Lila Perry Steinhoff Archives

May 21, 2012August 1, 2015

Bill East, Class of ’66

We’re getting to the point where we have more yesterdays than tomorrows. Still, it was a punch in the gut to see this posting about Bill East on Facebook a couple of weeks ago:

This is a very difficult status to enter. As you all know Bill is a very private person. I asked him to please allow me to let all of his friends know of his situation. Bill is in the later stages of stage 4 kidney cancer. The latest CT scan has shown it has spread into both lungs and has now gone into the bone causing a compression fracture of the T4 vertebra. It is an extremely aggressive type of cancer He was given the choice of trying additional treatment that most likely would not work and would make him sick or he could not get any more treatment and he could have better quality and a little less time. He chose to have quality time. We should be moving him in the next few days to a Hospice facility. This is a very difficult time for all of us and we ask for your continued thoughts and prayers. We will keep everyone updated as things change. Thank you, Bill, Judy and Heather

Monthly mini-reunions

A couple of years ago, some of the Class of ’66 members started getting together once a month for luncheon mini-reunions. Some months only two or three folks would show up, other months might see nearly two dozen show up. Regulars were Marilyn Maevers, Gail Tibbles, Jacqie Jackson and Wife Lila, when she was in town.

Lila came up with the idea of inviting Bill to participate in this month’s luncheon by webcam. She put Son Adam in touch with Nephew Rocky Everett in Cape, who handled logistics at that end. Considering that we were all winging this, it worked out quite well. I tried to get some screen captures of the participants, but the program didn’t save them.

Terry Hopkins wanted to share some things

Terry Hopkins, also Class of ’66, who likes to come off as the class clown, has a serious side he tries to keep hidden. I first became aware of that when he wrote how much the Capaha Pool meant to him when he was growing up. After participating in the webcast, he wrote this for Bill and gave me permission to share it.

Terry’s message to Bill

I remember you in high school as the guy who worked at Wimpy’s and wore a white apron. You were the guy who knew the secret of Wimpy’s French fries. At times, you were the guy who chased all of us out of Wimpy’s parking lot for Mr. Lewis when we were too rowdy or we were just staying too long and not buying anything. So when I close my eyes and think of Bill East, I see you in the parking lot at Wimpy’s with a white apron, hands on your hips and looking at the parking lot filled with cars and teenagers of the sixties. I can close my eyes and see you now.

We were Hall Monitors

You and I were Hall Monitors and in this exulted position, we were able to roam the halls of Central High School knowing nothing could stop us from our rounds doing what ever we did to maintain order in the cosmos and to prevent others from butting up in the lunch line. (… and really knowing nothing, at the time, about life either.) This is where I noted your patented “Mount Rushmore Pose”. There you are with your head looking up to horizons that only the lofty can see.

I can close my eyes and see you now, no wait here is the picture!

[Editor’s note: Bill is in the second row on the left in this Girardot photo of the Hall Monitors. I posted this photo to the Class of ’66 Facebook fan page in December. I don’t want to break the serious mood, but here’s Terry’s comment at that time: “We all were Hall Monitors…Sly is telling me that I was unzipped and Linda Maddox is trying to look! Bill East has his pose for Mt. Rushmore, Stovall is doing his natural thing…Linda Stone is vamping and doing a good job of it…Dee has glasses from someone else…”

[Bill, always a stickler for accuracy, filled in the blanks: “We hall monitors had to meet exacting criteria: Have a study hall during lunch time, have no outstanding wants or warrants, and, I think, be a senior.”]

Honored as Outstanding Senior

You were in National Honor Society, spoke in the Optimist speech contests and you and several others were honored as up and coming High School Students. I remember you and Russ Doughty posing down town at the court house and there is “The Pose” again. At the time I just thought that you were nice guy and it was great to be honored in such a way by your school and faculty and you deserved it!

[Editor’s note: this vertical photo was cropped into a tight horizontal in the yearbook for this reason.]

Terry and Bill’s acting career

I also think of you as my brother. In Claudia Modder’s Pulitzer Prize winning Thanksgiving play in high school (sure wish I could remember the name of it…) you and I played brothers. That was the highlight of my short theater career. I really appreciated you carrying me during the play. I remember all the practices that we did, with Mrs. Wright, Vivian Walton, Mary Ellen Baker (as sis) and you my friend. I remember the effort it was for me to learn the lines and repeat them correctly, and you nailing every line on the first walk thru. I still was using the mimeographed script sheets in the later practices. I still can remember the smell of back stage and mimeograph ink…that was a nice smell and those were pretty good days.

