November 2015

November 10, 2015August 31, 2021

Watered-Down Anheuser-Busch

I’m a disgrace to my German heritage. I have to confess I went years not liking the taste of beer. Then, one hot summer, Brother-in-Law John Perry came down to Florida to help us re-roof the house.

Well, to be more accurate, he did most of the work when he wasn’t answering dumb questions from The Boys and me. (Sample: “These nails have the heads on the wrong end.” “Just put them back in your pouch and use them on the other side of the roof.”)

At the end of the day, I took a shine to the Bud Light I was quaffing with John. Nowadays, I usually have a bottle with dinner at least three nights a week.

My friends make fun of me for drinking Bud Light, but I counter by saying, “I’m not really crazy about beer, and Bud Light is the closest thing you can get to Not Beer that still has a little of the taste of beer.

In 1993, the folks at Anheuser-Busch came up with something that might be a little light even for my taste. They switched over one of their lines in Ft. Collins, Colorado, to produce cans of drinking water for folks fighting the Flood of 1993.

Use by 10/15/1993

Wife Lila and Foodie Road Warriorette Jan are always giving me grief about how long I keep food past the theoretical expiration date. I wonder if they’d object if I cracked the can and took a swig of 1993 water? The can’s full and shows no signs of leakage.

Canned water outlasted Dutchtown

Ronald Kucera Jr. of Kucera Demolition reduces a Dutchtown house to landfill material. Eleven of 15 houses eligible for a buyout have been marked for demolition after residents got tired of more and more frequent “100-year” floods.

Not-so-fond memories

Brother Mark and I have some not-so-fond memories of the Flood of 1993, when we were surveying the height of the water inside one of the buildings Dad used for his construction company. We were barely able to get the canoe under the top of the door.

November 9, 2015

What Is This Medal?

This was hiding at the bottom of a box of unrelated items. I’m trying to figure out what the medal is. I wonder if it was a piece of costume jewelry?

It doesn’t have the heft or weight of a real military, religious or fraternal organization award.

Wolf or lion?

I was ready to call the figure that appears on four sides of the cross a lion, but then I looked at the enlargement (click on the photos to make them larger). After referring to a page of heraldic designs, I’m leaning to it being a wolf.

The wolf, the site says, “means valor and guardianship. Wolves were considered to be cruel and merciless.”

“The lion has always enjoyed a high place in the heraldry as the emblem of undying courage, and hence that of a valiant warrior.”

The medal is about 2-5/8 inches wide and 3-1/3 inches high.

November 7, 2015

Advance Auto Parts Closing

While I was having a problem finding someone around to jump me the other night, I decided to buy a small, cheap battery charger to stick in the what-if box in the back of the car. Turned out it wasn’t the battery, but a bad starter, so the battery and connections were innocent this time and a charger wouldn’t have helped.

Still, I had a few minutes to kill between errands, so I pulled into the Advance Auto Parts store on North Kingshighway to see what they had in stock.

Something looked odd

The shelves looked unusually bare, and there were a couple of notices taped to the door.

For the record, Advance has been my go-to parts store for several years now. The folks who work there have been extraordinarily helpful. They’ve given me some good advice and talked me out of an expensive purchase when a cheaper one would work just as well.

Good troubleshooters

A few years ago, my old van had to be jumped three times in two days, even though I was doing quite a bit of highway driving. The battery was one I had bought in Florida at another chain, and it still had some warranty left. Unfortunately the tester was broken at the Cape store; they could trade out the battery, but I’d still have to pay a substantial amount of difference, and I couldn’t be sure the battery was really the problem.

I drove into Advance, told them my problem and said that if it DID turn out to be a battery problem, then the odds were good that I’d have to buy the replacement from their competitor. After about 15 minutes of troubleshooting, we determined that the battery and alternator were fine, and that it was probably a faulty relay that was draining the charge. I replaced the relay and life was good.

Mother said they were great about replacing wiper blades and bulbs for her.

Sign delivers the bad news

“Store Closing November 7th. We will be closing at 6 p.m. effective immediately. We are sorry for any inconvenience,” the sign read.

