Ken Steinhoff, Author at Cape Girardeau History and Photos

August 11, 2011January 7, 2016

Red Carpet and Road Kill

For those of you who have been tracking my car saga, I elected to take it to LaGrand’s Transmission in Cape to have a rebuilt trannie put in it. Several other repairs will wait until I get it back down to Florida for my regular shop to work on it.

I can get all the repairs done for about a third of what a good used vehicle was going to cost. A new one was going to be in the $30K range. I LIKE not having car payments, so I’m going to roll the dice that I can get a couple more years out of my Honda Odyssey. Anyway, the decision meant that I had to fly back to Cape instead of driving Wife Lila’s car and ending up with TWO cars in Missouri.

We’ll deal with my trip out of order because of the photos I took. When I got into St. Louis’ Lambert Airport, I was amazed at how much damage had been done by the April tornado that roared through there. A lot of windows remain boarded up.

It’s a wonder no one was killed

When I look at all of the windows that must have blown out, it’s a wonder that no one was killed.

We have enough fuel for an hour

Keep looking at the Lambert photos while I recount the first part of my journey on Southwest from West Palm Beach to Tampa.

About half way between West Palm Beach and Tampa, the pilot came on the PA: “Some of you may have sensed that we’re not heading exactly to the Tampa airport. There’s a storm sitting right on top of it. We have enough fuel to fly circles for an hour. It should have moved on by then.”

About 30 minutes later, he said, “The storm is still sitting over the airport, so we’ll keep circling.”

Not long after that, he announced that we might have to return to West Palm Beach for more fuel if we weren’t cleared to land soon.

How I imagine the cockpit conversation went

Copilot: “I TOLD you that we should top off the tank before we left West Palm Beach, but, no, you said, ‘The gas in Tampa is cheaper. We have plenty to make it there.’ NOW look at us. Well, let me tell you, Mr. I Can Save a Buck for the Company, if we have to set ‘er down out here in the middle of nowhere, it’s gonna be YOU with a gas can knocking on the farmer’s door begging for fuel.”

Fortunately, a few minutes later, the pilot reported we were cleared for the approach. To his credit, either the tower was giving him good vectors or he was doing a good job reading the radar to miss the worst cells. We had lightning flashing around us, but the ride wasn’t too bumpy.

Can you open the exit door?

The Tampa – St. Louis flight was pretty uneventful. I lucked out and got a center seat in an exit row. When the flight attendant came by to give us the standard exit row speech, concluding with, “Do you agree that you can perform those duties?” I replied, “Yes, mam, you won’t believe how fast I can get out that door.”

“I’ll count that as a yes,” she said.

Cape Air promises red carpet treatment

After I did the piece on flying Cape Air, local manager Jennifer Huffman and I have become Facebook friends. I gave her fair warning that I was going to be on one of her flights. That set off this (approximate) dialog:

Her: “We’ll roll out the red carpet for you.”
Me: “Cape has a red carpet?”
Her: : “It does when you fly in, Ken. You’re a celebrity! I will even have an in-flight meal waiting for you. :)”
Me: “It’s not going to be an armadillo on the half-shell that you picked up on the way to the airport, is it?”
Her: “”LOL, I promise no road kill, I save the best possums for the family meals.”

Where’s my possum?

Right after I managed to navigate my way from Southwest to Cape Air’s terminal, I was paged to the check-in counter. That’s never a good sign. That’s where they tell you that your luggage is overweight, has been shredded, lost or all of the above, or that the flight is overbooked, or that the flight has been cancelled.

Instead, the very nice woman gave me a green tote bag that said “Valuables Tote for Wing or Cabin.” Inside was a nice cup filled with bubble gum and two small boxes of mints labeled In-Flight meal. There was also a small Ziploc bag containing what I presumed was once a warm paper towel. (I asked Jennifer if my VIP treatment would include a warm towel.)

No possum. I saw Pilot Sherry Murdoch walking around on the tarmac chewing on something. I don’t want to point any fingers, but I think I know where my possum might have gone. I looked for evidence of grease on her chin, but she must have cleaned it up.

Flies: welcome to Missouri

While waiting for the flight to be called, I wandered into the Mens room. Inside, I figured that I was back in Missouri, for sure: there was a fly perched in the urinal. Then I looked left and right and saw identical flies in exactly the same position. They were realistic-looking DRAWINGS of flies. I don’t know if they were added as a touch of whimsy or to give a target to aim at, but I got a chuckle out of them.

