Mary Welch Steinhoff Archives

August 9, 2013August 9, 2013

Deer, Dear, We Had Fun

We were still celebrating the impromptu Mother Birthday Season on Thursday.

I know now why people have kids when they are young and not old. Two-year-old Graham loves going up and down Great-Gran’s basement stairs. Over and over and over again. Babies and toddlers wake up early, loudly and frequently. I’m in the basement, so I catch the THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! of little feet, but mostly miss out on the crying from Graham and Baby Elliot. I’m also far enough away that I don’t hear Matt snoring or Sarah poking him to make him stop snoring.

We Steinhoffs like to eat, so we loaded into two cars and headed up to the Pie Bird Cafe in Fruitland. Good home-cooking at a reasonable price.

After breakfast, Adam, Carly and their two boys headed in one direction and Matt, Sarah, Malcolm, Mother and I headed north into Perry County. Just about the time we got to the Altenburg Museum, the skies opened up, so we spent more time there than anticipated.

Steinhoff name shows up on 1901 plat map

Gerard Fiehler showed us a new acquisition: someone had donated a huge framed Cape County plat map from 1901 or thereabouts. It was full of names you’ve heard: Houck, Juden, Alt, Lorimier…. Then, down near where our property in Dutchtown is today, there is a plot marked W Steinhoff. Mother said the deed listed the property having been in the Steinhoff name long before we bought it, but this proves it.

Malcolm got to pull the rope that rings what used to be the church bell in the original Altenburg church that became a school and is now part of the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum. We drove down to show Malcolm Tower Rock, but it was raining too hard to get out.

Largest herd of deer I’ve seen

We took Rt CC, which led us over the ridges that I’ve written about before. We popped out near Proctor and Gamble where we spotted the largest herd of deer I’ve seen in SE Missouri. There had to have been at least a dozen of them. Matt stuck his head up through the car’s moon roof to shoot this with my telephoto.

It’s worth clicking on to make larger.

Lost interest quickly

It didn’t take them long to lose interest in us and go bounding away, white tails flashing.

Foggy at the lookout

Malcolm was small the last time he was at the Trail of Tears lookout. The rain had just let up when we got there, but the sky was still gray and hazy. We could barely see across the river.

Are we in the clouds?

As you can see, it was just as foggy behind us. Malcolm wanted to know if we were in the clouds. We said we were, but it’s not like when you are in an airplane.

Both boys wanted to meet different friends and family members, so they took off. I headed out for dinner, then stopped to chat with Altenburg museum director Carla Jordan and her husband, Doc.

Dad would have approved

When I got home, I could hear laughing and carrying on as soon as I pulled in the driveway. Everybody was gathered around the table snacking and drinking wine. It was voted the best part of the Early Birthday Season.

Dad died August 7, 1977. It was a great to hear laughter around the kitchen table on this week. Dad would have approved. In fact, I’m pretty sure he was there sharing the moment with us.

Elvis, who died on August 17, did not make an appearance. We didn’t care.

[Editor’s note and update: I got my Elvis dates mixed up in my original post. We flew out of Memphis the day after Elvis died. I picked up copies of the local papers at the airport, then took them back to show the photo staff how poorly the Memphis media covered the story. After we critiqued their work, I pitched the papers. I don’t like to think how much those papers are worth today.]

August 8, 2013August 8, 2013

Steinhoffs Converge on Cape

Mother’s Birthday Season, which is actually centered on October 17, started early this year by accident. First, Wife Lila, Friend Anne and I showed up in June. Brother David’s family – David, Diane and Amy – showed up later. Son Adam, with Carly, Graham and Elliot, got into town Tuesday. Son Matt, Sarah and Malcolm rolled in on Wednesday.

So far, I’ve moved to three different sleeping locations depending on the combination of people at the house. Once Mother gets shed of all of us, she’s hopping a plane to spend a Labor Day week out in Austin with the Texas branch, fresh transplants from Colorado.

By the time her actual birthday rolls around, she may want an empty house and peace and quiet for a present.

Graham, 2, loved the firetruck at Discovery Playhouse, so we walked across the street from Mother to Fire Station #4 where he could see the Real Deal.

I wanna be a firefighter

The nice guys at the station have been great neighbors for Mother. She’s asked them for help of a non-emergency nature over the years, but she never had to dial 9-1-1 until recently when she was suffering chest pains. It turned out to be nothing, but she won’t wait so long if there is a next time because she was impressed with how professional the crew was. They not only took care of her medical needs, they made sure her doors were locked when they left.

The firefighters opened every compartment to show him what the truck carried, but what Graham really liked was being at the wheel of the fire engine. He spent the afternoon running around the house putting out fires. (I had to play the part of the fire.)

I don’t like THAT!

Graham reconsidered his thoughts of joining the fire service when the fireman demonstrated the big air horns on the rig. Lights, OK. Sirens, OK. Big, loud horns, not so OK. He was ready to crawl down.

Checking out the Shed in a Box

David, Mark and I assembled a Shed in a Box, a 10×10 tarp-like structure mounted over a metal frame. The directions say that 2+ people should be able to put it up in 2 hours. Well, it took combinations of two people 2.5 DAYS to put the thing up.

