I took advantage of a relatively cool day to venture up into the attic. Brothers Mark and David are coming to town the week of September 20 to, as Mark euphemistically puts it, “declutter the house.”
I’m going to ease off a few days to give me more time to root through and set aside stuff that I think has sentimental or historical value. It’s hard to realize, but this’ll be the last chance I’ll have to do that.
We’re not putting the house on the market until the spring unless something changes, so, except for a couple of quick trips back to Florida, I’ll be in Cape for the duration. When the house sells, it’ll probably mark the end of my Cape chapter, and maybe my Cape book.
Bring your own skate key
I’ll be posting more photos of treasures like these as we come upon them. Niece Laurie Everett of Annie Laurie’s Antique Shop is going to work with us, so you will have lots of opportunities to own some Steinhoff Originals.
You will need to find your own skate key, unfortunately. I didn’t see one in the box.
Over my years as a news photographer, I photographed presidents, would-be presidents, a pope and the Queen of England. I was at shot and missed, swung at and hit. I braved fires, floods and famines. (OK, maybe I’m exaggerating about the latter, but I DID go without lunch a few times.)
I waded in flood waters where I realized I represented high ground to the snakes around me, and I stood next to a water tower in a lightning storm hoping to get a good photo (with Wife Lila holding an umbrella over me. She was my insurance policy: I figured God wouldn’t strike HER with lightning).
So, where did I draw the line?
Weddings
I used to say that the only weddings I’d shoot were those of friends, and I defined a friend as someone who wouldn’t ask me to shoot his or her wedding.
Why did I feel that way?
I hate set-up shots, and most wedding photography I had seen was a collection of cliched set-ups.
I don’t herd cats well.
Because of pilot error, technical snafus, processing mistakes and just plain bad luck, I have blown assignments, exposing me to scorn and ridicule from my peers and ugly conversations with editors. None of that scares me like the wrath of a bride’s mother who has just found out her Princess Perfect’s wedding photos didn’t turn out.
Wedding Plan B
In the few times I couldn’t wheedle my way out of shooting a wedding, I’d set a ground rule: I wouldn’t deliver the prints until they had been married a year. If the marriage didn’t last that long, they wouldn’t want them anyway.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t walk around shooting candids at a wedding. That was a way I could keep from having to make small talk with folks I didn’t know, it would give them stuff that the formal photographer didn’t shoot, and it would insulate me from mad mothers.
So, when Robin and Brother Mark got married on her birthday, September 8, 2014, I did my wander-around-taking photos thing. Since they made it past the one-year mark, I guess it’s safe to post these pictures.
Wedding photo galler
Here’s where we all were a year ago. Steinhoff weddings are as unconventional as Steinhoff funerals. I’m happy to deliver these photos. Click on one to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to poke around.
Neighbors Bill and Rhonda and I went down to Dutchtown Monday afternoon. While we were there, I opened some mostly-empty sheds that hadn’t seen light (except for a hole in the roof) for years. Most everything of value had been taken out of them a long time ago, and whatever contents that remained had floated and rearranged themselves in the various floods since 1973. Stuff that could rust had rusted; stuff that could rot or fall apart had done just that; everything had a thick or thin patina of river mud sticking to it.
As I was playing a flashlight beam around, Rhonda said, “That’s a high chair under there.”
Indeed, it was. It was the very yellow high chair that Brother Mark was sitting in back in March of 1961. That’s my grandmother, Elsie Welch on the left. Dad, engrossed in one of my comic books, is on the right. Looks like we were having some combination of brownies, milk, barbecue sandwiches (made on the grill in the background, where our microwave lives today), and iced tea.
It’s still in pretty good shape
I was surprised to see it was in better shape than I would have thought. The metal tray that Mark used to bang his cup on like he was in a B-Grade prison movie would still slide on and off. The legs have some rust on them, but I don’t know if that’s from the Mississippi River or my brother’s leaky diapers.
You might just see this at Annie Laurie’s Antique Shop one of these days, Lord willin’ and the rivers don’t rise.
Brother Mark found a bunch of Dad’s hats in the top shelf of the guest room a few weeks ago. Some were in the original boxes.
We’re not hat people
I put out the word to family members that they were available, but, as Mark’s photo shows, you have to have a certain flair to pull off wearing a hat these days. We’re missing that gene.
I was watching Cape Girardeau County History Center Director Carla Jordan working on an exhibit of hats loaned by Kitty Ruessler the other night. I casually mentioned Dad’s hats to her, and she suggested we display those, too.
Dad’s hat’s
She found a hat rack and made them look good. I was amazed at how they were still in good shape. Dad died in 1977, and I’m sure they hadn’t been touched since then except to shove them in a corner in the closet.
Carla and her staff have done a great job of building unusual exhibits in the short time the History Center has been open. You should stop by. It’s across the street from the county courthouse in Jackson, in the old Andrew Jackson building. It’s open seven days a week. The hours are 10 – 4, Monday through Saturday, and 1 to 4 on Sunday.
Dad could wear a hat
Dad spent most of the week pushing dirt around building roads and bridges, but he cleaned up nicely.
Photo gallery of Dad and his hats
Some of the older pictures were taken when I was about two years old, when Dad, Mother and her parents piled into a car and headed off to Mexico and the American Southwest. One shot, which includes Wife Lila, was taken at Christmastime in Athens, Ohio. I took the two color pictures in 1961ish.
Click on any photo to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to move around the gallery.
I took advantage of a relatively cool day to venture up into the attic. Brothers Mark and David are coming to town the week of September 20 to, as Mark euphemistically puts it, “declutter the house.”