“Does that sign mean you are changing your hours and closing at 6 p.m., or does this mean the STORE is closing?” I asked the clerk.

“It’s the store that’s closing tomorrow night. Corporate came in and said we were all laid off and to empty the shelves.”

“Your call is very important to us”

I decided to spend 9 minutes and 57 seconds of my life (most of it on hold listening to a recording telling me how “important” my call was to them) lodging a complaint with Advance’s customer service line.

I told the very nice young lady that I realized that there was nothing either she nor I could do, but I did want someone to know that I was an regular customer because of the great customer service I had gotten from the staff. Over the years, I had been impressed with the low turnover and the way my mother and I had been recognized when we came in. That’s what drew me back to Team #8175

Not that it’ll do any good, but the national customer service line number is 1-877-238-2623. There are at least two levels of menus to work through, and you’ll probably find out your call is “very important to us” before reaching a poor flack-catcher. Be nice to him or her. They aren’t the ones who put some nice folks out on the street.

November 6, 2015

Rose Mary Seyer 1925 – 2015

Wife Lila posted a sad note to Facebook on October 31: Early this afternoon, a lovely, sweet woman, my Aunt Rose Mary, slipped the bonds of earth into eternal rest.

She and I were close, and I never missed an opportunity to see her and my uncle whenever I was in town. She was kind, gentle and soft spoken. She always had a cup of green tea for me when I visited. We talked about family, of course, but we also talked about quilting and canning… two things she and I both did, until she couldn’t in the last few years.

Funny thing… when I was a child, my mother, Rose Mary’s older sister, would call me ‘Rose Mary’ about half the time, when she was sorting out children’s names as mothers tend to do. I didn’t mind. I will miss her terribly. Going back home won’t ever be the same. .

This photo of Rose Mary and Ray Seyer was taken in 2010 when I recorded Ray talking about growing up in Swampeast Missouri, his World War II navy experiences, ghosts and his feeling that Rush Limbaugh, even as a teenager, was a “horse’s patootie.”

Rose Mary’s obituary

Rose Mary Seyer, 89, of Cape Girardeau died Saturday, Oct. 31, 2015, at Ratliff Care Center.She was born Dec. 9, 1925, in Cape Girardeau to John Jacob and Christine Rosolia Diebold Hoffman.

She and Raymond C. Seyer were married Feb. 26, 1946, at St. Mary Church in Cape Girardeau. Rose Mary was a graduate of St. Mary High School. She was a member of St. Mary Cathedral and St. Mary Ladies Sodality.

Survivors include her husband, Raymond C. Seyer of Cape Girardeau; children, Michael (Brenda) Seyer and Dan (Mary) Seyer of Cape Girardeau, Diane (Ray) Staebel of Liberty Hill, Texas, Janette (Stephen) Bennett of Alexandria, Kentucky, Joyce (Dave) Bruenderman of Cape Girardeau, Linda (Bob) Garner of Jackson, Ralph (Debbie) Seyer of Kirkland, Washington, and Steve Seyer of St. Clair, Missouri; 27 grandchildren; and 42 great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents; infant son, Timothy G. Seyer; brothers, Adrian, Jerome, Norman and Charles Hoffman; sisters, Thelma Hoffman and Lucille Perry; and grandchild, Wendy Seyer.

Saying goodbye

St. Mary Cathedral was full of friends and family for Rose Mary’s funeral mass on November 3. The funeral procession on the way to St. Mary Cemetery stretched for blocks.

“Family treasure”

Lila posted to Facebook, “Spent the evening with people who mean the world to me…. my Seyer cousins. My life with them began when I moved to Missouri in 1957. We all are in town together because of the passing of their mother, my aunt Rose Mary. They give a whole new meaning to the term ‘family treasure’. I love these people.”

Photo gallery of Rose Mary’s family

You can tell from the photos on the family refrigerator in the first photo that family was important to Ray and Rose Mary. Here’s a photo gallery of the family gathering Thursday night at Linda and Bob Garner’s home. Good times were remembered and thank-you notes were written. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.