Wrecks Archives

February 4, 2014

Crash on Independence

This minor three-car wreck near the corner of Independence and Henderson is interesting not because of the crash, but for what’s going on around it. This shot, for example, shows E.C. Robinson Lumber Company in the background. A quick peek at Google Earth shows that the main building is still there, but some of the ones behind it are gone. (Click on the photo to make it large enough to see the details.)

There’s a Greyhound bus parked at the bus depot, and a sign for Budget Laundry & Cleaners is behind it. There’s a boy’s bike with fenders and a rear rack propped up on its kickstand on the sidewalk. On the rack is a baseball mitt. The railroad tracks hadn’t been removed yet.

I apologize for the quality of the film: this frame has some fog flare on the left, and some of the other shots have more spots and flaws that I felt like fixing.

Wrecks as a spectator sport

Cape Girardeans love their wrecks. The sound of a crash will bring folks out to enjoy the excitement. I have to admit that it was a family ritual to swing by James’ Wrecker on the way home from church to see who had come to grief over the weekend. Mother, of course, could never resist the siren call (literally) of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances. When I come home I have to tell her that I don’t have to chase those flashing lights in my retirement. I think that disappoints her.

Even I was shocked, though, when I worked a car being pulled out of a river in the wee hours of the morning in Ohio. Water was still pouring out of it and the driver, a young woman who had served me a spaghetti dinner at a local diner that evening was still behind the wheel. I have no idea where a crowd could have come from at that hour of the morning, but the capper was when someone lifted a toddler up so he could see inside the car. THAT busted even Cape standards.

Probably happened in 1964

The tag on this car says 1965, and some other photos on the roll were of a football game with a plane towing a banner urging attendees to vote for AuH2O in 1964. That leads me to believe that the fenderbender was in the fall of 1964.

I see my station wagon

I see my 1959 Buick LaSabe station wagon off on the right. (I mention that only because there is an active group of collectors who search for any photo or mention of that vehicle they can find.) The body language of the spectators is fascinating.

Curator Jessica and I are considering doing a workshop at the Athens County Historical Society Museum to encourage local photographers to both scour their old photos for ones that have historical significance and to encourage them to document their surroundings on an ongoing basis. As in this case, a wreck that wasn’t even worth putting in the paper contains elements that show what life was like in Cape in the mid-1960s.

January 23, 2014January 23, 2014

A Volkswagen “Where’s Waldo?”

Reader Brad Brune has been bugging me on Facebook to do a story about VWs and VW dealerships in Cape. He didn’t get my message that the best way to handle a special request is to write in on a piece of green paper bearing the photo of a dead president, so I’m going to only honor part of his request.

It just so happened that I had been editing a batch of Ohio pictures and had noticed how many VWs were in the backgrounds.

They were everywhere

It was hard to find a street scene where there wasn’t a bug, bus or squareback like mine showing up. They were in the background of John Glenn running for the Senate. They were part of and in the middle of protest marches.

Cape had a few VWs, in fact, I saw a roll of a wreck on Perryville Road involving one, but it wasn’t interesting enough to scan. Athens, being a college town and being right at the beginning of the Volkswagen wave was prime territory for bug spotting.

VW photo gallery

Pretend that you’re playing a Volkswagen version of Where’s Waldo? Most of them are obvious, but you might have to squint to find some. You’ll see a couple shots of Wife Lila’s yellow bug (Brother David is washing it), and my red Squareback (the worst lemon I ever owned). Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to navigate through the gallery. Enjoy, Mr. Brune. (P.S. See if you can spot the Atlas Plastics truck from Cape Girardeau in one of the photos.)

December 7, 2012

Flo’s Only Accident in 29 Years

On the way to or from a basketball tournament Feb. 27, 1967, I encountered Flo’s Cab which had been involved in a minor crash. The hit was hard enough to dislodge the luggage rack from atop the station wagon, but I don’t see any windshield dimples, so it must not have been too bad. On top of that, it looks like I rated it worth only one shot.

What I didn’t know until I just read a Nov. 23, 1974, Missourian story was that I managed to capture Flo’s only accident. “Flo said she was involved in one minor accident in 1967 when the pavement was wet from rain. Her parked cabs have been struck at times by other moving vehicles, she said.”

As far as I know, I never photographed Flo. She was one of those formidable characters who intimidated me.

Flo stories

When you are one of the first female cab drivers and you are a fixture for 29 years, you are well known.

October 21, 2012

Barges Sink Off Cape Rock

The parking lot at the foot of Cape Rock had more cars than usual. They were checking out two barges that had run aground and sunk right in front of the water intake structure north of Cape Rock. One, loaded with rock, grounded parallel to the bank. One that was either empty or had dumped its load was sticking out in the river with a floating drum marking its stern.

Low water causing problems

I searched the paper and TV station websites for information about the barges, but came up dry. Someone at the scene said a southbound tow with 25 barges didn’t get set up right for the turn and ran aground, dropping these two and sending others drifting downstream where they had to be caught.

I was also told that 20 was the maximum string under these conditions, but I couldn’t confirm that. I thought doing a search for Coast Guard Upper Mississippi notice to mariners would give me everything I needed to know, but navigating the river on a dark, stormy night would be easier than trying to find that information.

My barge quest put me onto another adventure that you’ll hear about later.

Sunken barge photo gallery

Here are some other photos of the scene, including some rocks that are normally under water. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.