July 2012

July 31, 2012

Ghosts of Central High School

I got permission to wander around the halls at what used to be Central High School, but I had to double pinkie swear that I wouldn’t show any student faces. That’s a big switch from the old days when you could shoot just about anything, but I agreed to the rule. I wanted to show those stairs we had climbed so many times, but a shot without students was dull and a shot WITH students would have landed me in detention.

You can click on any photo to make it larger. (If you see any recognizable faces, don’t tell on me.)

How to shoot a time exposure

This was my compromise. I shot a time exposure of the kids during class change. The pictures weren’t as successful as I had hoped – those kids cleared the halls way too fast, so I didn’t have time to experiment with settings.

To be able to shoot with a slow shutter speed, I had to drop my film speed down to ISO 200 and put my camera in shutter priority mode. That meant that I locked down two variables: film speed and shutter speed and let the camera control the lens aperture or opening (f/stop). The top photo was one second at f/11.

The light must have changed a little on this photo, because it had the same ISO 200 and one-second exposure, but the lens was at f/10. The one below was f/13.

These weren’t the only ghosts

The old stairs still made the same sounds as they did when we were there. They are as solid as ever. I hope the school board isn’t looking to turn it into a pile of rubble like Washington and Franklin Schools. If they try, I think they’ll have more than bees to contend with.

Terry Kitchen describes in a video just how unhappy the spirits were when he tried to move the old trophies out of our Central to the new school out in the hinterlands. You don’t muck with Central spirits.

July 30, 2012

A Non-Political Whitewash

When we hear people talking about a whitewash today, we generally think of “a metaphor meaning to gloss over or cover up vices, crimes or scandals or to exonerate by means of a perfunctory investigation or through biased presentation of data. It is especially used in the context of corporations, governments or other organizations.”

When we’re talking about trees like the one in this unknown back yard, “whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint was a low-cost type of paint made from slaked lime (calcium hydroxide) and chalk” was applied to the bark in the springtime.Click on the photos to make them larger.

Whitewash was also used by for painting barns and the interiors of low-income apartment hallways. It wasn’t good for this purpose because it had a tendency to rub off onto clothing. It was associated with poverty in an old saying that I don’t recall hearing in Southeast Missouri, “Too proud to whitewash and too poor to paint.”

Painting the elm trees

When I was a kid visiting my grandparents in Advance, it was a springtime custom for my grandfather, Roy Welch, to paint the elm trees lining the yard on Cypress Street with whitewash. Some folks say that it was to prevent “sun scald” or to protect the trees from insects. It didn’t do anything to keep Dutch Elm Disease from wiping them all out. I think it was done for cosmetic reasons.

This photo was taken on my fourth or fifth birthday, which would have been in March. That’s too early for the the trees in the background to get this season’s fresh coat. You can see that most of the white from last year has washed off.

So, is it still the custom to whitewash trees anywhere today? I can’t think of the last time I’ve seen it done.

July 29, 2012July 29, 2012

Shooting a Solar Eclipse

The negative sleeve read “Eclipse,” but I couldn’t figure out what the picture was showing. Then it dawned on me (no pun intended): you don’t point your camera directly at the sun unless you have heavy-duty filters in place. The way we were told to shoot the eclipse was to cut a pinhole in a piece of cardboard and use that to project the sun’s image onto another surface. (Click on it to make it larger.)

(I always took warnings seriously. When we got our first-ever Associated Press Laserphoto machine, I put up a sign on the inside that said, “Do Not Look at the Laser Beam with Your Remaining Eye.)

That tiny crescent of light toward the bottom of the picture was as good as it got. We didn’t have a total eclipse in Cape, so the whole sun wasn’t blocked out.

In trying to track down a date for the eclipse, I found a wire story headlined “Lucky Old Sun Stars in Show” on the front page of the Missourian on July 20, 1963.

The next day’s paper had a close-up of a crescent similar to mine. I was doing some freelancing for them by then, but I don’t think it was mine.

Tucker execution dominated news

The news that week was dominated by the pending execution of Sammy Aire Tucker for the murder of Cape Girardeau policeman Donald H. Crittendon on March 10, 1961. Auxiliary officer Herbert L. Goss also died in the shootout. A memorial for them is on the Common Pleas Courthouse grounds.

The Missourian headline on July 26 was In Puff of Poison Gas: Tucker Meets Death Quietly.

Lunar eclipse in Florida

That Cape solar eclipse sort of dampened my enthusiasm for eclipses, but I did shoot a total lunar eclipse in Florida in 2010. I have to admit that Terry Hopkins had the best idea:

Go out in the back yard and stare at the full moon.
Close your eyes.
Open your eyes.
Go to bed
Complain about how hard it is to get up

July 28, 2012

Is Flossie’s Cafe a Clue?

I have a couple shots of a building that looks like a barn or dairy being torn down. They were on a roll of random shots, including some from Capaha Park pool, I think. At first glance, I thought they might have been taken west of the intersection of Hwy 25 and Hwy 61 in Jackson, based on railroad tracks and the bridge at the right of the picture. That doesn’t feel right, though. Click on the photos to make them larger.

Flossie’s Cafe and Frontier motel

When I blew up the frame to try to remove scratches and dust spots, I noticed the billboards at the far right of the frame. One of them says Flossie’s Cafe with a Pepsi logo and something about breakfast. In front of it is a sign with an arrow pointing to the left for Frontier, which I assume is a motel. It’s AAA-rated and has telephones and “Free ‘T.V.”

Elect Bill Rose and drink milk

This photo has several more clues. It has to be Cape County, because we’re supposed to “Re-elect Bill Rose,” a Democrat, for County Collector. Another billboard advertises Quality Dairy Products from Southeast Dairy. There’s a Texaco station up (down) the road.

So, where is this? It has railroad tracks in it, so Keith Robinson will probably not only know exactly where it is, but he’ll tell us who drove the spikes and the name of his dog.