Mary Welch Steinhoff Archives

January 5, 2014

Reading Race Prize

Buried in a box of old newspaper clips that are crumbling bad enough that I’ve been sneezing all afternoon was my first grade Reading Race Prize.

Mrs. Kelpe, the first grade teacher every kid should have, wrote on the back, “To Kenneth, who was once again the winner of the Reading Race. I am proud of you, Kenneth.” It was dated March 25, 1954, the day after my birthday.

My “sailer” hat

My first grade scrapbook has this photo of me wearing the prize for winning an earlier Reading race.

The account of my big day

Dad’s typewriter didn’t have a spellchecker on it, so some typos crept in from time to time. The fact that he and Mother went to all the trouble to document my young life is much appreciated. As Kid Rel II, Brother David’s scrapbook was a lot shorter. Brother Rel III Mark’s book simply said, “Refer to earlier editions.”

“…Mrs. Kelpe timed up on readying (sic) today and had a prize for the fastest ones. I won as my time was only 1-1/2 minutes. It took one boy 6 minutes. The prize was a white sailer hat. A little bit [big] but I like it. Boy! I was good to win that hat. [OK, so I needed to work on humility.] I told Mrs. Kelpe she was the best teacher I ever had and I’ve had a plenty.“

December 2, 2013December 2, 2013

Back (Florida) Home Again

I made it back to West Palm Beach Saturday night, November 30, after leaving town on October 12. In that time, as I wrote last night, I drove 6,393.8 miles through Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and several side trips through the State of Confusion. I had Friend Shari as a road companion from Florida to Missouri, celebrated Mother’s Birthday season with Wife Lila, and Brother Mark and his Fiance Robin.

After that, I headed out to Athens, Ohio, to do a presentation on the birth of the student rights movement with former OU Post colleague Carol Towarnicky. Athens Historical Society Curator Jessica, who just had to see with her own eyes if Missouri in any way came close to my stories, followed me back to Cape. After roaming around in SEMO for a couple of weeks, I made a pass back through Ohio, where I got snowed in.

I slept in Sunday, unpacked the van, had some belated (and very good) turkey leftovers, then headed out with Wife Lila to see the grandkids.

Grandson Elliot, loves hearing weird sounds, something that we Steinhoffs are very good at providing.

A flower for Gran

Grandson Graham picked up a flower off the ground in his backyard and insisted that Gran put it behind her ear. The kid is going to be a lady killer, I can tell.

When I told him that his grandmother had told me that he had grown a foot while I was gone, he held his legs out to prove that he still only had two.

It might be a caulking gun to YOU

Don’t let appearances deceive you. What looks like an ordinary caulking gun turns into a laser blaster in the hands of a 2-1/2-year-old. He also has a magic wand that turns his grandmother into a chicken. You will NOT see a video of that. I have no desire to be smothered in my sleep.

Malcolm concentrating

I bought these rainbow-hued twirly things in St. Louis on my last trip. I gave one to both West Palm Beach boys and one to Mother. A windstorm took Grandon Malcolm’s out, so I brought him a new one. Here he is assembling it. He’s a serious computer geek and reader. He can also feed you the last half of Groucho’s line: “A book is your best friend outside of a dog.” [Malcolm:] “because inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.”

Your cute is leaking away

Here he is with the finished product. While I was shooting it, I warned him, “Sorry, kid, your cute is leaking away. You’re going to look like a teenager soon.”

November 26, 2013

Truck on I-55

I’ve passed this high-flying 18-wheeler a bunch of times over the years, but this is the first time I’ve bothered to pull off the road to snap a picture of it. It’s on the east side of I-55 near Sikeston. And, yes, it’s the real deal, not a billboard or a model.

I was prepared with an excuse if a cop pulled up to tell me that stopping on the Interstate isn’t allowed: “But officer, my Check Engine light came on and I wanted to make sure everything was OK.”