They were classier than the chin-high spitoon (sic) spotted in an Advance restroom.

Big Guy and our plane

This was about the last photo I shot of the ground until we got back to Cape. We were flying too high in too much haze and cloud to make it worthwhile once we got above about 1,200 feet.

We had a couple of white-knuckle passengers on board who didn’t seem to comfortable with some of the bucks, pitches and yaws when we were going through some of the clouds. I wasn’t worried, though. I’ve flown through a lot worse and the pilot seemed to be taking it in stride.

Unlike the other passengers, I had bigger worries. Pilot Murdoch normally flies a Boston route. She’s just filling in for a bit, so I was pretty sure she’s not well acclimated to fine Missouri cuisine yet. They don’t get exposed to many possum dishes in Massachusetts.

Mayday! Mayday!

I kept a close eye on the pilot, rehearsing what I would do if she went into possum failure at the yoke.I figured I’d have another passenger shove her aside, then I’d move into the command seat, put on her headphones and key the microphone:

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Cessna 402C November 6765 Tango with five souls on board. We are in the clouds approximately 23 miles south of St. Louis at 4,000 feet, flying on a 172 heading, straight and level. The good news is that all gauges are in the green. The bad news is that our pilot is incapacitated, possibly due to acute possum poisoning. The worse news is that nobody here is a pilot. I’m pretty sure I can get ‘er on the ground, but that’s only because of the law of gravity.”

At that point, I unkey the microphone and scream like a little girl. What do you expect? I’m a photographer not a twin-engine-rated pilot.

Cheated death again

Fortunately, Captain Murdoch got us back into Cape County. About five miles out, she turned around and made camera-clicking gestures at me. I took that to mean that we must be cleared to land, and I started to shoot her touchdown, which was much smoother than mine would have been.

We got our red carpet

When the plane puttered to a stop, Agent Jeff Sutton rolled out a red carpet for us. Well, it was actually a small red rug, but proportionally speaking, for an airport the size of Cape’s, I’ll rate it a carpet.

It just dawned on me that my window was covered with so many greasy noseprints that I had to scrub a clean spot to shoot through this afternoon. I’m wondering now if maybe I’ve been suspecting the wrong person: I wonder if my special in-flight meal could have been lost to passenger possum pilfering? Perhaps?

August 9, 2011September 18, 2011

Seattle Aquarium: Shooting Fish in a Barrel

The Seattle Aquarium is a nice place to spend a couple of hours. My only issue is that I kept getting the feeling I was shooting fish in a barrel. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like theme parks like Walt Disney World in our neck of the woods. They aren’t real.

Even though the fish and plants are real, it feels artificial to me, unlike the salmon going up the fish ladder at Crittenden Locks.

Colorful exhibits

You can’t fault the quality of the exhibits. The aquarium features 380 species of birds, fish, invertebrates and marine mammals. I’m most intrigued by the invertebrates, many of which look like living rocks.

Divers doing windows

The spectators in the 400,000-gallon underwater dome were more mesmerized by divers cleaning the viewing windows than they were by the fish swimming around.

“Enjoy the sun”

It was a beautiful day, so we spent some time outside the museum. A particularly Seattle phrase is, “Enjoy the sun.” Residents will point out that the city gets a bum rap for rain; Boston and Miami, among others, get more inches of rain per year. Seattle, though, can have days and weeks of gray skies, so they appreciate the days when the sun is out.

The first time I looked up and saw a jet looking like it was headed for the building towers, I had an uncomfortable flashback. After a while, though, I realized that they were in the approach pattern for the airport and started looking for them.

Crab cakes best part of Museum

Wife Lila and I wanted to get something to eat before boarding a harbor tour, so we headed up to the Aquarium Cafe for what we expected to be overpriced plastic food served by indifferent help.

We were in for a big surprise. The kid who waited on us was friendly and offered some good menu suggestions. The Dungeness crab cakes served with wilted veggie slaw and potato hay were some of the best I’ve ever had. The portions were large enough that we could have split the $13.49 order and still felt full.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had a better bowl of clam chowder, either. Everything I saw the cook prepare made me wish I had a bigger appetite.

Seattle Aquarium photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

Smelterville 1967: Where Are They?

I need some help tracking down some kids I shot back in the spring of 1967.

Like most folks in Cape, I knew where Smelterville was and would drive past it on South Sprigg, but never ventured into it much.

