Steinhoff family Archives

October 15, 2011

2011 Birthday Season Day 1

This is Mother’s 90th Birthday Season. David, Diane and Amy Steinhoff came in from Tulsa; Kim Steinhoff-Tidsale and daughters Brynn and Taylor came in from Denver (Casey is due Saturday); Wife Lila and I arrived from WPB (she flew; I drove); Adam, Carly and Graham Steinhoff flew in from West Palm Beach; Matt, Sarah and Malcolm drove up from Palm Beach Gardens. Mark is coming in from St. Louis Saturday.

This is the biggest gathering of Steinhoffs ever. We can no longer hold a family reunion in a phone booth.

Mother had hair appointment

We knew Mother had a hair appointment at 10, so I was given the task of putting out the word as soon as she left the driveway. Within minutes, the whole clan camped out on the porch to surprise her. We waited and waited and waited. Someone suggested that we REALLY surprise her by leaving a message saying that we had all decided to go to lunch. (We carefully noted the name of that person for when it comes time to update the will.)

When the honoree finally arrived, there was much hugging and a few wet eyes. Most of that action was captured in a video for later editing. With the surprise out of the way, there was a general agreement that we were hungry.

A motion to head to Wib’s BBQ in Jackson was made and passed. We took over the joint.

Friendly waitress grabbed camera

A friendly waitress offered to take a photo so I could be in at least one picture. I checked out how close she was to the nearest exit and tried to remember if I had ever stiffed her for a tip, then decided to relinquish my Nikon. She did a pretty good job.

We’re a wired family

Carly and Matt stay connected with the world while Graham exhibits his excitement.

Don’t want to miss anyone

This shot of Amy, Adam, Sarah and the back of Diane’s head insures that everyone is in at least one photo. I want to make sure NOT to offend anyone who might be picking out my Old Folks’ Home in the future.

The fellow in the cap in the background was not part of our gathering.

Missouri Conservation Center great for kids

We decided the kids needed to burn off some energy, so we headed to North County Park, figuring we’d hit the playground.

I suggested we spend a few minutes in the Missouri Conservation Center. The kids and adults loved it.

Malcolm liked building things out of blocks made from tree branches. Then, he and the girls and David were fascinated by a live bee hive with bees flying in and of the hive through a transparent tube in the wall. Malcolm spent 20 minutes trying to spot the queen. David was curious about how long a honey bee lived. (About six weeks per Matt’s Googling.) Since we had seen bees flying around in the butterfly garden out front, Malcolm was able to really made the connection between flowers, bees and honey.

David’s hidden talents

Right next to the block area was a small puppet stage. David started pulling out animal puppets and coming up with an elaborate story about who they were and how they interacted, ending up with a tale about a skunk.

When he finished to a standing ovation (actually, everybody wanted to see another exhibit, so they stood up to leave), I looked behind the stage to see if he had been reading from a script. I am proud to report that he was ad libbing.

Audience was rapt and appreciative

You can tell from the expressions that he did a great job.

We’ll more than likely report on other events. By Sunday, folks will be catching planes and scattering back to their homes.

We’re going to make an effort to get together like this more often. After all, we’d all come together for a funeral. Why not celebrate living instead?

October 8, 2011October 8, 2011

Home Safety Tip

Home Safety Tip of the Day: Remove the key from your double cylinder deadbolt lock, even if you’re only going to be gone a few minutes.

Wife Lila and I always make it a point to remove the keys from the front and back doors if we’re going to be gone for an extended period of time, but this morning we were going to be gone only for about an hour, so we didn’t bother. She was going to pick me up at the service station where I was having my oil changed, then we were going to have breakfast. We left the house at 9:10. We returned at almost exactly 10. I went to my home office to edit some photos, and she went to the back of the house, where I heard her say, fairly calmly, “Somebody has broken the glass in the back door and it’s standing wide open.”

My underwear was untouched

She dialed the West Palm Beach Police non-emergency number while I headed to the bedroom to see if it had been hit. I could see two of her dresser drawers open and two of mine pulled out a couple of inches. She noticed two wooden jewelry boxes were missing.

Now, before you get the wrong idea, we’re not big jewelry people. I don’t even wear the 20-year watch I got from the company. Most of her jewelry consists of inexpensive things I’ve picked up on the road, like when I covered the Queen’s visit to the Bahamas, or gifts from her mother and grandmother. They are things that aren’t worth a lot of money, but are priceless in sentimental value.

The contents of my dresser drawers were untouched. I guess the perp got it open far enough to see that it was my underwear drawer and decided that there couldn’t be anything of value in there based on the condition of my underthings.