Graham checked out the shed and Mother’s riding mower in it and pronounced both acceptable.

Pilgrimage to Wib’s BBQ

No Steinhoff visit to Cape would be complete without a trip to Wib’s BBQ in Jackson.Graham opted for a hot dog, fries and chocolate milk.

He takes his chocolate milk seriously.

Elliot’s first trip

Five generations of us have eaten at Wib’s. This was Elliot’s first visit.

Cars and Trucks

Way back when, I created a mix tape of travel and truck drivin’ songs we used to launch every family trip. It’s been digitized and still gets played.

Here’s a video Matt, Sarah and Malcolm shot driving the Tail of the Dragon. I’ll let him describe it:

Wanna know what it is like to road trip with the Steinhoffs?

We’re traveling down US 129, Tail of the Dragon; 318 turns in 11 miles. Sarah has taken enough Dramamine to kill a pony. My car’s “we’re all going to die” traction-control alarm is lighting up the dashboard in a trippy, disco sorta way.

What a better time to fire up Jerry Reed’s ‘East Bound and Down’ from the Smokey and the Bandit soundtrack, right? Gotta balance the iPad on the swearing wheel, queue up the song and see if we can make it to the end of the track before the fully-illuminated shift knob falls off and we end up with 30,000 pounds of mashed bananas on Dead Man’s Curve.

You can click on the photos to make them bigger, but don’t make them too big. Kids are a lot cuter when they’re little.

July 22, 2013

Birthday Season Starts Early

Mother decided several years ago that a birthDAY in October wasn’t enough: she wanted a birthday season. Well, she has outdone herself this year.

Wife Lila, Friend Anne and I descended on her in late June. It’s past mid-July and I’m still in town. I have to head out to Ohio to do a photo exhibit and a couple of presentations, then (if there are no hurricanes headed to Florida), I’m headed back to Cape to work on some more projects.

Several years back, we gave Mother an iPad to replace her obsolete WebTV. It has become her favorite toy. Son Matt had a newer iPad he wanted to upgrade, so he let Brother Mark and me pick it up cheaply, then he offered to kick in a share of it for his birthday season gift. Her old model was WI-fi only, so she couldn’t use it when she was at Kentucky Lake unless she cruised around looking for hot spots. (For the digitally uninitiated, a hot spot is a place where you can pick up someone’s unsecured internet connection. It has nothing to do with the place across the river from Cape.) The new one can run off cellular service.

The new one will let her do Facetime with her grandkids, too. (If we can ever get it set up. Mark spent half the afternoon trying to get her Apple ID working.)

“It’s a bleeping lawnmower shed”

The Tulsa branch of the Steinhoff Family: Amy, David and Diane, came into town because David had this crazy idea that mother needed a shed to hold her riding lawnmower. Mark came down from St. Louis so he could join me in chanting “It’s a bleeping lawnmower shed, for bleep’s sake.” David, you see, has never found a project he couldn’t over-engineer.

To keep him from building some kind of teak and mahogany Taj Mahal, I found a $144 10x10x8 soft-sided shed the instructions said could be put together in two hours by 2+ people. The catch was that you had to have the right 2+ people whose names were not Steinhoff. You’ll get the full Shed in a Box story later if I can bring myself to relive the experience.

Amy and Mother

Mother timed the demise of her microwave oven to coincide with a houseful of guests. Faced with imminent starvation, the Tulsa Branch came up with a new microwave for Early Birthday Season. Amy, an accomplished shopper, aided in the search.

There is a rumor that other Florida Steinhoffs may be landing just about the time I depart (assuming I ever do). If the sheets ever get cold in Cape, she says she may jet out to see Granddaughter Kim’s new home in Austin.

No telling what she expects us to do with her 92cd rolls around on October 17. I guess I should start looking around for someplace she can go skydiving. (As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.)

July 10, 2013May 14, 2021

The Simple Things

I shot this magnolia blossom at an undisclosed location that did not appear to have surveillance cameras around. Right after I photographed it, it inexplicably fell off the tree at my feet. I thought it might be possible to resuscitate it, so I took it home to Mother just like I would any other stray. (You can click on the photos to make them larger.)

Slightly wilted

By the time I got home, the bloom had slightly wilted, but it perked right up as soon as she put it in water. The whole kitchen was filled with a sweet fragrance. When I went to bed, I noticed that the bloom had closed up. The next morning, it was wide open again.

I happened to overhear Mother talking on the phone to one of her friends about how nice it was to be able to get pleasure from something as simple as a flower blossom on the kitchen table. It made me feel good. It’s amazing how much you can learn from your mother.

When I went to bed last night, I didn’t turn on the kitchen light, but I could see that what I think is called the anthers – the yellow part – had fallen off inside the bloom.

Magnolia blossom turned brown

When we got up this morning, the blossom had turned a beautiful shade of brown. The petals were still soft, but they had changed color. The undersides of the leaves had turned brown, too.

In some ways, I find this more interesting than the white flower. There are more subtle shades in it.

The one that didn’t fall off the tree

This one, by the way, didn’t fall off the tree. Maybe another day.