Cape Girardeau History and Photos

August 25, 2013

Steve Mosley on His Throne

You might know Steve Mosley several different ways.

His mother, Jean Bell Mosley, was a local author. He showed up in the background of a photo I took of her in 1967.
He was a member of Central High School Class of 1962.
He retired from teaching high school social studies in 2010.
In 2004, The Missourian ran a story where Steve proclaimed himself the “King of Speakout,” because he said he had more than 18,000 Speakout comments published in the last 20 years.
If you are one of his 4,719 Facebook friends, you’ll know him for his daily poll of current events designed to whip his fans on the left and right into a name-calling frenzy.

The lime green throne

He makes frequent reference to the “lime green throne” he occupies on a daily basis at Cape’s Public Library. He was distressed one day to see it occupied by a non-Mosley. On another, he posted a picture of his wife sitting on the throne and claimed he had been “overthrown.”

I took Mother into the library when I was back home so she could get some real help learning how to load library books onto her iPad. That’s when I spotted Steve on The Throne.

Steve counted on his trusty bodyguard in the background and a strong force field generator in the foreground to protect him and his throne, but he never realized just how vulnerable he was.

Had this been a real coup instead of a drill, there would have been a new seat on the throne.

August 24, 2013

Matt’s Midwestern Meanderings

Son Matt, Sarah and Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Cape to help Mother kick off an early Birthday Season (the real one isn’t until October, but school is out in the summer). He knew I was going to be busy packing and truckin’ on down the road, so he loaned me some pictures he shot while driving between Cape and St. Louis. I figured it was time to dust them off since a Facebook friend was looking for barn photos.

This barn was taken near Oak Ridge. Click on the photos to make them larger.

We’re in Illinois?

Sarah was surprised to find herself in Illinois without crossing the Mississippi River when they went over on Kaskaskia Island from St. Mary. (OK, I cheated. this is my photo taken last fall.)

On the road

I thought this looked like the bottomlands on the way to Kaskaskia, but Matt swears it was near Chester.

Immaculate Conception Church

They got to see the Liberty Bell of the West and the Immaculate Conception Church, founded in 1675. The church has had a tough time with floods over the years, but it always comes back.

August 23, 2013

Deer, Deer, Deer

This just goes to prove I can’t (a) pass up taking pictures of deer and (b) writing bad headlines about them.

Buddy Terry Hopkins and I were riding around coming back from our Super Secret Mission to acquire Blue Hole Garden BBQ sauce, when we spotted these deer on what we used to call Old Jackson Road between Cape and Jackson.

You can click on the photos to make them larger. This deer looks like it has a fresh gash across the right flank.

Good thing I had a camera

The deer were outside Terry’s window, so I pulled as far off the road as I could and rolled his glass down. He’s lucky I was shooting with my camera and telephoto zoom instead of a gun. He’d be deaf and probably missing part of his nose otherwise.

Terry’s Hawaiian shirt must have offended them, because they didn’t stick around long.

With a final flick of a tail

With a final flick of a white tail, they were gone.

We saw deer on at least three residential streets on our meanderings that day. I don’t think we EVER saw one in town when I was a kid. Of course, in those days, we weren’t IN town. We were still outside the city limits.

Two other deer stories

With equally bad headlines.

August 22, 2013February 18, 2017

Flashback to the Rialto

While I was in Cape, I picked up some cans of Shasta Black Cherry soda at Schnucks. The taste took me back to the soda dispenser at the Rialto Theater on Broadway.

Buddy Jim Stone, in town chasing a big magnet, reminisced about Carol Klarsfeld, whose mother owned the theater. Carol got to keep the money from the weight machine and the soda dispenser, he said.

Carol used to joke that the two profit centers in the lobby were the soda machine and the popcorn machine. “The most expensive parts of each were the containers they were sold in.”

The soda machine sat over on the left side of the lobby, near the popcorn popper (which produced oceans of fresh-popped corn, drowned in real butter). When you put in your dime, a thin cup would plop down with a satisfying “SMACK!” followed by a smattering of thinly crushed ice and your choice of flavored soda. I don’t remember the other flavors because I always picked Black Cherry.

Rialto and other theater stories

I’ve done a number of stories about Cape’s theaters. Here are some links in case you missed them.