Author: Ken Steinhoff

Ernie Chiles and I were on the way to Painton Airport to pick up his plane to fly some aerials around Cape and Perry Counties on Sunday. As we were passing through Delta, I asked him, “Do you know where we were on this day in 1963?”

Ernie, who still thinks I enrolled him in the Rock of the Month Club when he was my earth science teacher, hesitated, wondering if this was a trick question.

I gave him some hints: “School had just let out and we were on our way to the Cape Airport to fly some aerials. Something happened that changed my whole career path. Right in front of us there was a cloud of dust and we came upon a fresh auto accident.”

“He’s nuts!”

That jogged his memory, “I remember you jumping out of the car and taking pictures, ‘He’s nuts, I thought.’ There are loaves of bread laying all around all over the pavement… and there you are running all around with a camera. ‘He’s nuts!’ You WERE a good photographer.

“You just never know which fork in the road you’re going to take. You look back and ask, ‘Wonder why I went down that way…?'”

Fame and Fortune

I managed to get into the high school darkroom that night to process and print my film. We don’t remember if Ernie had the right keys or if I had to go through principal Fred Wilferth. We both think the principal was involved.

The next morning, I was at The Missourian bright and early with my photos.

When my bundle of papers came flying out of the delivery truck that afternoon, two of my pictures were on the front page, along with a byline. After the next day’s mail brought a $10 check, I was ruined for real work from that day on.

One thing that I didn’t notice until years afterward was that I had, in my excitement or inexperience, “flopped” the negatives in the enlarger when I printed them. Everything is reversed left-to-right from the real world. Nobody ever noticed it because there was nothing obvious in the photo – like writing – to give away my mistake. Good thing Editor John Blue isn’t around to hear my confession. He might make me give my $10 back.

Ernie, Ken and Jim Stone in 1963

Ernie was the rare teacher who would associate with students outside of school. In addition to being a pilot, he was a ham radio operator.  I put all of my money toward camera equipment, but Jim flirted with amateur radio for awhile in high school.

Ernie’s radio room today

Ernie’s a little grayer than he was in 1963, but he can still set a plane down on a grass runway in a 20-knot crosswind. The little two-seater cockpit is a little snugger than it was in the old days, I noticed.

Ernie gave me a great ride today – you’ll be seeing the aerials we shot over a period of time – and he’s given me a great 48-year ride. He didn’t exactly ENCOURAGE me to choose photojournalism as a career (“He’s nuts!”), but he helped me down the right fork.

Most teachers I’ve had (a) wouldn’t have associated with a student after hours, (b) wouldn’t have involved them in their hobbies, (c) would have told me to stay in the car or have driven past the wreck and (d) wouldn’t have facilitated my getting into the school darkroom when the building was locked up.

Central High School may have had teachers who handled academic subjects better than Ernie, but Ernie Chiles is the only one I made a point to come back to see when I hit town. I can say nice things about him without embarrassing us both because he lives in a neighborhood that doesn’t have a fast broadband Internet connection and he never sees this blog.

I could hear the plants screaming.

Wait. It’s a little early for that. Let’s back into this a little more slowly.

I ended up at Plaza Galleria, behind the Town Plaza Shopping Center Saturday afternoon. I had been back there before on an earlier visit and noted that the old ice skating rink had been closed for some time.

It opened after I left Cape, so I never paid a lot of attention to it. I didn’t bother to look up any information about when it opened, closed or who owns it. That’s not what interested me.

Spirits inhabit old buildings

This is going to sound like I’m letting my Fine Art or nutso side show, but I have always loved to wander around shooting abandoned buildings. Odd as it may sound, I feel vibes in them. I can imagine a young couple moving into the house when it still smells of sawdust and fresh paint.

I hear the footsteps and laughter of young children. I hear voices raised in anger. I feel the sorrow of sickness and death. I think of all of the people who have passed through there in its lifetime and wonder how many looked back at the place when they pulled out of the driveway for the last time.

Chew marks on the window sill

I look for the marks on a door frame showing a child growing up or teeth marks on a window sill.

I shot a closed restaurant the other day (that’ll run soon). I could see a dead plant in a vase through a dust-covered window. Three tables still had white tablecloths on them, just like the day the doors closed.

Plaza Galleria is out of a sci-fi movie

The Plaza Galleria, though gave me some vibes that I had never felt before. They were something out of a science fiction movie. The place is full of plants.

Not all of the plants in this long-closed building were dead. Some of them were very much alive and pressing themselves against the window glass like they were trying to get out. Particularly spooky were the windows where the plants inside were next to bushes and trees outside.

I think the best way to handle this is just to run a gallery of photos. If there was an advocacy group for plants like PETA is for animals, there would be pickets outside the joint chanting “FREE THE PLANTS!”

Gallery of Plaza Galleria Photos

Click on any photo to make it larger (if you dare), then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery. You should be happy I don’t have audio. I swear, I could hear plants screaming.

 

 

I went to lunch with a couple of old classmates last week, Bill Hopkins and Van Riehl. I use the word “old” and not “former” for good reason. That’s Bill in the foreground of a photo from our high school days. You can tell from the body language that he’s trying to work his way out of what would have already been a knuckle-rapping in Ruby Davis’ class. I don’t have any photos of Van because he was an underclassman and beneath note.

During the course of the conversation, they both said that Sandy’s Place, a restaurant down at the Cape Airport has the best catfish around. I take advice like that with a grain of salt from these characters. These are the kind of friends who would tell you, “Oh, sure, the ice is thick enough to skate on,” and “Yes, the electricity is turned off” just before you started working on the light switch.

It never dawned on me that these hooligans could conjure up a near tornado, complete with torrential rain, marble-size hail and wind gusts that made driving almost impossible.

I spent the afternoon up at SEMO talking with Lisa Speer in Special Collections about picking up my Cape photos when I go toes-up. She thought they might have a trash can just the right size to house them.

Storm’s a comin’

Anyway, I called Mother and said, “Let’s hit the catfish joint. Better be waiting, because I think it’s gonna come a gully-washer.” About two hills down Mt. Auburn road, I heard someone on the police scanner say, “We’ve got hail in Chaffee.”

I said, “Let’s find cover, looks like it’s coming our way.” We pulled into a bank drive-through window just as the rain cut loose and the wind began to howl. No sooner had I told the nice lady at the bank we weren’t there to transact business, but to seek shelter from the storm, wind-borne pea-size hail peppered the car.

Video of the storm

After a bit, the hail let up and I thought had caught a break. About the time we were going to turn onto I-55 from William, the hail was back. The water on Siemers Drive was about a foot deep when I spotted a Sonic drive-in with some cover. So did everybody else. There was one last stall open when we got there.

I debated ordering something to justify our parking space, but I saw the curbhops getting blown around and pelted with flying ice that was somewhere between marble-size and maybe an inch around. I figured it would be an act of kindness NOT to have them bring anything to the car. Traffic on the scanner was reporting bad stuff happening all over the area.

Catfish and pie were great

The storm moved quickly out of Cape, the skies brightened and we made it to the airport uneventfully. We lucked out there, too. Because of the storm, we didn’t have to wait in line. By the time we finished some excellent all-you-can-eat catfish, there must have been more than two dozen folks waiting for our table.

Except for trying to kill me in a storm, Bill and Van had some good advice for a change. I recommend the catfish and coconut pie to everyone. Just check the weather forecast first.