Antique Car

Everybody’s heard about the vintage automobile that was put aside for whatever reason in some farmer’s barn, to be long forgotten until decades later when it’s found in mint condition by someone who knows its worth. I don’t have any idea of this is such a car. I vaguely remember shooting it, but I couldn’t find a story in September 1966 that went along with it. This looks more like an assignment than something I stumbled onto.

Maybe someone can identify the car and / or the woman in the pictures.

The automobile in Cape Girardeau

Here’s a piece about Cape’s early car history. Cape’s first car hit the street in 1904, for example. Cape’s first car theft happened a year later. A car ran over the first pedestrian on July 21, 1910; the next day, a car driven by R.B. Oliver, Jr., collided with a Western Union bicyclist. Cape hasn’t been safe for cyclists or pedestrians since.

More mystery car photos

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

Some of you have been interested in how the photos were taken. It must have been fairly dark in the garage, so I used an electronic flash held at arms-length high and to the left to keep the harsh shadows from falling directly behind the subject. That give the subject more modeling than if the flash was bolted onto the camera.

 

Atlas Plastic Workers Strike for More Money

The Missourian caption under my photo on the front page August 29, 1966, read, “A line of pickets bearing signs proclaiming a strike against Atlas Plastics Corp. here march in front of the company offices on Broadview. The walkout began Saturday afternoon. From left, the men are Lawrence Hagan, Glen Grojean, Tom Gibbar, Joe Gockel, Mitchell Gill and Earl Rhodes. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Albert M. Spradling, the company’s attorney, said the union was asking for an across-the-board wage increase of nearly a dollar an hour plus additional fringe benefits. Atlas Production workers earned an average of $1.88 per hour, Spradling said.The company wanted to spread the increase over a three-year contract; the union was holding out for a one-year agreement.

Atlas was third Cape strike

A September 21, 1968, story said that a walkout of 200 employees had shut down the Atlas plant, the city’s third industrial strike in three months. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local went on strike July 29 at Davis Electric Co., and IBEW Local 1601 employees of Superior Electric struck Aug. 18. I wonder if these strikes were tied in with the parent and student protest at the Jackson Junior High School in 1964.

Six employees were arrested September 24, 1968, when they blocked a truck leaving the plant after being served a restraining order.

 

 

 

Golden Eagles Marching Band 1964

Southeast Missouri State College’s Golden Eagle Marching Band appeared on national television in 1964. I don’t know which game this was, but it was a big enough deal I shot it on the family’s Zenith television in the basement.

Golden Eagles photo gallery

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

Jackson Junior High School Pickets

This must have been one of the first protests I covered. There are two frames on the roll of Jackson Pioneer Editor Gary Frederick in the envelope. One of the shots has an August 1964 calendar in the background and the negative sleeve is slugged “Jackson Jr. High – Gary at office,” so this must have been for The Pioneer and in the summer of ’64.

The odd thing is that this group of what appears to be students, parents and teachers are demanding that union pickets go back to work so the Jackson Junior High School could open on August 31, but there weren’t any union picket lines set up and a couple of photos show workmen working. There are signs for Crites and Sailer Construction Company and Kelpe Electric Company in two of the photos, but I don’t know if their workers were the ones striking.

Are these two different schools?

This building looks like it might be in town, while the new junior high was located on what was the outskirts of town in 1964.

I think this might have been the assignment where somebody at The Pioneer tossed me some car keys and said, “Hey, Kid, go out to the junior high school and see what’s going on.” Unlike most of my peers, I didn’t run right out and get my driver’s license at one minute past midnight on my 16th birthday. I hadn’t been driving all that long in the summer of ’64 and I certainly hadn’t driven any car other than the family’s Buick station wagon. When I stepped on the brakes at the first stop sign, I felt that sickening feeling you get when you realize that you could do better by dragging your feet on the ground like something out of The Flintstones. It was a good thing the junior high school wasn’t too far away and that there wasn’t much traffic.

Junior High School photo gallery

For what it’s worth, here’s a selection of photos from the protest and school construction. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.