Videos Archives

March 9, 2016

Ray Seyer 1922 – 2016

Wife Lila sent me a text the morning of March 2: “Just found out Ray is in MICU at St. Francis. The family has been called. I’m in tears.”

Ray was Ray Seyer, her uncle, a man who was like a father to her.

The other shoe dropped Sunday night: “Uncle Ray died around 6:30. Marty [her sister] just let me know.”

Formal obituary from the funeral home.

Raymond C. Seyer, 94, of Cape Girardeau, Missouri died Monday, March 7, 2016 at Saint Francis Medical Center. He was born January 13, 1922 in Advance, Missouri to Philip Jacob and Alvina Christina Dohogne Seyer.

He and Rose Mary Hoffman were married February 26, 1946 at St. Mary Church in Cape Girardeau. She preceded him in death October 31, 2015.

Raymond served in the Navy during World War II. He was an auto mechanic and instructor at the Vocational School.

Member of the Knights of Columbus

He was a member of St. Mary Cathedral, Knights of Columbus Council 1111 in which he was a past Grand Knight and Thomas A. Langen Assembly, Fourth Degree in which he was a former Faithful Navigator. He was also a member of American Legion Post 63 and V.F.W. Post 3838.

Survivors include children, Michael (Brenda) Seyer and Dan (Mary) Seyer of Cape Girardeau, Diane (Ray) Staebel of Liberty Hill, Texas, Janette (Stephen) Bennett of Alexandria, Kentucky, Joyce (Dave) Bruenderman of Cape Girardeau, Linda (Bob) Garner of Jackson, Missouri, Ralph (Debbie) Seyer of Kirkland, Washington, and Steve Seyer of Saint Clair, Missouri; brothers, Lawrence (Ida) Seyer and Elmer (Susie) Seyer of Oran, Missouri; sister, Mary Woltering of Breese, Illinois; 27 grandchildren; 42 great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his parents; wife; son, Timothy G. Seyer; brothers, Zeno, Albert, Paul, and Henry Seyer; sisters, Sr. Michaelette Seyer, Syvilla Sobba, and Sr. Mary Agnes Seyer; and grandchild, Wendy Seyer.

Lila remembers Uncle Ray

My Uncle Ray was generous, joyful (and gruff, when necessary) and always welcomed me when I went home to Cape. Last evening, Uncle Ray peacefully closed his eyes for the last time.

I never missed a chance to stop at Ray and Rose Mary’s house when I was in Cape. My first memories of my uncle and aunt were as a 10-year-old child walking home from swimming lessons at Capaha pool. My brother, sister and I would stop in for a drink and a snack before walking the rest of the way home.

In later years, I was welcomed with a hug, a cup of tea ( or a glass wine, if Ray was showing off homemade someone gave him) and any number of good things that might be on the table. Then, he would begin the story of the day. He told good stories… and he laughed when he told them.

Ray and I talked gardens. He told me what kind of fertilizer to use and never to plant tomatoes and bell peppers in the same place. I would send him pictures of my garden, and he would save me green tomatoes and garlic when I came to Cape in the fall.

Ray and Rose Mary were a unit

I always thought of Ray and Rose Mary as a unit… never one or the other. And now, with his passing, they are, again, perfectly paired. I know she was waiting for him with a smile. He closed his eyes for the last time, yesterday and opened them to gentle Rose Mary’s face. They are together for eternity. I am sad and happy at the same time. I will miss them more than anyone could know.

Preserving his stories

I stood for several minutes looking down at Ray at Ford and Sons Funeral Home. My eyes got misty and I had a hard time swallowing.

Something was wrong.

At first, I thought it might be because he was dressed in a suit. Some men aren’t made for suits, even though I had seen Ray clean up nicely.

Then, it dawned on me.

I told a family member, “That’s the longest I’ve ever been in that man’s presence without hearing a good story.”

You could tell when Ray was going to let loose with a good one by the way he’d get this half-grin with his lower lip pooched out just a little bit; then the crinkles would show up in the corners of his eyes. That’s a sign of a man who has laughed well and often. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Recording his stories
In 2010, Lila, Mother, Rose Mary and I got together over at Ray’s house south of the old Sunny Hill restaurant so I could videotape some of his stories. He and Mother grew up in the Advance and Tilsit area, so they tag-teamed a lot of tales.

Here are some of the stories and videos that came out of that session.

September 3, 2014April 29, 2021

OU Party Time

I’ve been working late at the Athens County Historical Society and Museum office. Athens, Ohio, is the home of Ohio University, once known as a top-ranked party school. (If it’s been down-graded, I’d hate to see what the top 10 looks like.)

There are several bars to the left of me; there’s a bar across the street from me, and there’s a bar and a rental house with a kazillion people in it on the right side.

The female voices that echo off the surrounding buildings are hitting frequencies that I thought only dogs could hear (and just short of that which would break glass). I haven’t heard the equivalent of the male voices since a camping trip on Fisheating Creek during alligator mating season. It’s not even the music that is earsplitting. It’s the cacophony of voices. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Words don’t do it justice

I shot the Saturday night video when I was getting ready to pull out of the parking lot about one in the morning. It’ll give you an idea what Court Street sounded like. I sent the video to CHS Buddy Jim Stone, who had been in town dropping Son Oliver off for class earlier.

