Family Archives

May 22, 2012October 4, 2016

Lila Becomes Fire Photographer

I was running errands when Wife Lila called my cell. “You’re not going to be able to come home,” she said.

I was mentally running down a check list of possible infractions that would be THAT serious when she said, “The building across the street blew up and is on fire. All of the streets around us are blocked off.”

She sure was right about that. The streets north of us, south of us and to our east were all blocked off. OUR street, however, had a tiny gap between two police cars that could just fit my van. I squeezed through and drove all the way to where crime scene tape crossed the street about where our yard begins. As I was walking toward the tape, a cop started walking toward me. “I live at 620,” I said, gesturing to our house.

“That one?” he pointed.

“Yep.” He waved me through. As it turned out, all of the cops and firefighters who worked the incident were friendly. (Click on any photo to make it larger.)

Lila can shoot a great fire video

Wife Lila was busy recording the whole thing with her Canon PowerShot SD1200IS. I was really impressed at how she shot from as many angles as possible, zoomed without making you feel like your eyes were on yo-yos, got some decent cutaways and told the whole story. Based on how well she did with a point-and-shoot still camera taking video, I’m afraid the wrong Steinhoff might have been chasing sirens all these years.

Just about the time I started to download the photos from our various cameras, a reporter from one of the local TV stations rang the doorbell and said he heard on the street that Lila had good fire video. They wouldn’t pay anything, but they DID give her credit on the 11 o’clock news.

When the memory card in her camera filled up, I went inside to get her my Canon FS100 Camcorder. At the same time, I grabbed my Nikon D3100. I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but I didn’t have any desire to shoot the incident. First off, it was pretty much over except for the cleanup, and, secondly, I didn’t want to get into a hassle with anybody. Those days are over.

Fire pix for the fun of it

Still, since the guys had been so nice, I went over to them while they were rolling up their hose to see if they’d like a group portrait. They lined up and I knocked off a couple of frames. It reminded me a little of the cliche shot I took years ago of a bunch of firemen (they were all male in those days) posing in front of a burning building that had been set on fire for a drill.

No one was inside the building at the time of the fire and no injuries were reported. The fire is under investigation. It’ll be interesting to hear what the cause was. There has been talk in the neighborhood about a strong smell of acetone coming from one of the bays where the fire appeared to originate. But, like one of the fireman said, “They just pay me to squirt water on it, not to figure out what caused it.”

May 18, 2012April 3, 2015

Mother and the Belly Up Bar

Bro Mark sent a cryptic email to the family last night: “Gran can now check another box off her list.” He wouldn’t give me a hint, said she’d have to tell me.

I called Mother, but got a busy signal all morning; after that, the phone went to the answering machine. I figured she must be out skydiving or water skiing on the Mississippi.

She finally called me back to tell me about her excursion last night. She and several of her friends ended up at the Belly Up Bar and Grill in Oran. I can just about picture what that kind of establishment looked like. I usually didn’t frequent places like that until after the shootin’ and cuttin’ was over.

(For the record, that’s the Elk’s Club in Cairo, not the Belly Up Bar and Grill.)

When does the dancin’ start?

When she walked in, she noticed a couple of pool tables. “When do they start dancing on the tables?,” she asked.

“After about two beers,” she was told.

She met lots of friendly and interesting people, including a guy who was drinking a pink-colored beer. She got up enough nerve to ask him what it was. “Beer and tomato juice,” he answered. “I always drink it that way.”

(Note: that’s not the Belly Up Bar and Grill, either. It was taken at D’Ladiums in Cape.

Want to go for a ride?

When they got ready to leave, Mother paused to admire a motorcycle in the parking lot. She told the owner that she didn’t realize they were so big when they blasted past her on the highway.

After chatting a bit, the guy said, “Want to go for a ride?”

“I haven’t been on one since I’m a teenager, but, sure.”

They went blasting around Oran. (It doesn’t take long to lap Oran.) She said she was surprised that it was very comfortable: it was like riding in the back seat of a car.

She’s polling her friends to see if any of them snapped a picture of her before she roared off.

(Nope, not the Belly Up Bar and Grill: motorcycle racing at Arena Park.)

This is a poor substitute

I’ve sent a note to the neighbors telling them not to worry if they look out the window and see this. She’s just reliving her glory days at the Oran Belly Up Bar and Grill.

(You guessed it. This isn’t the Belly Up Bar and Grill. It’s Mother celebrating her 2004 Birthday Season. She turned 90 in 2011.)

Other Mother exploits

Mother says she can’t go to the store these days without someone coming up to her to ask her if she’s the one in the blog. Here are some of her past exploits in case you’ve missed them.

May 12, 2012April 18, 2021

She Had a Life Before Me?

