You could find just about anything at the Southeast Missouri District Fair. These women wanted to give you a pamphlet on how to “Survive Nuclear Attack.” If you had more questions, you could fill out a form (using a pencil secured to the table with a string) and drop it in the Question Box. I wonder it they were the ones who turned in the radio active girls.
The boys in the background probably have copies of the of the Cape Girardeau Police Department’s Police Safety Report and have been taught to Duck ‘n” Cover in school. My bet is that they’re more interested in trying to win the free bicycle from the Western Auto booth than in nuclear holocaust. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)
Crafts and produce
Cape was still rural in the mid-60s, so you’d find lots of hand-crafted items and big watermelons.
In addition to commercial exhibits, you could find ones that had hand-lettered signs warning “Alcohol is not a food. Alcohol is not a medicine. The first and major effect is to numb the brain.”
It might have been raining outside, based on the wet hair on a couple of the girls and the wet shirt on the boy in the bike picture.
Trying to get lucky
This appears to be a booth for selling life insurance, so I don’t know what these boys were trying to win with the forms they were filling out. The boy standing on the left has a raft of shamrock necklaces around his neck. Maybe he thinks they’ll bring him luck.
Now I see what they were doing. When I made the frame larger, I could barely see that you could win a bike or a hair dryer. I bet that round thing on the table at the right was the hair dryer. I think I know which one the boys were trying to win.
Food for survival
Cape Girardeau had its share of pretty flower gardens, but a lot of back yards grew enough vegetables to keep the family well-fed.
THAT’S an ear of corn
The fair was where farmers came to hear about the latest and greatest developments to help them produce more with less.
Here are some past fair stories:
I shot this late in the day when the afternoon sun added warmth to the bricks and ironwork.The Cup ‘N’ Cork is located at 46 North Main Street, at the corner of Main and Themis. You can click on the photos to make them larger.
I’ve been in the Cup ‘N’ Cork at least a dozen times, including when I met Pat Sommers and Terry Hopkins there last fall. Way back in the background you can see a fellow wearing black and purple. That’s Gary Rust thinking Big Thoughts or doing whatever newspaper moguls do. In contrast, that’s Terry in the foreground.