I never had a brother, and the interaction of you and me during the play moved me. In the play, I was the straight-laced military brother having just returned from Viet Nam and you, my good friend, were the hippie brother. The details I forgot except a couple of things like the line when Mary Ellen Baker comes walking toward me and I said, “You were just a little squirt when I left” to roars of laughter…Mary Ellen was pretty short then and probably is now too… The play ended with both of us standing in front of some stained glass windows with the choir singing something with you in your “Mount Rushmore” pose and me in Civil Air Patrol Uniform. The message was we are all brothers and we are all Americans. Nice message then, even better message for today. I can close my eyes and see you now.

[Editor’s note: I didn’t record the Hopkins/East theatrical performance, but I did catch Bill dancing in the First National Bank Parking lot after the floor at the Teen Age Club started bouncing so much the city shut them down. Terry says that Bill was known for his Mount Rushmore pose, but I seemed to always catch him with his mouth open. Of course, in the photo at left, that was the typical male reaction when confronted with the Barringer Twins.]

Bill and Judy start their lives

You went to college, joined the Air force, got married ( to a lovely lady), had kids, moved around and got jobs doing things you loved to do and maybe some you didn’t. Ditto for me, and we lost track of each other while in pursuit of our own dreams.

Years pass, and then there was the Internet. 1998 or so, I was sitting as my desk in Naperville, Illinois at the house and I get an email from a Bill East. Low and behold it is my old buddy Bill East from Cape Girardeau, Mo., class of 1966 and all around good guy. We email each other and catch up a little. Please remember that this way before MySpace, Facebook and a million other social networks. The Internet was new and BILL EAST found me out of the clear blue sky! As far as I knew we were the only guys on the internet and that was cool….

We start connecting with classmates

As the years pass, once again BILL EAST invites me to new thing called FACEBOOK and I join. A month or so later Larry LaBruyere joins and now there are three people on the internet. We catch up some more. I see a present day shot of Bill and think…geez he looks the same! Not Ditto for me… and we catch up a little more. Then Gail Tibbles discovers us and the WHOLE world is on the Internet and we all can see and talk to each other again! So now I know that Bill has a family, kids and grandkids and whole life lived that I knew very little about, and you know it looks like a pretty good life too! So I get another picture of you as an older and wiser man with kids and responsibilities and think, hey we both made it as adults. I can close my eyes and see you now.

Got together at the 2010 reunion

I met you again at our reunion this last year and had a great time. We talked for only a couple of minutes at a time about ten times over the weekend and I enjoyed hearing about your life now and of course talking about our classmates. It seems we all were trying to talk to everyone all the time in catch up with everyone all at the same time; at least it seems that way for me.

We connect with Jacqie

You and I were talking and then up comes the best dressed lady in the house and, of course, we both have to talk and take a picture.

[Editor’s note: That’s Jacqie, formerly Bill Jackson, also Class of ’66.]

You and I bumped into each other at lunch, on the tour of Central high School at breakfast, in the auditorium, in the halls and in the weight room. Saturday night you and I bump into each other again with Mike Friese and John Hoffman plus their spouses, and catch up a little more with life and times. During the course of this weekend we really did see each other a lot and I got to catch up on the Bill East of the 21st century. I even got to know about Buddy a little, more on Facebook about Buddy, but this started it.

Today we had lunch together via the Internet… you in Ohio, the lunch bunch in Cape and me in Florida. I did not say a lot, my camera and microphone were on the other computer which died TODAY. You looked the same, well, except for the headphones and O2 tube. I thought you looked quite dashing. High attitude pilot of the 1930’s was the look you had going for you, and it was working dude! I saw flashes of Buddy running around in the background and his mother too, which was nice. I listened to your interaction with Buddy and got to see the loving grandfather part of my friend, Bill.

Life is full of glimpses

I guess life is full of glimpses. We only get to see and get short takes from our friend’s real lives, just little pieces of their real lives. Thru the last 60 years or so I have been privileged to see and hear pieces and only pieces of a normal life of good guy, you, my friend.

So when I close my eyes and think of you I see the young Bill East in white apron, my brother Bill East as a hippie with stained glass behind us both, The younger Bill East getting married, the mature Bill East with dashing 1930’s high attitude flyer looks stopping to talk to his grandson off camera. All of these small pieces make a whole picture for me. That is what I see when I close my eyes, and think of you.

[Editor’s note: Thanks to Terry for sharing his thoughts. Bill has been a frequent contributor to this blog and a good guy for an underclassman. I’ve grown to appreciate his dry wit and attention to detail. The journalist in him seems to think that truth and accuracy should be as important as telling a good story. I consider those things merely incidentals, if not impediments.]

April 26, 2012January 28, 2016

1966 Senior Prom

This is prom season, so it was timely that I stumbled across a sleeve marked “Lila Prom With Her Friends.” That would make it the Class of 1966 Senior Prom. Linda Stone was the Prom Queen.

