I’m a Year Younger!

Ken Steinhoff celebrates birthday in Advance with Elsie WelchMarch 24th is my birthday. Like I wrote last year, since I thought I wouldn’t make it past 60, I haven’t paid much attention to birthdays.

Sunday afternoon, the Florida Clan (note “clan” is spelled with a “c,” not a “K”) descended on the house. In addition to Matt, Sarah, Adam, Carly, Malcolm, Graham and Elliot, Neighbor Bill and Friend Anne showed up for ribs, turkey burgers and birthday cake.

Miz Anne, bike partner and Road Warrior, had the temerity to ask me how old I was going to be. I suspect she was flaunting her youth.

“Sixty-eight,” I replied without hesitation, “if I make past midnight.”

“You’re not going to be 68”

“You’re not going to be 68,” Wife Lila responded. “You are only 66. You were born in 1947. You’re going to be 67.”

I didn’t bother to pull out a calculator because it was a given if I wanted to make it past midnight to whatever my new age was going to be, the right answer was, “Yes, Dear.”

(When I got back to my office, though, I pulled out my calculator and did the math. Not unexpectedly, she was right.)

So, I just got a year younger instead of a year older. (I wonder how many forms I filled out over the past 12 months where I claimed to be 67?)

I hate to break the news to Curator Jessica. She checks the obits every morning to see if she can lay claim to my Ohio photo collection for the Athens County Historical Society’s museum, and she’s going to be sorely disappointed to find out I’m not as old as she thought.. (Although, in her case, she has to stand on a stepladder to see 30, so I don’t know if she can tell the distinction between pretty old and REALLY old.)

By the way, you can click on the photo at the top of the page to see me celebrate my birthday with my Grandmother in Advance before my cute wore off.

SE Hospital at Night

Southeast Hospital at night from Capaha Park 11-16-2011The way hospitals in Cape gobble up everything around them and grow new buildings like dandelions, this November 16, 2011, photo of Southeast Missouri Hospital may be outdated. It must have been chilly enough that nobody is sitting on the Capaha Park Lagoon park bench.

For photo geeks, it was taken with Nikon D40. The lens was zoomed to 32mm and the exposure was 1/2 second at f/4.5. The ISO was 1600. If I shoot it again, I’ll use my Nikon D7000 and see if HDR will give me a wider range of tones.

802 Good Hope

Former gas station at 802 Good Hope 03-28-2010I was never in the tiny service station at 802 Good Hope, at the corner of Good Hope and Ellis, but I’ve always been fascinated with it because it looks almost like a model of a real building. You can click on the photo to make it larger but the building itself is still going to look miniature.

I couldn’t find much about the history of the building, but here are a few news stories culled from The Missourian over the years:

  • Sept. 12, 1934Arthur Kempe, 545 S. Ellis street, has purchased from the Phillips Petroleum Co. the filling station located at 802 Good Hope street. Kempe was formerly bookkeeper for the Rudert and Sons garage. He is being assisted on Saturdays by his son, Jimmy.
  •  Mar. 4, 1946 – Arthur Kempe called The Missourian office to say that he saw his first swallow of the season this morning in a bird house at his service station at 802 Good Hope street.
  •  May 25, 1961 – Officers almost nabbed a burglar late Wednesday night but darkness enabled the thief to elude his pursuers. Police, who drove up with their headlights off, spotted a man near the station with his hands full of apparently stolen articles. The suspect ran between houses near the station and managed to escape, “his dark clothing making him almost invisible in the night.” He took $3 in pennies, eight packs of cigarettes and six flashlight batteries.
  • Aug. 19, 1984 – The Urhahn Service Station, 802 Good Hope, has been purchased by Otto and Rebecca Goehman, who are now operating the business. They bought the facility from Harold and Dorothy Annis. The business retails gasoline and other motor car products and also does major and minor automobile work.
  •  May 22, 2004 – Black oramental iron stands were reported stolen from FGR Mechanical, 802 Good Hope.

Other business is the Haarig area

 

 

Municipal Band Shell

 Capaha Park Municipal Band Shell 04-12-2011It won’t be long before the trees on Cherry Hill are blooming and the grass will be turning green around Capaha Park’s Municipal Band Shell.

Fred Lynch’s blog in The Missourian had a Frony photo of a November 11, 1957, Veterans Day memorial service at what was described as “the newly-built bandshell in Capaha Park. What is interesting about Frony’s photo is how tiny Southeast Missouri Hospital looked in the background.

[Style note: The Missourian’s story has it spelled as one word – bandshell – but I see it’s spelled as both one and two words. I’ll go with two, which makes my spellchecker happier.]

It’s been years since I was at a concert at Capaha Park, but here’s what a Jackson’s band concert looked like last summer.

You can click on the photo to make it larger if you’ve forgotten what green grass looks like.