His reaction: “Gee. Oliver said they were having movie night in their new apartment with perhaps a few games of chess.”

Party in progress

When I drove down Court Street, Athens’ main North-South drag late Sunday afternoon, I spotted the party in the first photo two doors down from the office. I couldn’t resist.

When I walked up, there was a guy with a cellphone camera taking a picture of a couple of his friends. “Would you like to get in the photo?” is always a good icebreaker. The next thing I knew, half the party crowded into the photo.

Got an internship?

A kid came up to me and said, “I saw you flipping cameras back and forth. Are you a pro?” I handed him a business card and told him what I do now.

He wanted to know if I took on interns. I said that I was a Florida guy writing about MO in the middle ’60s and Ohio in the late ’60s, so I didn’t know how well he’d fit in.

“Are you a nark?”

The next guy asked, “Are you a nark?”

The last time that question was raised, I told him, was in about 1974. I was at a big group of partying young folks about to be chased out by the sheriff when I saw a guy pointing at me and asking his buddy, “Think he’s a nark?”

“You gotta be kidding,” his buddy observed. “He’s too straight-looking to be a nark.”

“I love Athens”

Another kid said he was from Detroit and “loved Athens.”

“If you are somewhere and mention that you went to school in Athens, it’s like you have a bond.”

Curator Jessica and I had talked about that. Athens’ uptown shopping area, bars and restaurants are adjacent to campus and everything is within walking distance, so a lot of students don’t have cars. It’s also a relatively isolated area not close to any major population centers. A lot of students come from places like Cleveland and Akron that are too far away for a casual weekend commute, so they hang out in town and grow close to it.

That’s a lot different from Cape, where the SEMO campus is nowhere near the shopping areas and St. Louis is an easy two-hour drive. The university and town treat each other with benign neglect.

What’s with the pointing thing?

So, what’s with the pointing gesture thing that shows up in so many pictures. It’s something I’ve not run into before.

Monday morning, I showed up at a local diner for breakfast. There was a blonde at the table across from me who must have been one of those who attended a Sunday night party because I could see her eyeballs throbbing all the way across the room. I think if a server had dropped a tray of plates behind her, her head would have exploded.

Interestingly enough, the streets were quiet and almost deserted Monday night. I guess even OU students can stand only such much partying.

February 14, 2014

World’s Oldest 3-Year-Old

Last weekend I went to a joint birthday party for Grandsons Elliot (who was 1) and Graham, who turned 3 on Valentine’s Day.

Civilized cake

You saw the photos of Elliot eating his cake last week. It’s pretty obvious why he got his own cake and the rest of us got pieces of this one.

Video of a boy old beyond his years

Much to Grandson Malcolm’s annoyance, I’ve always quizzed the youngsters about things that might be in their food. (He was taught at an early age to intone, “Bluuuuuuberries cause efluuuuvia.)

In this video, Graham in response to my questioning, assures me that his cake doesn’t contain rhinoceros tails, crocodile noses or hippopotamus hides. Beating me to my next offering, he says, “No alligators, just cake.”

Then, he cracks me up by holding a hand to his ear, making a face and solemnly saying “That music is too loud.”

I thought he had turned into Instant Old Man, but he DID let the other guests play on his lawn.

Taking little brother out for a drive

After the party broke up, Graham got his dad’s permission to take his little brother out for a drive for the first time. The kid’s a pretty good driver.

I’m going to buy him a compass for his dashboard to go along with his white belt and white shoes so he’ll fit in with the rest of Florida’s Old Man drivers.

Adam, Carly, Graham and Elliot are lucky enough to live in Loxahatchee, a rural section of Palm Beach County, on a gravel road that deadends at a canal. It’s a good place for Graham to drive if Dad or Mother is along.

December 26, 2012December 24, 2022

Christmas Snow in Cape

If news reports are right, there’s gonna be a lot of stale bread in Southeast Missouri in the aftermath of the blizzard warning that predicted as much as 18″ of snow. There was a rush on the stores for staples in the days leading up to the storm.

The Cape area received from 4 to 6 inches, but winds gusting as high as 40 mph piled it up to look much higher in some places. The hard blow caused the wet snow to stick to vertical surfaces. Fortunately, there was very little sleet and ice in the storm.

Video of spinning ornament

Here is a video Brother Mark shot with his iPhone of Mother’s snow-covered lawn ornament spinning in the wind. (You can see the same ornament spinning in an afternoon thunderstorm last summer.)

Mark: I should have bought her a pony

Mother’s cordless phone was getting a little iffy, so I bought her a new one with three remotes for Christmas. Brother Mark called and said, “I wish you had bought her a pony.”

“A pony?”

“Yeah, ’cause if you had bought her a pony, we could be out riding it and having fun…”

“Instead of setting up the phone?”

“Yep.”

Here is an Amazon link to the Panasonic phone I bought her. The range is great: it worked all the way to the far end of the basement. I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t reach all the way to the clothesline in the back yard. Sound quality is excellent and she loves the speakerphone.

Of course, I’m not the guy who had to set up something more complicated than a missile defense system. (Gee, do you think I might have planned it that way?)

More snow photos

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery. Click here if you want to see what our snows looked like in the 1960s.