Periodic cleanup

In the spring of 1967, though, I had an assignment to shoot one of the periodic cleanups. I took that as an opportunity to walk around documenting some of the buildings and people who lived there. One of the cleanup photos ran in The Missourian, I think, but everything else got filed away.

Photos have historical value

When I talked with Lisa Speer, Associate Professor and Special Collections Librarian at SEMO, about picking up my stuff when I move into that eternal darkroom, she was fascinated by the Smelterville pix and some I took of a New Madrid Mississippi River baptism. She said there’s a dearth of photography of the black communities in that era.

What happened to the people?

That made me wonder what had happened to the people in my photographs.

I’ve hit a lot of dead ends (literally) in New Madrid, but finding the Smelterville subjects seems more promising. When I was chasing down the minor league ballpark rumors, I talked with a couple of guys standing in a front yard near Fort D. When one of them mentioned that he had lived in Smelterville, I said, “Have I ever got some photos to show you.”

Got some good leads

One of them knew just about every kid, the names of their dogs and who owned the cars in the background. He even said that most of them still lived in the area. The old folks, have long passed on, but the kids should be in their mid to late 50s.

He put the word out on the street and I met with three members of one family. Interestingly enough, one was sure he could identify his siblings and the house they lived in, but couldn’t be positive if one of the photos was of him as a child.

Hard to identify children

I thought that odd, but then I looked back at photos of me as a toddler all the way up to my teens. If I hadn’t been TOLD that was me or if I didn’t recognize the backgrounds to put things in context, I don’t know that I would recognize myself.

Here’s your assignment

Anyway, here’s your assignment: if you can identify any of the people in these photos, let me know. If you know where they live or how to get in touch with them, that’s even better.

I’m going to be doing a quick swing to Cape to deal with my transportation problems toward the end of this week, but I’ll be back for a longer stay in October when we celebrate Mother’s Birthday Season. It would be great to have some interviews lined up for that trip.

I’ll keep you up to date on how the project is going. I have more photos and lots of stories for later.

Smelterville photo gallery

Here’s a selection of the people I’d like to find. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.

August 8, 2011September 18, 2011

Hiram M. Crittenden Locks

The Hiram M. Crittenden Locks in Seattle can raise a 760 by 80-foot-wide vessel 26 feet from the level of Puget Sound to the level of Salmon Bay in 10 to 15 minutes. There are two parallel locks, one for large vessels and the other for smaller craft.

We showed the adjacent Carl S. English Jr. Botanical Garden yesterday.

Pedestrians can cross locks

There is considerable pedestrian traffic crossing the locks. Cyclists have to walk their bikes, but I counted a dozen or more using the gardens and park as a shortcut.

Locks form permeable barrier

The locks form a permeable barrier between Lake Washington’s freshwater ecosystem and the potentially damaging saltwater of Puget Sound. They are designed to allow the passage of vessels while minimizing saltwater intrusion, something we Florida folks understand too well.

Second Renaissance Revival Style

When engineer Hiram M. Crittenden arrived in Seattle in 1906, he saw a shallow canal used for floating logs from Lake Washington to Puget Sound. His notebooks show that he envisioned a set of locks big enough to accommodate The Lusitania, the largest ship of her day.

What had begun a shallow log flume became an 8-mile-long canal, 100 feet wide and 30 feet deep, a park brochure says.

The construction of the locks began in 1911. Crittenden retired in ill health before his project was officially dedicated on July 4, 1917.

The administration building was designed in the Second Renaissance Revival Style in 1914. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Fish ladder constructed in 1916

As salmon move upstream from saltwater to the fresh water to spawn, they have to pass the locks and dam. In 1916, the Corps of Engineers constructed a fish ladder consisting of 10 steps.

I’ve seen and been through enough locks that they didn’t interest me that much. The fish ladder, though, plowed new ground.

Ladder replaced in 1976

The original fish ladder was replaced with a 21-step ladder and underwater viewing gallery in 1976. Program director Jay Wells had his audience’s rapt attention until someone noticed some Sockeye salmon heading up the ladder behind him.

Those babies are HUGE

The Sockeye was impressive enough to this 3-Mile Creek fisherman, but then a King came into the chamber.

That’s the kind of fish they were tossing around in the photos of the Pike Place Fish Market. We’re talking about something the size of a respectable log with fins.

Some of the fish were netted and tagged as they passed through the facility.