Shari Stiver Archives

July 31, 2014

Mike Schuette’s Tree

I showed up a little early to photograph the season’s last Cape Girardeau Municipal Band’s concert, so I wandered around Capaha Park with Friend Shari. It was a good opportunity to check out how Mike Schuette’s memorial tree was doing.

When I was there two summers ago, the memorial stone had been set, but the tree hadn’t been planted. It looks like it’s doing fine.

Some of Mike’s cronies surreptitiously scattered some of his ashes around his beloved second base. That way every kid who slides into second will take a little bit of Mike home with him.

Earlier Schutte stories and pictures

Brad Brune and some of his eagle-eyed brethren have spotted or mentioned their buddy Mike in some of the old stories:

June 1, 2014

Albany Art Park

All of my Road Warriorettes – Jan, Shari, Anne and Curator Jessica – have different sleep patterns than I do. I’m up until the wee hours of the morning doing blog posts after driving all day. They’re snug in their beds snoring the night away, then they get up early and traipse down to the motel’s free breakfast. I sleep until 9:32, check my email and get rolling just before check-out time. Actually, Shari was the strangest of the batch: she doesn’t come to life until she fills her tank with Starbucks coffee. I’d set the GPS for the nearest Starbucks and leave her a set of keys, hoping she wouldn’t leave me stranded in some backwater town.

Because Anne and Jessica had the early breakfast this morning, they weren’t overly hungry. My hunger alarm was clanging loudly by the time we got to the first town of any size, Albany, Georgia. We had set a goal of avoiding chain joints and had been doing well so far. The first candidate looked a little tea roomy for my taste, so Curator Jessica was dispatched to see if it had tablecloths and/or candles.

I don’t remember if she said it had hanging ferns or not, but we elected to drive around the block to see what else was downtown. When we made the turn, the Albany Artpark on Pine jumped out at us.

At first glance, it was hard to tell if the front windows were painted, if we were looking at reflections or if the colorful images were inside. I put my hunger alarm on snooze.

Fascinating urban art

What we discovered was one of the most innovative uses of an old building I had ever seen. A local organization bought a neglected building, razed the upper floor to make it open to the sky, and beefed up the exterior walls. It became a huge open-air art gallery.

There was such a 3-dimensional feeling to the graffiti art and the surrounding walls that it was hard to tell what was art and what was reality.

We were a day early

The stuff we saw was, for the most part, the equivalent of finger exercises. A formal paint-off was held the day after we were there. News accounts I saw online showed some remarkable work. It’s sort of like the annual chalk street paintings held in Lake Worth, Florida.

Opportunities for other towns

Every place I’ve lived has more than its share of decaying buildings in its downtown areas. I’d love to see art parks like this pop up all over. It’s a great outlet for artists, and the images are fun to look at.

While we were walking around, we visited Ray Charles Plaza, the subject of yesterday’s blog post. We found a great local restaurant on the way of town. It had great food at a reasonable price, served without table cloths, candles or hanging ferns.

Art Park photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

March 1, 2014

Glenn Yarbrough 1968

You may have noticed I had a varied group of road warriors traveling with me last year. One of the things that makes for a successful trip (meaning that the same number of people arrive at the destination as left) is working out the Rules of the Road before you take off.

Friends Jan and Anne were bike riding partners, so we had plenty of time to work out the kinks of our relationships while pedaling down the road. Friend Shari was my first high school girlfriend (which didn’t end well), and we hadn’t spoken in close to four decades, so I had to learn that she doesn’t become close to human until after her first cup of Starbucks coffee, she needs frequent smoke breaks and she gets up about the time I’m normally going to bed. We were stopping often for her to check out antique shops, so the smoke breaks weren’t an issue, and I’d leave her my car keys so she could get her Starbucks fix before I even thought about waking up.

Curator Jessica from Athens, Ohio, was a going to be a challenge. She was half my age (OK, more than half my age, but who is counting) to start off, so I was afraid we would have generational issues. We managed to compromise on a waking and sleeping schedule, types of eating establishments (she wasn’t picky) and where we would stay (no place that rented by the hour or where bodies had been found in a room recently). The only place where we hit a speed bump was when we got to talking about music play lists.

“No Glenn Yarbrough,” she insisted

I’m not really a Yarbrough fan – in fact, I get Glenn Yarbrough and Gordon Lightfoot mixed up, probably because of the G-names – but I wasn’t going to concede all that easy. “Miz Jessica, Ma’am, you’ve read my blog. You know that Baby the Rain Must Fall, Glenn’s biggest hit, was how I met Wife Lila. Surely you wouldn’t make me cut that from the playlist, would you?”

She would. Yarbrough was a non-negotiable with her. She also wasn’t big on C.W. McCall, but she WOULD let me play the home brew Cars & Trucks mix tape that was a Steinhoff family trip staple.

So, when I was editing some of my Ohio film, I was surprised to run into Glenn Yarbrough in concert at Ohio University on March 2, 1968.

Jessica, this are for you.

He is as bland as his music

While I was editing the film, I cranked up some Yarbrough music. Sorry, Glenn, I had to dump you after about the third song. You make Gordon Lightfoot sound exciting. On top of that, the photos are dull, too. I’m only including a bunch of them in case some reader was one of the folks who bought some of his nearly four dozen solo albums. He also sang on almost two dozen albums with the Limeliters. SOMEBODY must have liked him.

I’m sticking in some shots of the guys in his band just in case they became famous on their own later.

Glenn Yarbrough photo gallery

Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

December 5, 2013December 6, 2013

Avon Park’s Hotel Jacaranda

When I did a travel piece on driving U.S. 27 from start to finish in Florida in 1990, reporter Gayle Pallesen and I stopped to take a look at the Hotel Jacaranda on the square in Avon Park. It was in the early stages of restoration. I’m a sucker for cheap accommodations, so I snagged a huge suite for about $35. It was rough, but clean.

When Friend Shari and I drove that route headed back to Cape in October, I told her we had to swing by to see how the project went. She used to rehab old buildings for a living and likes to see ones that have been done right. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Hotel opened in 1926

The hotel’s website says, “As a true example of living history, The Hotel Jacaranda is one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in Highlands County. When the Jac opened in 1926, it took its name from a 150-year-old jacaranda tree that had been removed to make way for the hotel. Among its first guests were members of the St. Louis Cardinals, who came to Avon Park for spring training from 1927 to 1929.”

Guests included Al Capone and Babe Ruth

“Photos of its famous guests, from Babe Ruth to Hollywood celebrities George Burns and Gracie Allen, adorn its dining room. During World War II, the grand hotel played a hand in the war effort by housing hundreds of servicemen who had come to the area to train as military pilots.”

Restoration started in 1988

“In 1988, the South Florida State College Foundation, Inc., purchased the Jac with an eye toward preserving its historic character. As part of that ongoing effort, the Foundation has undertaken a major restorative project that is returning a street-level business mall to its original design”

Kitchen used by culinary students

“Through a partnership with South Florida State College, culinary students perfect their talents by training in the Jac’s modern kitchen.”

Original elevator still works

Guests can still ride the old elevator.

Still an impressive building

Avon Park, with a population of less than 9,000, has done a remarkable job of making the downtown area attractive. Hotel Jacaranda is only one of several buildings that have been restored.

Plenty of books available

If you want to put aside your digital diversions, the hotel’s library has plenty of books to borrow.

There’s always Reed’s Motel

Of course, if you prefer a more 1950’s look, you could stay on U.S. 27 and check into Reed’s Motel, where this swimmer has been diving for at least half a century.