I love it when I get comments from kids who see photos of their parents before they were parents. I got an email in March about a story about St. Francis Hospital manger Patricia Foster: “I am Patricia’s daughter and just ran across your blog’s highlight on my mother. The photography is spectacular. It is magical seeing your parents before you rolled into their lives.”

Mother before I came along

Like Miss Foster’s daughter, I’m fascinated by old scrapbook photos of my parents. Here, on Mother’s Day, is a short photo gallery of some of Mother’s pre-Ken days. She looks like a lot of fun. My Grandmother, Elsie Adkins Welch, was quite a woman, too.

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

April 17, 2012June 19, 2016

Dad Would Have Been 95 April 17

Dad was born April 17, 1917. That would have made him 95 this year. He had an interesting quirk. He’d make up small pocket diaries or journals that he’d carry in his shirt pocket. The covers were made of cut-up manila folders and the pages were of paper cut and stapled inside. He had a rubber stamp that he would use at the start of every month to date every pair of facing pages. (Click on any image to make it larger.)

He was meticulous about recording every penny (literally EVERY penny) he spent every day. Generally there would be some mention of the weather and a brief accounting of what he had done during the day. By February, 1975, he and his partner, James Kirkwood, were beginning to wind down Steinhoff & Kirkwood Construction, so he had a lot more time to spend on stuff like Scouts. (SOR stands for ScoutORama, for example.)

Uncharacteristically, he set off a section: Got Big News about being Grandpa this PM. Talked to Ken Okee. Fla (I must have been in Okeechobee) later to Lila. (Then reverting to company business, he finished up by saying that he talked to Jim in Fla this PM.)

December second was big day

On December 2, 1975, we find that the day had sunshine in the 50s; he got up at 4:30 A.M., had toast and coffee, then left for Memphis Airport.

Picked up Ken & Lila and seen Grand child 1st time at 11:10 A.M. (He consistently used “seen” for “saw” and “too” for “to,” but otherwise generally used good grammar and spelling with lots of abbreviations. His penmanship was precise.)

Along the way to and from Memphis, he had coffee for .83 (with a 15-cent tip), bought a paper for 15 cents and put six bucks of gas in the car.

Here’s the first meeting with Matt

Matt was born September 27, 1975. (Matt’s the one who scanned these for me about 10 or 12 years ago. He was disappointed that his birth wasn’t mentioned in the journal, probably because Dad was over at Kentucky Lake on the day.) Here is Mother, Wife Lila, Dad and Matt getting together for the first time at the Memphis Airport. It’s the same airport we would fly out of in 1977 after Dad’s funeral.

Matt got a cold

December was cloudy, cold and damp. Dad got up at 6:45 and went to 7:30 church by himself, where he took Communion. When he got back home, he built a fire in the fireplace and watched Cardinal football until 1:45. Took 13 of us to dinner, including Lila’s mother, brother and sister; my grandmother, Elsie Welch, Mother, Brother Mark and Mark’s date. (The Cardinals beat Dallas, in case you were interested.)

The final note for the day said that Matt got cold. Nose stopped up. Call Dr. Kinder. [Matt doesn’t know how lucky he was that Dr. Herbert had probably retired by then. That’s why Matt can still eat Popsicles.]

Headed back to Florida

December 11 – Clear, sunshine and warmer. Got car checked over for trip to Florida. Left Cape for Lake and Florida 12:30 PM – arrive at trailer at 3:00 PM. Matt didn’t sleep too well tonight. He threw a real cry buster at Joe Summers. Had his nose cleaned out.
December 12 – Sunshine clear. Up at 5:30 because Matt up since 3:00. Lila back to bed. Got Matt to sleep for abt 1 Hr 1/4. Left Lake for Florida at 9:15 AM. Ate at Cracker BL Manchester 12:30. Drove to Macon Ga. by 8:00 PM. Matt feeling better today – was really good.
December 13 – Clear sunshine – left Macon, Ga., at 9:15 ate at Shoney’s. had blueberry pancakes – No Good – Drove to Wildwood & ate at Union 76 at 3:00 PM – then on to WPB arrive at 8:00 PM. 1093 miles. Matt real good on trip. [Editor’s note: I have two routes I take from FL to MO. Both of them are within a dozen miles of being 1,100 miles. I find it interesting that Dad’s trip was 1,093 miles.]

Another interesting thing I had forgotten was that while Lila and Matt were parked in Cape, I flew down to Corpus Christi, Tex., for a job interview. I had been at The Post for almost exactly three years, generally about as long as I was comfortable anywhere. While the Texas paper and I were talking about the move, I was offered the job of director of photography at The Post. I took it and spent the next 35 years in photo, as editorial operations manger and as telecommunications manager. I discovered that I didn’t have to move to a new town every three years if I took on new responsibilities at the same company.

Category: Family