Mary Welch Steinhoff Archives

December 4, 2011December 2, 2015

North County Park Christmas Display

We went to Wib’s BBQ in Jackson tonight. It gave us a chance to help Grandson Malcolm with a school project. He sent Mother “Flat Stanley,” a storybook character who was smashed “flat as a pancake” when a bookcase fell on him. He was, in fact, smashed flat enough that he can fit into an envelope and go all over the world having his photo taken in exotic locations – like in front of Wib’s. After we shot this photo, we went inside where I ordered two Brown Hots, french fries and slaw; Mother had chili (which she always complains is too spicy.)

When the server came by to see if everything was OK, I gestured for him to lean in, then said, “I think the kitchen made a terrible mistake with my order.”

He look properly concerned.

“They put meat on my sandwiches,” I replied.

Wib’s has the best sauce in town, but I think they must still be on the original pig they started the business with in 1947. There was a whole staff of young folks working there tonight and I think the cook must have a lighter thumb on the scale than the usual one.

North County Park Christmas Display

On the way back from Jackson, we stopped at North County Park to check out the Christmas displays. I’m not sure how many years they’ve been doing this, but it’s become a local must-see.

Some of the displays are very nice. Some are very imaginative. Some are, to be honest, tacky, particularly some of the commercial ones. More and more of them are memorials to family members who won’t be there for another Christmas. Those are touching.

Bumper to bumper traffic

We got there right after dark, so it wasn’t too congested. By the time we left, though, cars were streaming into the park. It’s considered good form to drive with just your parking lights on, but this car broke the rules (and I think him for giving me a little extra light on the scene).

One minivan in front of us had me perplexed. I could see through the back window that they were playing a kid’s movies on a DVD player mounted near the ceiling. Now, maybe I’m old-fashioned, but don’t you think it might have been appropriate to shut the thing off for 15 minutes and tell the kids to look out the bleeping window at the real world?

Past stories with a Christmas theme

Photo gallery of Christmas display

Here are other photos from the evening. Click on any picture to make it larger, then click on the left or ride side to mover through the gallery.

November 25, 2011November 26, 2011

I Have Someone’s Family History

Brother Mark always likes to hit the antique shops when he comes to Cape, so we started at Annie Laurie’s. I was doing a pretty good job avoiding temptation when my eye fell upon this 1959ish black and white photo shop owner Laurie Everett had under a Christmas display. It jumped out because it was uncharacteristically sharp and well exposed for a snapshot of that era. It was for sale. Mark paid for it, so it couldn’t have been much. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Look at the IDs on the back

When I flipped it over, I saw that someone had taken the time to document who was in the photo:

My Sis and our Grandchildren in Tom and Jo’s basement. Christmas Eve 1959

Tommy – 3 yrs 9 mos
David 2 ” m 90s
Jeanne 1″ 7 mos
Marie ? Ha Ha!

Note for the younger generation: “Ha Ha!” was the 1959 way to say LOL.

Throwing away photos is alien to me

For budget purposes one year, I calculated that the average photographer on my staff used about 30,000 frames of film a year. Back in the day when I was buying my own film in 100-foot rolls and cutting it into 36-exposure rolls (and under the influence of One-Shot Frony), I didn’t hit those levels, but it’s safe to say that I’ve shot a lot more film than most folks. (Kodak called someone who bought 12 rolls of film a year a “heavy user.”)

I would bet that I probably have all but maybe 100 rolls of those bazillion rolls of film. I may not be able to find an individual photo right away and it may not be properly identified, but it’s there someplace. My “coffee can film” contains pictures that are more interesting to me today than the stuff I shot for the paper and filed away in negative sleeves.

How can you throw away your mother?

How could you let a photo of your mother when she was about three years old in the midst of a flock of chicks slip away? Particularly since she’s with her brother Kenneth, my namesake, who was killed in a car vs. train crash. I sure couldn’t.

Other people, obviously, can. I was at a yard sale where I picked up about a dozen Kodak slide trays. When I went to check out, I noticed that the trays were full of slides: weddings, graduations, vacation trips, first car, basically all the facets of the family’s life. I pointed it out to the seller and she said, “That’s OK. Just throw them away.” I eventually DID throw away a lot of them, but I held onto some of the better shots because it would have been a crime not to.

Mother always fills our birthday and holiday cards with family photos she’s collected over the years. It’s always the best part of the card.

Do you recognize any of these folks?

If so, I have a piece of your family history. I won’t even charge you to get it back. Mark’s already paid for it.

November 24, 2011May 9, 2016

Thanksgiving 2011

Family was my Number One Thing to be Thankful for in 2010, and it tops the list again in 2011.

The Steinhoff Family from Florida, Missouri, Colorado and Oklahoma managed to make it back to Cape to celebrate Mother’s 90s Birthday Season. Son Matt shot this group photo. (Click on any image to make it larger.)

He had everything set up earlier in the morning to do the photo in the back yard, but the sun moved and the shadows were bad. He shuffled us over to the side yard where the light was better, but still spotty. He worked fast, mainly because so many of his subjects were young and prone to crankiness and because so many of his subjects were old and he didn’t know how many takes he’d have left.

Matt’s last perfect family portrait

He took much longer to shoot this one of the Florida branch on Easter Sunday 2009. In fact the video I recorded of him arranging everyone, running to get into the photo before the self-timer tripped, checking the camera display, yelling at various of us for minor infractions, then redoing it time and time again, runs 7:46, something that a couple of commenters have complained about. They didn’t get it: it was SUPPOSED to be long. That’s why it’s titled How to Shoot a Family Portrait (In the Real World).