Where’s this girl’s date?

When you look at the gallery, you’ll see that all over the other girls have dates. Lila Perry (eventually Steinhoff) had a date. It was me, but I was taking pictures, so she’s solo. She’s spent most of our lives together apart like that.

I have to tell a prom story to show what a terrific person she was. Lila was Class of ’66. I was a senior, Class of 1965. We had been dating a few months, so it would have been natural that I ask her to my senior prom. Instead, I went to her and said that I had heard through the grapevine that a mutual friend of ours who was a senior – we’ll call her Suzy Q – wasn’t going to be asked to the prom by her on-again, off again boyfriend – we’ll call him Charlie Cad. “Would it be OK with you if I ask Suzy to the prom. I really hate that she wouldn’t be able to attend her senior prom. We’ll still have your senior prom next year.”

Well, that was pretty presumptuous on my part in several ways. It takes a lot of nerve to ask your girlfriend for permission to take another girl to something as big as the Senior Prom. It was also a stretch to be making plans for a dance a whole year away after pulling such a stunt.

She didn’t even hesitate. She told me to take Suzy Q to the prom. That’s when I knew I had a keeper if I hadn’t realized it earlier.

Linda got to sit on the throne

Linda got the crown and a chance to sit on the throne, but I got to take the real queen home. [I survived taking another girl to my senior prom, but I may not survive printing the picture of Wife Lila. She said she hated her hairdo.]

Photo gallery of the 1966 Senior Prom

I put names on a few faces, but I can’t swear that they’re right. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

April 17, 2012June 19, 2016

Dad Would Have Been 95 April 17

Dad was born April 17, 1917. That would have made him 95 this year. He had an interesting quirk. He’d make up small pocket diaries or journals that he’d carry in his shirt pocket. The covers were made of cut-up manila folders and the pages were of paper cut and stapled inside. He had a rubber stamp that he would use at the start of every month to date every pair of facing pages. (Click on any image to make it larger.)

He was meticulous about recording every penny (literally EVERY penny) he spent every day. Generally there would be some mention of the weather and a brief accounting of what he had done during the day. By February, 1975, he and his partner, James Kirkwood, were beginning to wind down Steinhoff & Kirkwood Construction, so he had a lot more time to spend on stuff like Scouts. (SOR stands for ScoutORama, for example.)

Uncharacteristically, he set off a section: Got Big News about being Grandpa this PM. Talked to Ken Okee. Fla (I must have been in Okeechobee) later to Lila. (Then reverting to company business, he finished up by saying that he talked to Jim in Fla this PM.)

December second was big day

On December 2, 1975, we find that the day had sunshine in the 50s; he got up at 4:30 A.M., had toast and coffee, then left for Memphis Airport.

Picked up Ken & Lila and seen Grand child 1st time at 11:10 A.M. (He consistently used “seen” for “saw” and “too” for “to,” but otherwise generally used good grammar and spelling with lots of abbreviations. His penmanship was precise.)

Along the way to and from Memphis, he had coffee for .83 (with a 15-cent tip), bought a paper for 15 cents and put six bucks of gas in the car.

Here’s the first meeting with Matt

Matt was born September 27, 1975. (Matt’s the one who scanned these for me about 10 or 12 years ago. He was disappointed that his birth wasn’t mentioned in the journal, probably because Dad was over at Kentucky Lake on the day.) Here is Mother, Wife Lila, Dad and Matt getting together for the first time at the Memphis Airport. It’s the same airport we would fly out of in 1977 after Dad’s funeral.

Matt got a cold

December was cloudy, cold and damp. Dad got up at 6:45 and went to 7:30 church by himself, where he took Communion. When he got back home, he built a fire in the fireplace and watched Cardinal football until 1:45. Took 13 of us to dinner, including Lila’s mother, brother and sister; my grandmother, Elsie Welch, Mother, Brother Mark and Mark’s date. (The Cardinals beat Dallas, in case you were interested.)

The final note for the day said that Matt got cold. Nose stopped up. Call Dr. Kinder. [Matt doesn’t know how lucky he was that Dr. Herbert had probably retired by then. That’s why Matt can still eat Popsicles.]

Headed back to Florida

December 11 – Clear, sunshine and warmer. Got car checked over for trip to Florida. Left Cape for Lake and Florida 12:30 PM – arrive at trailer at 3:00 PM. Matt didn’t sleep too well tonight. He threw a real cry buster at Joe Summers. Had his nose cleaned out.
December 12 – Sunshine clear. Up at 5:30 because Matt up since 3:00. Lila back to bed. Got Matt to sleep for abt 1 Hr 1/4. Left Lake for Florida at 9:15 AM. Ate at Cracker BL Manchester 12:30. Drove to Macon Ga. by 8:00 PM. Matt feeling better today – was really good.
December 13 – Clear sunshine – left Macon, Ga., at 9:15 ate at Shoney’s. had blueberry pancakes – No Good – Drove to Wildwood & ate at Union 76 at 3:00 PM – then on to WPB arrive at 8:00 PM. 1093 miles. Matt real good on trip. [Editor’s note: I have two routes I take from FL to MO. Both of them are within a dozen miles of being 1,100 miles. I find it interesting that Dad’s trip was 1,093 miles.]

