Photos around Cape Archives

June 10, 2013

Troop 14 at Camp Lewallen

Troop 14 raised most of the money it took to go to Camp Lewallen in the summer of 1966. When their sales of soft drinks at the Arena Park stock car races and distributing posters came up a little short of being able to send all the boys to camp, the Cape Girardeau Jaycees made up the difference.

Somehow or another I managed to convince jBlue to devote the whole July 30, 1966, Youth Page to the boys. It’s the only single-topic page I can recall. That made me happy, because we ran eight pictures, which brought in almost as much money as I made in salary that week. I’m missing a couple of the photos that ran, but I substituted some that were close. The information under the photos came from captions that appeared in the paper for the most part.

Doing their swim checks

Most Scouts take to water with the fervor of ants heading for a picnic basket, and these members of Troop 14, sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Jaycees are no exception. Hitting the water for their swim check at Camp Lewallen are Roscoe Newbern, 304 LaCruz; Ed Slaughter, 532 College; David Vann, 522 South Frederick; Raymond Ward, 1211 South Sprigg; Harold Webb, 620 Vine; Calvin Sides, 548 South Frederick, and Larry Ross and Ervin Williams, 1622 South Sprigg.

Medical check

Before they go swimming, they are given a quick medical check to detect any major physical disabilities that might limit their participation at camp. Dr. Tim Talbert listens to Ed Slaughter’s heartbeat, while a nurse examines Calvin Sides for possible skin infections that could keep him out of aquatic activities.

Some quiet time

Ottis Johnson, 1610 South Sprigg, finds that there’s even time for a little solitude worked into his busy schedule of axemanship, horseback riding and a little advancement work. [I don’t know if ‘Ottis” is the correct spelling, but that’s what was in the paper.]

Acting Senior Patrol Leader Ervin Williams

The responsibilities of an acting senior patrol leader are mirrored by Ervin Williams’ wrinkled brow. Ervin, the oldest scout in the troop, was elected to the post at the group’s first meeting at the camp. [This wasn’t the photo that ran, but it’s close.]

Jaycees helped out

[This isn’t the photo that ran, so the names won’t match up. I wanted to get them listed, even if they might not be in this particular photo.]

Talking over the plans for the week are are, from left, Harold Webb, David Vann, Acting Scoutmaster Roy Dzurick, Ed Slaughter and Troop Committee Chairman Jeff Ryan, a Jaycee. Because the boys’ regular scoutmaster couldn’t attend camp, a Lewallen staff member was in charge of the nine scouts.

Newbern and Moore sell drinks

Roscoe Newbern seems to turn up everywhere. The Missourian photographer caught him and Joe Moore dishing out soft drinks to Jeff Ryan at the Arena Park stock car races. Proceeds from the stand helped pay the troop’s way to Camp Lewallen.

A pensive Tenderfoot

Roscoe is silent, pensive, wondering, perhaps how it was possible to cram so many projects into a six-day period.

Making a tent a home

Roscoe and his tentmate Calvin Sides worked so hard to make their tent liveable that one of the other boys shouted, “Hey, Roscoe, you’ll make some woman a good wife someday.” Roscoe, always a good Scout, didn’t reply.

Most boys advanced in rank

At Lewallen, most of the boys advanced at least one rank and some of them picked up merit badges.

“Kind of spooky”

Long-term camping was something new to most of the scouts, but a few random comments would indicate they they got along all right.

“It was great – the food was good and there was plenty of it…those Indian dances Thursday night were terrific – I really liked the Hoop Dance… I had trouble getting to sleep that night we spent out under the stars: it was kind of spooky.”

Camp Lewallen photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the side to move through the gallery. Bonus point if you can find the photo with me in it.

June 8, 2013

Boy Scout Troop 14

These are the boys from Troop 14 standing in front of May Green School before they head off for a week at Camp Lewallen in July 1966.The scouts raised money by selling soft drinks at the Arena Park stock car races and distributed posters. When they came up short of enough money to send all the boys to camp, the Cape Jaycees made up the difference.

I’m going to resort to an old trick I used when doing picture pages at The Athens Messenger. If I had a topic that was worth more than one day, I’d run a big picture – let’s say of a general store – with a headline and a short caption ending with “Tomorrow, we’ll go inside.”

My film scanner was taking a lot longer than usual tonight, then I ran into an odd Photoshop output glitch.

So, falling back on my old trick, “Tomorrow we’ll follow the boys to Camp Lewallen. There are plenty of pictures. I think the story might have been the only single-topic Youth Page I ever saw. (You can click on the photo to make it larger.)

