September 2015

September 26, 2015June 5, 2021

“I’d Rather Be Married”

Tucked away in an envelope in a nondescript Bible buried in a metal cabinet that hadn’t been opened in decades was this telegram to Mother that validates a story that she told for years. (Click on the photo to make it large enough to read.)

Washington would never have been the same

Had this young college girl from Advance jumped at the War Department’s offer to become to junior clerk or typist in Washington, D.C., for the munificent salary of $1,440 per annum, D.C. would never had been the same.

“I’d rather be married than type”

When Mother told the story, she always said, “I’d rather be married than type.”

Dad and Mother were in a movie theater when the word about the attack on Pearl Harbor broke. When they came out, my grandfather said, “If you kids are going to get married, you’d better do it right away.”

And, they did, exactly one month later, on January 7, 1942.

The telegram has a time of day stamp – 3:23 p.m. – but it doesn’t have a date, so I don’t know when it was sent.

One of those things

We’ve had a long-standing family tradition of giving the car horn two short beep beeps when we pull out of the driveway. When I left Cape on Friday, I backed out onto Kingsway Drive, then, out of habit, went “BeepBeep.”

That’s when it hit me: there was nobody there to hear my good-bye beeps. Dammit, it’s those little things that sneak up on you.

September 20, 2015

Wimpyburgers Went Flying Out

I never expected so many people to show up for Wimpyburgers made using the original recipe and cooked by members of the Lewis family. The folks at the Centenary United Methodist Church told me they were printing 600 tickets good for two burgers, fries and a drink, but I thought they were being optimistic.

Running late

Brothers Mark and David converged on the house Saturday morning to talk strategy about how we were going to tackle Mother’s house next week with the help of Laurie Evertt of Annie Laurie’s Antique Shops. That made me miss the 11 a.m. start of the burger fest.

(It also meant that I have a bunch of my iconic Wimpy’s left prints that you’ll be able to pick up at Annie Laurie’s and at the Cape County History Center on the square in Jackson in a couple of days. They are $5 each.)

Photo gallery of the Wimpy extravaganza

I didn’t have much of an opportunity to wander around taking pictures. In fact, I got one of the last burgers off the grill just as everything was winding down. Fred Lynch did a nice video interview with Freeman Lewis that is worth watching. Click on any of these photos to make them larger, then use your arrow keys to move around the gallery.

Wimpy’s Day at Centerary United Methodist Church 09-19-2015

September 18, 2015

Wimpy’s and Other Prints

If you were lucky or quick enough to get one of the 600 tickets to September 19th’s Wimpy’s Day at the Centenary United Methodist Church, look for me if you’d like a photo of what Cape’s iconic hangout looked like in the day and night of 1966. An 8-1/2 x 11″ print will go for $5 (with 10% of net going to the church).

Here’s one in the stack

I’ll also have a bunch of 11 x 17″ photos from Cape, Perry and New Madrid counties for you to look through. I know you’ll recognize SOMEBODY in at least one of them. I’m tired of hauling them around, so I’ll part with those for $10 each. Here’s where this photo was taken. Click on it to make it large enough to see if you were dancing in the bank lot.

Here’s my earlier post about the event.

September 11, 2015

Liver & Onions at The Mud

I whined on Facebook Wednesday that I was tired of eating frozen microwaved dinners and needed somebody to nudge me to a craving. I ended up visiting the El Sol on Broadway for the first time and chowing down on an excellent platter of nachos.

Museum Maven Carla Jordan pointed out that if I could hold out until Thursday night, I could feast on the liver and onion special at Altenburg’s newly refurbed Mississippi Mud Saloon. I love L&O, so Thursday evening saw me bellied up to the bar between The Missourian’s Nancy Hadler and Gerard Fiehler from the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum.

The photo doesn’t do the dish justice. I’m a lousy food reviewer because I’m more interested in consumption than documentation. I had already taken a couple of bites before even thinking about pulling out my Droid smart phone to record this. The funky bar lighting gave the meal a strange cast.

Sharp knife or tender meat?

When the server brought out my meal, I made a quick cut and asked her, “Is this a really sharp knife or is the liver really tender?”

“Use your fork. You won’t need a knife.” She was right.

I’ll be back. The only minor problem for me is that it’s a bar that allows smoking. I was lucky that nobody around me was puffing away Thursday. Generally you can find a table that’s relatively smoke-free.

It was too dark to get a good shot of the front of the building, so I’ll substitute this picture taken through the front door of the now-defunct Altenburg Grocery in 2011.