Another interesting thing I had forgotten was that while Lila and Matt were parked in Cape, I flew down to Corpus Christi, Tex., for a job interview. I had been at The Post for almost exactly three years, generally about as long as I was comfortable anywhere. While the Texas paper and I were talking about the move, I was offered the job of director of photography at The Post. I took it and spent the next 35 years in photo, as editorial operations manger and as telecommunications manager. I discovered that I didn’t have to move to a new town every three years if I took on new responsibilities at the same company.

Medicare, 2012 and Me

Well, it’s 2012, today’s my birthday and my official Medicare card arrived in the mail. You might remember me telling you this was going to be a Big Year. This was the year that they said I could retire when I went through orientation at The Palm Beach Post in 1973.

I figured that 2012 was a lot like the Second Coming: it might arrive, but I never thought I’d be around to see it. See, Dad and his brothers checked out by age 60, so I had established that as my official Sell-By Date. Here was my post from last year.

I discovered cycling

Some funny things happened along the way. I discovered cycling, which taught me that there was a life outside the office. I still worked long and hard hours, but I also looked forward hopping on the bike and feeling the stress drain away. I told folks that I could get hit by an 18-wheeler tomorrow and cycling would have added more years to my life than it could ever subtract.

The death spiral of newspapers also worked in my favor. It gave me an opportunity to take a buyout in September 2008 and early retirement. I was going to have a chance to enjoy what tomorrows I had left without the fear of being carried out of the office on a stretcher or in handcuffs.

Herding cats and blogging

My boys thought I might like to lead bike tours in retirement, so they set me up with a bike blog. I soon found out that I wasn’t made to herd cats, so leading tours morphed into writing about cycling. The next step was to start digitizing my old photos. That resulted in this blog.

Just jingle the keys

After spending the last 15 years of my newspaper career shoving electrons down phone wires (something that I actually enjoyed), I discovered the magic of journalism again. Telling stories and dredging up old memories is a blast. It’s also given me a chance to have a lot of fun with Mother, who is ready to hop in the car at the jingle of keys. She’s good company and has her own stock of stories (many of which, I’m afraid she’s going to take with her.)

I’ve been blessed with Wife Lila who has put up with my quirks and foibles for way too many years. I warn people that I’m much more personable in print than in person. Unfortunately, that’s often too true at home, too. I don’t tell her enough that I love her. More important, I like her.

Our two boys have turned out better than anybody could ever hope for. They met and married two of the best daughter-in-laws in the universe. Their marriages have produced two extraordinary grandsons for us.

It’s been a good run

So, it’s been a good run. I’ve had five years more than I ever expected. I’m beginning to get optimistic.

I had a chunk of cheek carved off, so I got the Big C ticket punched. I survived a car vs. bike crash last month with only road rash and a cracked rib, so I got that checked off the list. The exams after the crash said I was “normal,” which I thought was a let-down from Mother saying I was “above average” all these years, but still a pretty good grade.

I’ve reconnected with some old friends and made some new ones. Riding Partner Anne stood beside me, literally, as I was bleeding on the ground after the crash. She didn’t get a picture of it, but she’s a writer, not a photographer, so you have to make allowances.

Not gonna tempt fate

I don’t believe in tempting fate, so I’m not going to suggest you run out and buy me a birthday card for next year if you see one one sale, but I’m more optimistic now than I was when I turned 59.

There’s a new Tip Jar

By the way, (how’s that for a segue?) there’s a new little button at the top left of the page that says “Donate.” I have a new advertiser coming on board who wanted to be able to pay by credit card, so Kid Matt set up this link to make it possible. I’m not going to make a big deal out of it, but it can also serve as a “tip jar” for anybody who wants to help the boat stay afloat. (That’s not me above. It’s Tom Price, editor of The Ohio University Post, begging for money.)

(We used to have a coffee can labeled “TIPS” back in the telephone switchroom where we invited folks back for espresso a couple of times a week. This was a newspaper, remember, so we didn’t get much money, but we got lots of scraps of paper with stuff like, “Look both ways before crossing the street.” scrawled on them.)

This guy is still there

I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and wonder who that old geezer is who stares back at me. It’s strange, because this is the guy who is still hiding behind that reflection.

Tag: Lila Perry Steinhoff