Of course, when your van has 181,000 miles on it, the Check Engine light is ALWAYS on. I get out, raise the hood, check to see if the engine is still there and then keep driving down the road. If the light ever DOES go out, I’ll assume that the bulb burned out, not that the problem mysteriously healed itself.

The Kid has theories

(That might be the reason Kid Matt concocted this Shameless Plug page. He doesn’t want to have to drive to some Podunk town to pick me up when the van dies.)

(He has a second theory, too: he says everybody is too busy heading out for Turkey Day, preparing for Turkey Day or recovering from Turkey Day that they aren’t going to be reading the blog this week. That’s why you’re going to get some light-weight content while I’m on MY way back to Florida.)

Oh, by the way, I covered the Sikeston Rodeo. Jim Nabors performed there in 1965. Here are more photos of the 1965 Rodeo.

On the road

Speaking of travel, I left Cape Monday morning for Athens, Ohio. I was worried about the weather because of all the freezing rain, ice pellet, snow and sleet warnings along the route. On top of that, there was a forecast for four inches of snow in Athens on Tuesday.

To get home I was going to have to go over some pretty tall stacks of rocks where Florida Friend Jan saw her first snow in January. I may end up staying an extra day in Athens if West Virginia gets any serious snow.

As it turned out, I must have been racing the frozen precip all day. I could see I was on the eastern edge for at least 40% of Monday. The snow pellets sounded like my car was being peppered with BBs; the snow, fairly heavy from time to time, was pretty. It swirled around in the wake of traffic, but it never stuck.

Here was the obligatory Good-Bye selfie. It only took 19 frames to get one even close to having both of us in it.

November 16, 2013

New Emergency Sirens

We saw a bunch of heavy equipment parked around the fire station up the street, plus a big pole on the ground. When I got back from Perry County the other day after dark, Mother said there was some new kind of gizmo sticking up in the air.

It turned out to be one of the new emergency sirens the city was installing to augment the four it already had. When we went under a tornado warning the other night, we could barely hear a siren off in the distance.

Of course, that might be because Mother is Storm Central. She had the TV blaring, a scanner in the living room talking away and she was holding a portable scanner. From time to time, the weather alert radio in the hallway would add to cacophony.

Ain’t no storm going to sneak up on her.

Bad weather has been in the news

For about a week, the weather folks have been hyperventilating about a cold front predicted to move through here this weekend. Much to their dismay, it looks like it’s just going to be – as they are fond of saying – just a “wind event.”

… Wind Advisory in effect from 8 am to 8 PM CST Sunday…

The National Weather Service in Paducah has issued a Wind Advisory… which is in effect from 8 am to 8 PM CST Sunday.

* Winds will increase and become strong and gusty Sunday ahead of an approaching storm front.

* Timing: south winds will really pick up during the daytime hours Sunday as a weather front approaches. The strongest winds with the highest gusts will be ongoing through the midday and into the afternoon hours.

* Winds: south winds will average 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40 to 50 mph at times. These will be the regular gradient winds occurring without the aid of a thunderstorm.

It’s probably good this isn’t going to be a big deal storm, because the new siren hasn’t been hooked up yet.

This is not a good thing

“This is not a good thing,” I warned her. “I can write the story right now: ‘A house at the corner of Kurre Lane and Kingsway Drive, just a hundred yards from an inoperative emergency siren, was struck by a tornado that picked the structure up and carried it to parts unknown. Observers reported hearing what they thought sounded like a police scanner getting fainter and fainter as the house was sucked up into the clouds. City work crews will have the siren hooked up Monday evening.'”

Kinda makes me think of Guy Clark singing Tornado Time in Texas:

well, the sky was blacker than a funeral suit

hotter than a depot stove;

hide in the cellar

here comes amarillo

blowin down the road

ya got yer hail stones big as hen eggs, boy,

yer clouds as green as can be

old mother nature’s raisin hell

she parked a pickup in a tree.

tornado time in texas

take the paint right off of your barn

tornado time in texas

blow the tattoo right off of your arm