Ken Steinhoff, Author at Cape Girardeau History and Photos

February 13, 2010

Pfister’s Drive-in

Missourian photographer Fred Lynch and I have been searching like crazy for photos of Pfisters. He came up with some in his Jan. 11, 2009, f/8 and Be There blog.

This is the first one I’ve been able to find. This single shot was on the end of a roll of undated pictures I had taken of the SEMO football team working out on a trampoline. It’s definitely Pfisters because of its round shape, the ordering speakers and the “HERO” sign in the far upper left.

Hero sandwiches were the signature specialties at Pfisters. The guy behind the wheel ordering looks a little like Tom Holt, but I won’t swear to it. Anybody else want to make a guess?

I can’t quite read the menu

I tried to enlarge and enhance the menu in the photo, but I can’t do the magic that you see on Bones where they take a fuzzy picture with half the pieces missing and have it suddenly appear razor sharp.

I can make out that Reuben Sandwiches were available. You could wash them down with a Hawaiian Cooler for 20 cents or an Ice Cream Soda for a quarter. A chocolate milk was 10 or 25 cents, depending on size.

Click on the picture to make it larger. Maybe your eyes are better than mine.

I hope to stumble across more pictures of the drive-in.

Weekend nights saw an endless stream of traffic cruising between Pfisters and Wimpy’s. I documented the Wimpy’s piece a couple of days ago.

A Chinese restaurant replaced Pfisters

February 11, 2010February 11, 2022

Valentine’s Day Cards from Trinity Lutheran School

Valentine’s Day card from Cheri Huckstep

Preparing for my Presidential Libary

There was a time when I thought I had a career in politics. Because I was positive my Presidential Library would find the trappings of my early life important, I made sure to save everything.

My political aspirations hit an iceberg when I picked Bill Hopkins to pilot my Student Body Presidential campaign. Let’s just say that the 163 folks who voted for me were nowhere near a majority and certainly didn’t warrant calling in lawyers to oversee a recount. Jimmy Feldmeier was the clear winner.

Reading the will of the people very clearly, I abandoned my plan to run for POTUS in 1984, the first year I would be Constitutionally eligible and decided that I was more suited for journalism and sniping from the sidelines.

My Mother’s attic is a time capsule

I may have never made it into a Presidential Library, but I have the next best thing. On my last trip home, I ventured up into the time capsule of my Mother’s attic.

If you dig deep enough, you can probably find every school paper I ever brought home; all of my workbooks going back to kindergarten; hundreds of stickers that say, “Don’t be a sucker, Vote for Kenny (I’d have gotten more votes if Jim Stone hadn’t eaten most of the suckers instead of handing them out to potential voters); report cards; a Bucker-Ragsdale receipt for my Cub Scout uniform and this huge stack of Valentine’s Day cards from Trinity Lutheran School days.

There’s also a box of vintage early 1950s comic books that my destructive younger brothers shredded after I went off to college. I’d be able to afford a better brand of cat food in my retirement years if they were in the same condition as when I left. They saved the fragments just to drive me crazy.

1961 Eighth Grade Class at Trinity Lutheran School

We were together for nine years at Trinity Lutheran School

Most of us were in the same class from kindergarten through the eighth grade. Even though the yearbook didn’t have names with the pictures, I can probably still place names with all but about three or four pictures (they may not be the RIGHT names, but…). No, I’m not going to tell you which one was me.

Valentine’s Day ranked way up there in the Grand Scheme of Holidays. It wasn’t quite Christmas, the Fourth of July or Halloween, but it came pretty close to your Birthday.

The only hassle was having to fill out a card for every member of your class. Then, there was the agony of picking out which card went to which kid. You didn’t want to send one that was too mushy to a girl in the sixth grade.

Now that I look back at these cards from sixth and seventh grade level, I wonder about some of the cards I got from the boys in my class.

Was there a message I missed?

Judy Schrader’s card saying that she wished I’d fall for her line caused my heart to pitter patter. I mean, we actually skated together at the Hanover Skating Rink on Friday nights. That was a big deal. (At least to me, it was.)

Getting that same card from Don Sander seems a little strange these days. I mean, I shared a tent with him on Scout camping trips. I never realized he felt that way.

These were simpler times

The card below didn’t come for Valentine’s Day. My dad built roads all over Southeast Missouri and we lived in a house trailer he’d pull from small town to small town. When I was about three years old, we must have gotten to know a family in Mountain View well enough that I was invited to a birthday party.

Look at how the envelope was addressed:

Kenny Steinhoff

City

It didn’t have a street address, a city, state or Zip Code. It wasn’t even addressed to my parents. It’s addressed to a three-year-old living in a house trailer. And it cost just a penny to be delivered.

You can’t beat that with a stick.

Gallery of cards

These represent a couple of years, because several classmates appear more than once. I guessed at last names, but I think I’m close to right. Click on any card to make it larger, click on the left or right side to move through the images.

Valentine Season Aside

Forty-five years ago this month, I was lucky enough to meet Lila Perry, who was working as a cashier at the Rialto Theater. We were married in 1969 and she’s tolerated me every since. I wrote up the whole story last year.

February 8, 2010March 20, 2021

Wimpy’s in 1966, 1967 and 2009

Wimpy’s Intersection in 1966

My friend, Fred Lynch, Southeast Missourian photographer, had a picture of the original Wimpy’s building taken in the 1940s in his blog.

I spent some time at the second iteration of Wimpy’s, when it moved across the street to the corner of Cape Rock Drive and Kingshighway. I went into the store a lot of times as a kid, but it wasn’t a normal teenage hangout of mine. I think I was more of a Pfister’s kind of guy.

I took the time exposure above sometime during the summer of 1966. I don’t know if I shot it for a story or if it was just a finger exercise to practice shooting night photos. The headlights and taillights of cars left the light streaks.

Busy intersection for wrecks

I have pictures where Wimpy’s was the backdrop for one of the many crashes that occurred at the busy intersection before traffic signals were installed. My Dad’s construction company had the project to widen that section of Kingshighway. The state created room for the turn lanes by turning the shoulder into travel lanes, something he thought was a mistake. He thought they should have widened the road, but you build to the specs, not to what you think is right.

This picture from 1967 appears to be some kind of minor motorcycle accident.

Wimpy’s was gone in 2009

I took this time exposure Oct. 13, 2009. Wimpy’s has been replaced by a bank, which is closed and for sale. Traffic lights make the intersection safer, but there are a lot fewer cars to control at night after the demise of Wimpy’s.

February 5, 2010February 5, 2010

Cars We Have Known and Loved

Steve Crowe’s Corvette

Bill and Sue Roussel do a great job of producing an email newsletter aimed at the Decade of the 50s. (Send an email to nunyab@sbcglobal.net to sign up for it.) Sue sent me a message that Bill’s brother, Jim Roussel, sent a bunch of pictures that were too big to go out in the newsletter and she asked if they would work for this site. I’m happy to have someone send me material, so I said I’d run them.

That reminded me that I had a picture of Steve Crowe ’65 and his new Stingray.