unsuccessfully.
I followed up the original post with a few others:
You readers were extraordinarily kind when I wrote about Mother’s death in June. An account of the family’s rather unconventional graveside ceremony was the second-most read story for the year. My family and I appreciate the many notes you all left.
Mother seldom said, “Goodbye.” She preferred “See you later,” and Brother David scratched that phrase on her casket before it was lowered in the ground.
Kermit “Moose” Meystedt
Our lives are marked by special dates and ceremonies. When we are kids, we attend birthday parties of our classmates. As we get older, we’re go to proms, ballgames and dances. Not long after that, it’s weddings, followed by baby showers. We have a bit of a gap before we start attending the funerals of the parents of friends. Finally, when we are at the stage where we have more yesterdays than tomorrows, it’s our turn to show up in the obituary pages.
Curator Jessica and I toured the Kent State May 4 Vistors Center on one of my Ohio rambles. We were fortunate enough to meet Dean Kahler, one of the students shot by the National Guard that day in 1970. He is one of the most remarkable men I’ve met, and I don’t say that about a lot of people. His story was in fourth place.
His description of that day is haunting. Click on the video if you don’t follow a single other link.
“I knew I had been shot because it felt like a bee sting. I knew immediately because my legs got real tight, then they relaxed just like in zoology class when you pith a frog,” he said. He never walked again, but he has turned into a highly competitive wheelchair athlete.
After the shooting stopped, he called out to see if there were any Boy Scouts around who could turn him over. “The only thought that came into my head was if I was turned over, would I bleed more internally than externally? I thought (shrugs shoulders) there’s a 50 / 50 chance that you’re going to die one way or the other. I knew I might die. I had a really good chance of dying, so I wanted to see the sky, the sun, leaves, peoples faces. I didn’t want to be eating grass when I died.”
Tower Rock Quarry Exposed
I started posting old story links to a Facebook page for folks who are interested in the Mississippi River. That’s probably why this 2011 story about Tower Rock and how the low water had exposed an old stone quarry south of the Rock was pushed to fifth place.
Mary Welch Steinhoff 1921- 2015
I wrote so many stories about Mother (some of them were even true) that complete strangers would come up to her in the grocery store and ask if she was “Ken’s Mother?” She pretended not to like that, but I know she enjoyed the attention. When I wrote her obituary on June 23, 2015, I came up with a list of more than three dozen links before I quit searching. I guess that’s why she became the mother everybody had (or wished they had had).
You can’t know how comforting it was to read the comments you left about a woman many of you knew only through my late-night ramblings. She had a great run. October will forever be Birthday Season.
The picture is a card sent to Mother at the Lutheran Home from someone who had never met her in person. I think it captures her spirit.
The Old Burnt Mill
Sometimes you run across a reference to a place and you just have to go searching for it. That’s how I ended up at the Old Burnt Mill in Perry county.
It’s an interesting building with a fascinating history of hubris, double-dealing, maybe a murder and a haunting.
This picture drives me crazy
This copyrighted photo of girls wearing “ugly” gym suits has been stolen by I can’t count how many websites. It’s been shared hundreds of thousands of times, even though I’ve been quick to file DCMA takedown notices every time I find it posted.
The crazy thing is that hundreds swear that the photo was taken at their high school and even contains their sisters. Trust me, I took the photo and have the original 4×5 negative in a file box. It was taken at Central High School. And, if Rosanne Hecht or Joni Tickel aren’t your sisters, then you’re wrong.
For the record, I love it when people share links to my posts, but I get really cranky if you copy and publish a photo without permission.
It was only number eight on the hit parade, but it would be a lot higher if the folks who ripped it off had posted links.
CHS 2015 class reunion
It’s not fair that Terry Hopkins can still fit in his letter jacket without sucking in his stomach so much that his eyes bug out. There was a big difference between the last get-together and the 2015 Central High School reunion. We’ve all gotten a lot grayer and a lot less spry. (Except for Terry, of course, who was probably the reason that the post scored the number nine spot.)
A celebration of Wimpy’s
The Centenary United Methodist Church held a one-day only Wimpy’s Day, featuring the original Wimpy’s family cooking to the original recipes.
Boy Scout merit badges are designed to allow boys to learn about sports, crafts, science, trades, business and future careers. There are more than 100 badges these days, many of which weren’t even on the drawing board in the mid-60s when I was earning them.
My 1963 Boy Scout Requirement book lists the merit badges needed to advance to Star, Life and Eagle ranks. I made it to Life before I was distracted by girls and newspapering.
Tomorrow I’ll run a 1971 list of all the merit badge in the SE Missouri district. You’ll recognize lots of names.
