May 2014

May 11, 2014

The Cafe Was Closin’…

I’m in Athens, Ohio, working on a couple of projects with Curator Jessica and getting ready to head up to Columbus Sunday to pick up Friend Anne, so the two of them can Road Warriorette back to Florida with me.

I hit town and promptly came down with a killer sore throat. I managed to make it through a 2-hour video interview, but by the next day my voice was reduced to a croak and my head felt like there was a basketball inside trying to get outside. I alternated between being completely stopped up and having to carry a bucket to capture the drips.

Saturday afternoon was spent wandering around a huge rural cemetery looking for a grave that would “tell the rest of the story” of one I did in 1970. The man and his wife weren’t were they were supposed to be, so I guess I’ll have to try again later.

A greasy burger called my name

I took a two-hour nap and woke up feeling both better and ravenous. Somewhere in Athens, Ohio, I knew there was a greasy hamburger calling my name. There was: I ended up at the Union Street Diner, and it was all I had hoped for.

On the way back to the motel, I stopped to shoot night photos of a number of small businesses, some of which had been in business when I worked here.

Only a few cars were left in the Dairy Queen parking lot, and the waitress was stacking chairs getting ready to clean up the day’s messes. I decided it was worth a U-turn.

While shooting this, John Prine’s song, Far From Me started playing in my head.

As the cafe was closing on a warm summer night
And Cathy was cleaning the spoons
The radio played the hit parade
And I hummed along with the tune

She asked me to change the station
Said, the song just drove her insane
But it weren’t just the music playing
It was me she was trying to blame

And the sky is black and still now
Up on the hill where the angels sing
Ain’t it funny how an old broken bottle
Looks just like a diamond ring
But it’s far, far from me

Y0u can read all the lyrics here, or listen to John sing it here. You can click on the images to make them larger.

May 9, 2014

Early Mother’s Day Gift

One of the last things Brother Mark asked me to do before I left Cape was to check out Mother’s hedge trimmer. He said the last time he used it, it gave him a little buzz, and not the good kind. He thought maybe the power cord should be replaced.

I remembered it well: it was probably about as old as I am. It had a metal case and a 12″ blade. Since our house was built long before three-prong plugs were invented, somebody – probably Dad – had broken off the ground prong so you could plug it into a two-prong outlet.

That meant if the trimmer shorted out, YOU were the effective ground, particularly if you were standing in wet grass.

I quietly slipped out and went to the local emporium of tools and toys and bought her a newer version that has a longer blade, more power and was lighter than her old disaster-waiting-to-happen trimmer.

That’s ENOUGH!

Mother isn’t big on change, so I bought a mushy Mother’s Day card and a cute bow (which, observing the Family Frugality Rule, I affixed in such a manner it could be reused) and left it in her spot on the kitchen table while she was sleeping.

To my surprise, she loved it. Loved it so much that nothing green in the yard is safe.

“That’s ENOUGH!” I said. “You’re not going to have anything left but a stump.”

I turned around and saw her attacking a dandelion that had the audacity to stick its head out of the ground. “Wow,” she said, “I can even use this like a weed eater.”

For the record, I did a finger count when I left town. She had ten digits when I pulled out of the driveway. I hope she doesn’t think she can use the hedge trimmer on finger and toenails.

May 9, 2014May 9, 2014

Old Windmill Funland

There’s another empty lot in Cape Girardeau: a building that was set on fire by a disgruntled employee in November 2011 was finally torn down this February. It was located at 1707 North Mount Auburn Road, near the intersection with North Kingshighway.

We oldtimers remember that area as the site of the Windmill Drive-In or the Windmill Funland. We used to go down the hill from Kingsway Drive for ice-cold watermelon. I don’t remember much about Funland, which featured childrens’ rides, go-kart track, go-cart rentals and a miniature golf course.

Fred Lynch’s blog has the windmill in the background of a Frony photo.

May 7, 2014

Ernie’s Earth Science Book

I’ve written many times about Earth Science Teacher Ernie Chiles and the friendship we developed outside of class. He interacted with students in a way that would be unthinkable today, but that’s what made him one of the most memorable teachers I had.

To keep from rehashing old stories, I’ll just post links:

Ernie was so green, Pam Taveggia remembers, “that we didn’t know whether to love him or take advantage of him, so I guess we did both.” The first time he took her flying, he let her handle the controls. “Such a joyous, beautiful, completely new adventure for me! This is it! I wanted to be an airline pilot. My lessons from my Earth Science teacher were some I have never forgotten. I didn’t get to become an airline pilot, but I DID get to become a teacher who cared about my students. I had learned by the best example.”
Ernie taught me how to drive. I made it about 150 yards before I crashed into the side of a bridge.
Ernie and I went flying 48 years to the day after I took my first newspaper photo.
The water barometer experiment (subtitled “Watching Ernie Squirm).

When we met for lunch this trip, Ernie presented me the actual Earth Science book he used to teach the class. I told him to play Vanna White or pretend he was selling soap so I could take his picture with it. He may have a shot at making it in the late-night infomercial game.

He even inscribed it

Jim Stone, George Cauble and I set a goal of acing all of Ernie’s tests. We’d get together in my basement to review and practically memorize the book the night before a quiz. Ernie, for his part, took the challenge and decided to make tests so hard they couldn’t be aced. You can imagine what THAT did to the curve.

Jim Stone and I are still arguing with him over a couple of questions he marked wrong.

Who did all the underlining?

When I leafed through the book, I noted that almost every sentence was underlined.

“Geez, didn’t they give you a new book when you started teaching? Who did all the underlines?”

“I did,” he admitted. “You guys thought I was kidding when I said I was only about a chapter ahead of you when I was teaching the class.”

We couldn’t go flying

We couldn’t go flying the last time I was in town because Ernie’s plane had a broken perambulator or something.

It’s perambulating fine now, but there had been a lot of rain around Painton Airport where he hangars the plane. That made the grass runway a bit iffy. I had hoped to get in the air before the leaves came out, but since I had missed that, we decided to err on the side of caution and wait until summer to go up.

Stone is going to be SOOOOO jealous when he hears I have The Book.