Holiday Crisis Averted

I walked up to the young man stocking the soda shelves and said, “Kid, the fate of the Fourth of July is on your shoulders.”

I don’t know if Walmart employees are issued a panic button to push if confronted with “odd” customers, but the look in his eye made me believe he wished he had such a device.

“Here’s the deal. It’s not the Fourth of July unless I can pour strawberry soda over vanilla ice cream. I’d hate to have to tell all those folks who are waiting for fireworks to go off that you’re responsible for it not happening.”

He and a second stocker scoured the aisles and came back with the sad news: the Jackson Walmart had no strawberry soda in any brand.

(By the way, you can click on the images if you want to make them big enough to see the bubbles.)

Schnucks Saved the Day

Hoping to salvage the holiday, I went to Schnucks.

They, fortunately, had at least four brands of red soda on the shelves.

Cue up the firework displays. (For the record, this was taken in Middleport, Ohio, in 2015, while escorted by Curator Jessica, who is still young enough to get excited about things like this.)

After it was over, she asked how I liked it.

My answer was to play Peggy Lee singing Is That All There Is? 

More Fourth of July posts

A Garden of Fireworks

Middleport OH fireworks 07-04-2015

Not only did Curator Jessica make me get up early to shoot the Wilkesville Fourth of July parade, she insisted that it would be “fun” to watch the fireworks being shot over the Ohio River at Middleport, half an hour south of Athens.

It was chilly enough that a light jacket felt good. We got a parking place about a block from a decent vantage point, and I set up a tripod.

For you photo geeks, I locked the ISO at 200 because I wanted to force the camera to use a four-second exposure at about f/8. I usually pushed the shutter release when I heard the firework leave the tube. That would capture the rocket tail and most of the display.

I would have liked to have gotten at least one shot with the crowd visible in the foreground, but there wasn’t enough ambient light to capture them, and I was too lazy to walk back to the car for a strobe. Miz Jessica offered to go back for it, but I’ve learned that it’s not a good idea to trust your Road Warriorettes with the car keys. Sometimes they hold a grudge for some imagined slight during the day.

Fireworks photo gallery

Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

Wilkesville’s 4th of July

Long and Sons General Store - Wilkesville 02-17-1969Curator Jessica and I went to Wilkesville to see if Long and Son General Merchandise store was still around so I could update photos of it I had done of it on an icicle day in 1969. We didn’t see anything that looked like it on the main drag, so we stopped into a small diner where we had an excellent lunch and found out that the building was long gone.

On the way out, we saw a flyer for the Wilkesville Fourth of July parade. She gave a squeal of excitement.

I gave Miz Jessica my standard “Do You Know How Many Small Town Parades I’ve Covered?” speech, but she is not one to be denied. The next morning, I found myself getting up way too early to head to the Vinton County town.

They’ll have at least two spectators

Wilkesville OH 4th of July parade 07-04-2015“The good news for the town,” I told her, “is that we just freed up a spot for two more people to participate in the parade. A lot of these towns are so small they have to draw lots to see who will be spectators.”

Fourth of July photo gallery

I won’t tell Curator Jessica, but it was fun to see how everybody showed up with their homemade floats and flags. I have to say that I was a little discomforted by the casual way they treated the flags, but I guess the Flag Code isn’t something covered in school these days. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the images.

A Quiet Fourth

Descendents of Nettie Hopper Family Reunion 07-04-2013_4362Mother and I passed through Capaha Park when we ventured out to Hamburger Express to pick up some ribs. I stopped at a pavilion where it looked like it there might be a reunion of some of the folks who lived in the Smelterville area. It turned out to be the Descendants of Nettie Hopper Spicer Family Reunion. They came from the Ranney Avenue area around Fort D and May Greene School, which is on the north side of Tollgate Hill, but they knew a lot of the folks I had photographed. I’m going to hook up with some of them to hear their stories of growing up in South Cape.

Shameless plug: I’ll be at Annie Laurie’s Antiques for First Friday, July 5, between 6 and whenever if you want to pick up a Snapshots of Cape Girardeau calendar or look at my Smelterville: A Work in Progress book. They are $20 each if I can place them in your hand. They are $25 if they have to be mailed. More about that later if you are interested.

Parade of Flags

Parade of Flags - North County Park - 07-04-2013Capaha Park was quiet, particularly since the pool has been demolished, so we cruised out to North County Park, which was equally quiet. I had to take a couple frames of the Parade of Flags. The wind was as calm as the park and there was some overcast, so the flags weren’t as dramatic as they had been on other visits.

As I was taking this photo, I was moved by the idea that each of those flags represented a man or woman who had served his or her country, and the family that waited for them to come home. These flags have a real meaning. They aren’t some monster flag a car dealer puts up to sell cars. They represent real people.

Kids and sprinklers

Elias and Emily Huff, Jackson, 07-04-2013We cruised over to see what was happening in Jackson. I couldn’t resist stopping when I saw Elias, 5, and Emily Huff, 4, playing in the backyard sprinkler. (As always, you can click on the photos to make them larger.)

We’ve lost something important

Elias and Emily Huff - Jackson - 07-04-2013One of my former staffers told me a few years back that he no longer shoots this kind of photo. “As soon as I walk up to ask the kids for their names, they start screaming and running away. That’s if somebody looking out a window hasn’t already called the cops on me. It’s not worth the hassle,” he said.

Too many hours sitting in front of the All Fear All the Time TV Networks has robbed us and our kids of our independence and innocence. Thanks to Elias and Emily’s father, Tim, for letting me take these photos. It’s nice to know kids can still be kids in Jackson.