Here’s where you go to see still photos of the extravaganza and / or subject yourself to a 7:46 min video.

They’re both iPad proficient

I’m thankful that my grandsons have had a change to meet and get to know their Great-Grandmother. Malcolm gets to see his great-grandmother only once or twice a year, but they’re close enough that she can kibitz his computer game. There’s not that big a gap between 90 and seven, I suppose, when you both know how to use iPads. Malcolm is Matt and Sarah’s son.

Graham – the newest addition

Mother journeyed to Florida shortly after Graham was born in February (remember our Road Trip back). Graham doesn’t know a stranger. I have a snippet of video right after this still shot was taken that shows him breaking out in a huge grin and reaching for her.

Both of my sons keep in regular contact with their grandmother by phone calls and email. Even though they didn’t grow up in Cape, they feel the same attraction to the area that I do. Graham belongs to Adam and Carly.

Missing from the photo, but not forgotten

Even though Matt wasn’t much older than this when Dad died in 1977 – and Adam hadn’t even been born yet – both boys have heard so many stories and memories that it’s almost like they grew up with him.

Dad may not be in the photograph at the top of the page, but he’s still in the picture for us.

November 20, 2011February 13, 2021

Pulling the Plug on Mother

I knew the day would come. When you’re 90 years old, unexpected things can happen. I had to pull the plug on Mother this week. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Let’s back the bus up

Her yard has a woods on the east side and rows of trees on the north and west sides. The neighbors and the fire station across the street all have trees. She thinks she has some kind of leaf magnet in her yard that attracts every leaf in the block.

It disturbs her.

Me, I’d say it was God’s plan to recycle the nutrients, and I’d leave ’em there.

She, however, wants them gone.

Taking the Murray for its last ride

Fortunately, the back yard butts into a no mans land that used to be a steep hill and cow pasture, so if she can chase the leaves that far, they go down where they’ll eventually fill up a gully in another hundred or two hundred years.

I left the other day and she was blowing leaves on the east yard. That’s pretty easy. She only has to blow the leaves about 75 feet to get them out of the yard on that side.

When I came back, she had started on the upper level of the back yard. I noticed that she was looking a bit tuckered out, so I offered to take over (knowing, of course, that my offer would be indignantly rebuffed). I left to run some other errands.

This time, I found that she had the 100-foot extension cord, plus the 25-footer, and was attacking the lower level of the back yard. Deciding that it was time for drastic action, I reached where the long cord plugged into the short cord and gave a yank. Within seconds, there was silence in the back yard. I had pulled the plug on Mother.

Putting up a brave front

I think even she knew it was time. She didn’t protest when I started coiling up the power cords and hauling them off.

But, that’s not the end of what happened this week. She was giving the yard what she thought would be one last cutting of the season (plus sending leaves off to leaf heaven) when she complained that “it’s not blowing.” I figured she had probably thrown the belt that spins the blades, cutting the grass and mulching the leaves.

When I went to thread it on, one of the pulleys kept popping off its shaft. When I took off the shroud that covered it, I discovered that the shaft wasn’t the same shape all the way up; it came to a point. At some point, the thing that held the pulley to the shaft had come off, the pulley had started grinding away at the shaft until it looked like a bad tooth. I wish I had taken a picture of it.

“Goodbye, Faithful Servant”

It was time to call Brother-in-Law John Perry. He’s seen and done it all when it comes to fixing things. He’d just never seen anything like THIS before. We loaded up a mess of parts and headed out to see Jake the Lawnmower Guy. He, too, had a Maude Moment – “Hey, Maude, Come here. Bet you ain’t never seen anything like this before.”

He pulled out his calculator. Well, this is Missouri. He pulled out a pad of paper and a pencil and started writing down part numbers and getting more excited all the time. He could just see himself out on the Lake of the Ozarks in his new bass boat.

Finally, tearing up his parts list, he said, with the images of the bass boat fading away, “I have a couple of used mowers you might want to take a look at.”

Taking it easy on first lap

I went back to Mother and said, “I have the solution to your lawnmower problem and it’s only gonna cost a quarter.”

“A quarter,” she said. “What can you do to it for a quarter?”

“Well, if I can borrow a gun from John, I can buy a bullet for about a quarter and I think shooting it is about the only course of action that makes sense.”

Vrooooom! Vroooom!

After complaining that the new mower operated differently than the old one – “I won’t know what to do with my left foot. The old mower had the clutch on the left…” – she bought a used Troy-Bilt 21-horsepower, 46-inch mower. Her old one only cut 36 inches and had 11 horses hitched to it. (I can hear her complaining about the cost of feed already, not to mention having to build a bigger barn.)

The new mower has modern safety features. If you put it in reverse, the mower blades stop. If you lift up off the seat, the mower blades stop. If you come completely OFF the seat, the mower blades stop and the motor dies. Keeps you from being run over if you’re ejected.

She needs rocks in her pockets

The only catch is that mother weighs about 72 pounds. I noticed that the blades kept kicking out. I watched her awhile and figured out that she’s so light that every time she hits a bump, the seat flies up just enough to engage the safety interlock and kill the blades. We’re either going to have to fatten her up or make her keep a concrete block in her lap.

Not bad, thought, for someone who had to overcome adversity.