The officer arrived within about 20 minutes and was a total pleasant surprise. I figured he’d show up, get enough for a minimal report and leave. Instead, he took a lot of time surveying the house and found some footprints in the backyard, which indicated that the bad guys had jumped the fence behind our house to get out. He left to walk the neighborhood to see what else he could turn up.

Good news

He came back about 45 minutes later and said, “I have good news and I have good news,” and handed Lila this school photo locket of Matt. He said that he guessed that Bad Guy One must have handed the jewelry box to Bad Guy Two so he could jump over the fence. One of the drawers must have come open and some of the stuff had fallen out. The other piece of good news was that a neighbor saw the mopes and followed them a couple of blocks until they disappeared. When the cop walked the path, he noticed that two businesses had video cameras that could have picked up the guys walking on the street.

This evening the officer called the house to make sure everything was OK and to tell us that the first video he watched didn’t show the faces clearly enough for an ID, but it gave him a direction of travel that might have taken them past a third business with high-quality surveillance cameras that he was going to check later. He was able to determine from the video timestamp that the burglars hit our house about 15 minutes after we left this morning. We don’t know if it was a random thing or if someone saw both of our cars pull out and figured the house was empty.

So, rather than just replace the glass on the back door, we’re going to replace the whole door with one containing hurricane impact glass. It’ll not only give us storm protection, but it’ll also make anyone who wants to break in have to work hard. The salesman said you can’t smash it with one blow of a sledge hammer, it’ll take several.

And, we’ll make sure not to leave the keys in the deadbolt. They might be able to come in through a window, but they won’t be able to walk out the doors.

Must have been after gold

Either the bad guys heard us coming home and took off before we saw them or they were interested in only gold and silver jewelry. None of the electronics, computer or camera equipment was touched. After the officer gave us the OK to move stuff around, Lila found that they had dumped one of the boxes out and left some novelty holiday earrings behind, plus this set of 60’s stained glass Peace earrings.

Both the Steinhoffs and the bad guys would have come out ahead if I had just taped a 20-dollar bill on the door with a note saying, “This is more than you’ll get for fencing all the jewelry we own. Please take this and move on to the next house.”

October 7, 2011

Peeling Paint Photos

When Son Matt found the photo of Paul Lueders that ran earlier, he also stumbled across some of his frames of a subject I’ve been looking for. I’m going to see if anyone can remember where this mural existed. (Don’t cheat and look at the filenames.) You can click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Horse-drawn fire engine?

It’s hard to tell with a lot of the pieces gone, but it looks like it might be a horse-drawn fire engine. The Dalmatian and the guy in a uniform (in the closeup at the top) send me in that direction.

I’m still looking for my film from this shoot. It’s gonna be in the bottom of the last box I pull out.

Other Cape murals

City Hall / Lorimier School

Dr. Herbert’s office (clown mural not shown, but talked about)

Lutheran Church mural on building that may be torn down to make parking lot.

Sharon Sanders Blog

I frequently send you over to look at Missourian photographer Fred Lynch’s blog, f/8 and Be There. Well, another Missourian writer has launched a blog: Sharon Sanders, the paper’s librarian. She just published a touching tribute to her father, who died at age 94. If you like my stuff, I’m sure you’ll enjoy reading her column. Rumor has it that it’s going to run on Thursdays. Leave her some comments so she feels appreciated. It’s lonely when you’re first starting out and you don’t get feedback.

I had lunch with a young staffer last time I was in Cape. My advice to her was, “get to know your librarian. She can make you look a lot smarter than you are, help you flesh out stories or even give you enough info to write one without heavy lifting on your part.” I never met a newspaper librarian who didn’t love to go digging in what we used to call “The Morgue” for you. I envy Fred for being able to turn to Sharon for help researching his photos.

October 3, 2011June 15, 2013

Paul Lueders

After I ran the piece on Lueders Studio the other day, Son Matt sent me a message that he was pretty sure he could put his hands on a photo that he had taken of Paul Lueders after he had taken Matt’s photo (below). Indeed, he did. After the formal portraits were taken, Mr. Lueders gave us a tour of the studio and sat around talking shop with us for about an hour.

This portrait of a Master Photographer, taken by Matt when he was about 15, does a great job of capturing the informal, laid-back style of one of the best photographers I’ve ever known. He’s relaxed, surrounded by his work, and his hands are a blur as he gestures to make a point.

Photographer Matt

Matt and his brother, Adam, are decent shooters. Both won national awards in Boy Scout photo contests and local competition. Fortunately, their geek genes were stronger than their photography genes and they decided to pursue photography as a hobby, not a profession.