Is It That Day AGAIN?

Lila Perry Steinhoff – Ken Steinhoff Lila Senior Prom 1966

February 14, a day that strikes fear in male hearts. If you are dating, have you been dating long enough or too long to recognize and celebrate Valentine’s Day? 

William Saffire, one of President Nixon’s speechwriters, penned a political thriller where one of the characters had something go extremely wrong, and he “experienced a Klong – a sudden rush of excrement (not the word he used) to the heart.”

That’s what the married man experiences late in the day on February 14 when he looks at the calendar and thinks, “That date sounds like one I should remember…KLONG!!!”

See if you can pick out the good sport

So, here’s a collection of old and a few new photos of couples, relationships, queens and kings and the like. Most were taken in Missouri, but some oddball shots could have slipped in.

See if you can pick out the one shot taken early in someone’s relationship that could have ended it had the girl not been a good sport.

Valentine’s Day Gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then navigate around using the arrow keys. X or Esc will get you out.

Maybe I should have used the disclaimer I used when I went to take photos in some redneck bar. I’d stand up on a table and say, “I’m here from the newspaper to take pictures. If you aren’t supposed to be here, or you’re here with someone you shouldn’t be, hang out over in that corner (pointing) until I’m done. You’ll be safe.”

Love on the Main Green

OU Main Green Baker Center Project April 1968I was working on another topic when it dawned on me that Valentine’s Day was blowing its horn. I made a mad dash to Publix for some flowers and found them pretty picked-over. The roses were nice, but my finances dictated that I could afford either a single rose or a basket of thorns. I opted for the single rose.

Home for hormonally hypercharged

OU Main Green Baker Center Project April 1968 The “Main Green” is, as the name implies, in the center of the Ohio University campus in Athens, Ohio. Anchoring the corner of the beautiful green is the War Memorial, a tall statue that has been the lightning rod for protests, a convenient place to study or, on one of the first warm spring days in 1968, a place to play music and try to hook up.

On a day like this, it is home for the hormonally hypercharged.

Were we ever that young?

Here’s a photo gallery from that April afternoon. It’s hard to believe the people in these photos, like the photographer, are now old enough to be grandparents and maybe even great-grandparents. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

Valentine’s Day Fashion Show

SEMO Valentine's Day fashion show c 1966When I posted a photo of a couple of women all gussied up walking on the SEMO campus a few days ago, several readers speculated about why they were all dressed up.

Jean Lanham said she thought they were headed to a luncheon featuring a fashion show usually held on Valentine’s Day. Based on the hearts decorating the room and on some of the pins, I think she nailed it.

A pretty subdued group

Maybe I missed the happy times, but this gallery contains a a mighty somber looking crew. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around.

 

Friends on Robinson Road Exhibit

Friends on Robinson Road exhibit catalog for 07-28-2013 showI’ll be doing a presentation at the Athens County Historical Society and Museum on July 28. The topic is Friends on Robinson Road, an Athens Messenger picture story I shot in 1969. I mentioned them in a post for Valentine’s Day 2012.

UPDATE

Here’s an update: when I went back to the area to see if I could find the old house, I discovered that the two men lived on Robinson Ridge Road, not Robinson Road.

My search led me to another interesting story about the Allen family who had been living on the same land since 1850.  Capt. Josiah Benton Allen, who lost an arm at Vicksburg, was one of the men responsible for the erection of the iconic Civil War memorial on the Main Green at Ohio University.

I was just looking through my notes, and remembered that Curator Jessica and I tracked down Jesse’s daughter Opal and her son Russell. When I asked him how well he knew his grandfather, he said, “I knew him as well as any of the grandkids; I knew where he hid his whiskey.”

Bill and Jesse were gravediggers for Clark Chapel’s Cemetery, where they, ironically, are buried in unmarked graves, so far as we could find out.

Here’s the show catalog

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the sides to move through the gallery.