June 4, 2013

W.T. Grant Company

These two shots were tacked onto the end of a bunch of pictures taken at Central. I liked the young man reading a comic book because I whiled away many a happy hour perusing the comic books in Child’s while Mother was shopping. I, being one who believed in keeping my comics pristine would NEVER have folded the pages back like this miscreant is doing. It caused me untold pain when I came home from college and saw what my destructive younger brothers had done to my collection.

[Note:Wife Lila asked, “Do you REALLY want to label the young man as miscreant?” It is obvious that SHE didn’t collect comic books. You gotta call ’em as you see ’em.]

Grants operated from 1906 to 1976

When you look at this slightly fuzzy photo of a little boy in cowboy boots looking and wishin,’ you know where the phrase “like a kid in a toy store” came from. The sign behind him lets us know he’s shopping in Grants, “Famous for Extra Saving and Extra Quality.”

I thought Grants was in the Town Plaza, and a quick check of the 1969 City Directory confirmed that it was at 2138 William Street. The manager was Tom Larson.

The first W.T. Grant Co. 25 Cent Store opened in Lynn, Mass., in 1906. Sources say that they were slower than Kresge stores to adapt to the grown of the suburbs and the change in shopping habits. I can remember seeing Kresge stores (although I’m not sure if Cape had one), but I didn’t realize until now that they were the forerunner of K-Mart. W.T. Grant’s bankruptcy in 1976 was the second-biggest in U.S. history.

I probably helped contribute to their bankruptcy because I don’t recall going out of my way to shop there.

June 4, 2013

Chuck Murdoch’s Kids

I’ve run a picture of Missourian Sports Editor Chuck Murdoch a couple of times: here and here. The first time I did, some of his relatives ran across it and left the following comments

Judy Weiss: “Chuck was husband’s uncle. I had not seen that picture before. Thanks!”
Norman Weiss: “Unfortunately cancer took my Uncle Chuck’s life but many great memories remain. Trivia about my Uncle Chuck before he became a sports writer, he was a St. Louis Cop.”
L. Louton: “Oh wow, just stumbled across this article – Chuck Murdoch was my grandpa. It puts a smile on my face to see such a great pic of him!”
Cara Murdoch: Would you be able to send those photos of Dad(Chuck)? I would love to get copies! And, of course, my little sister, Terri and little brother, Roy. Any of Mike(big brother)?

Chuck’s kids

I KNEW I had some pictures I had taken of Chuck’s kids for a New Year’s Eve illustration.

Let’s set the record straight: I was lousy at shooting illustrations and setting up photos in general. These hokey photos prove it. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

The microfilm copy of the December 31, 1966, newspaper was missing part of the caption, but the part you could read said “Terri, 5, and Roy, 4, children of Mr. and Mrs. Charles W. Murdoch, 106 Edgewood, thought it would be great fun to practice for the arrival of a new year. At 8 o’clock Terri and Roy were going strong.”

Midnight was a different story

“But as the clock ticked off the minutes and hours, eyes got heavier and by midnight the sandman had called. Well, maybe next year will be different and sleep won’t be so overwhelming.”

A favorite sports editor

Chuck was one of my favorite sports editors. To be frank, most sports editors fit into one of two categories: former high school athletes wanting to relive their glory days or ones who were dumber than a packet of possums.

The latter would drive us crazy. One of them would send you out on the most hackneyed situation with an assignment sheet that would invariably read, “Avoid cliche shot.”

Another one couldn’t read a sport schedule. The photographer would show up at where an event was supposed to be held and find out that it wasn’t at THAT field or on that date. We couldn’t dope out how a couple of thousand spectators could manage to figure out where the game was being played, but the sports editor couldn’t.

Chuck was easy to work with, tried to get me as many $5 assignments as he could sneak by jBlue, and didn’t take himself or his job too seriously.

Gentlemanly politically incorrect

Much of what Chuck’s persona wouldn’t pass today’s politically correctness, but he was careful about his language around “the ladies” in the office. He COULD fog up the place with his cigar, though.

His watch says 11:20. If it’s AM, that means he has wrapped up his section for today’s deadline and he’s wandering around kibitzing; if it’s PM, then we’ve both made it back to the office after covering a game. I doubt that’s the case. I would have had to go home to process the film before going back to the office to drop off the prints so Chuck would have them when he came in around 4:30 in the morning. With those kind of hours, I doubt he was hanging around in the evening. He’d been banging out sports stories for so long he wouldn’t have been staying up late agonizing over every word.

A technical side note: the pictures of Chuck were taken with the half-frame camera I carried for “goofing around.” It shot two photos in a normal 35mm frame, so I could get 72 shots out of a 36-exposure roll. The trade-off was that the quality was only half as good. On top of that, this roll had some uneven development streaks. I guess it would be the equivalent of taking photos with a cellphone camera instead of a real camera these days: you sacrifice some quality for convenience.