Family Archives

June 24, 2013

The Anniversary Card

I was sleeping the sleep of the just this morning when I heard a movement over by my computer. It was Wife Lila, on her way to church, leaving something. “Go back to sleep, she said.”

When I achieved consciousness some time later. (We won’t admit to how much later.) I immediately recognized what it was.

Anniversary card

As near as we could piece together, she remembered buying this card when Son Adam was into radio controlled cars when he was 10 or 12 years old. He’ll turn 33 July 7, so that makes this card at least 20 years old.

We forget to celebrate

I described last year why I can never remember our anniversary date of June 23: Buddy Bob Rogers asked when we were going to get married. (Lila and me, not Bob and me.) I told Bob to name a date; he picked June 27. That didn’t work out for some reason, so June 23 was the alternate. (Lila was standing there, so it’s not like she didn’t have any input.)

But, I’m not the only one who forgets the date, hence the card. So long as it’s around, we don’t have to make a mad dash to the store to pick one up at the last minute. On top of that, cards are expensive these days. I bet we’ve saved close to a couple hundred bucks on cards by recycling this one. (I mean, you wouldn’t expect her to spring for a cheap one, would you?)

Five years ago she included a photo of me with Grandson Malcolm. I had been on a bike ride and had hooked up with them at Dreher Park in West Palm Beach. Malcolm insisted on climbing a hill in the park, then wanted a drink out of my Camelbak hydration pack.

He’s almost as tall as his grandmother these days, and we have two more of the most perfect grandsons in the world.

It’s been a good run. I can’t wait to get the card again next year. (And, thanks for letting me sleep.) She – and it – become more special every year.

Game plan is to head back to Cape noonish on Monday. See you all there. I’ll have a bunch of calendars for anyone interested in Cape. I’ll let you know where you can pick them up if you are there. If you would like one mailed, hold off a few days. Lila says she’ll play postal person when she gets back in town after the 4th of July.

June 21, 2013April 10, 2021

We Had 3-D: View-Master

While I was packing to head back to Cape next week I kicked a dusty box in the back of the closet. In it was a stack of View-Master reels. I don’t know why the were called reels, but that’s the name that shows up on the official Fisher-Price View-Master website.

I didn’t dig though the box to see if the heavy, Bakelite viewer was in there. I’m disappointed. The viewers are selling for less than $20 on eBay. I guess it can stay hidden for a few more years.

Not only did I have the stereoscopic viewer, which simulated 3-D by having two slides that you looked through at the same time that had been photographed by lenses slightly apart, but I had a View-Master projector, too. It ran on wall power and got so hot you could probably fry an egg on it.

When you were traveling across the country, you had to pick up a bumper sticker and View-Master reel from just about every attraction you stopped at. In later years, View-Master started phasing out the scenics and started producing more cartoon characters and TV stories.

I spent many a happy hour sliding those reels into the viewer, then reaching for the advance lever – click – slunk – new magic pictures. Unless, of course, the holes didn’t engage and you’d have to keep pressing the lever until they did. If you got impatient, you could bend the lever or even break it off. Patience, young man, patience.

June 20, 2013February 13, 2021

Remember EDgewater? Or CIrcle?

Do you remember giving out your telephone number as EDgewater 5-7543? Or, if you lived in Jackson, your telephone exchange was CIrcle.

This rotary dial phone was one I picked up used somewhere. It shows a number after area codes were assigned and names phased out. The phone in the basement is one that I talked on when I was a teenager, though. (Mother had been paying a couple of bucks a month to Ma Bell for the phone for 30 or 40 years. I wanted to hang on to it for sentimental reasons, so I paid the phone company a flat fee to own it.)

If you are a phone junkie, there is a site that has pictures of telephone central offices all over the country. Some of the ones in SE Missouri are interesting because they sit on fault lines and have had to be retrofitted for earthquakes.

When I was offered the job of telecommunications manager just before I left for Missouri on vacation in 1991, it dawned on me as I was driving through little towns like Old Appleton that if I took the job, I’d be in charge of more phones than a lot of towns had. I ended up taking the job and doing it until I retired in 2008.

Exchanges for this area

Advance – RAmond
Benton – KIngsdale
Bloomfield = LOcust
Cape Girardeau – EDgewater
Chaffee – TUlip
Jacksopn – CIrcle
Sikeston – GRanite

June 15, 2013

Dad at 14

It’s hard to imagine your parents being young. Here’s a shot of L.V. Steinhoff when he was 14. The photos are from a scrapbook he put together when he was in high school on Pacific Street.

Dad’s full name was Louis Vera Steinhoff. The Vera came from an aunt’s name, if I remember correctly. He didn’t exactly advertise his middle name. The “Junior” nickname was because he was named after his father.

He dropped the “Junior” when he got older. (Much like I’ve tried to get shed of “Kenny.”) Only a handful of his oldest friends and family used that term. Most of the men who worked for him called him Louie or L.V.

Big feet

You can barely read the fading “Big Feet”caption on this photo. It says underneath the photo that it was taken at May Greene School. He must have been friends with some of this teachers because he has pictures of some of them in casual poses around the school grounds..

Maybe being a photographer gave him access that normal students wouldn’t have had. He and Master Photographer Paul Leuders were contemporaries and members of the Kodak Club in high school.

Category: Family