Cape Girardeau History and Photos

July 2, 2013

View from Thebes Courthouse

Mother, Friend Anne and I hit the Thebes Courthouse just before sunset, just in time to watch a slow freight rumble across the railroad bridge.

Sky kept changing

Every time we would start to get into the car to leave, the sunset would change color or shape.

Courthouse has spectacular view

We didn’t see the famous “green flash” when the sun disappeared, but we didn’t feel cheated. Here are photos I’ve taken of and from the courthouse over the years.

Muddy mistake

Most of lowland Thebes was covered with Mississippi River floodwaters this spring. I noticed in the fading daylight that the roads had been graded and there was a big pile of mud off to the side of them, so I assumed they were clear when I drove toward the river.

Big mistake. A brief downpour had turned the mud on the road to something slicker than ice. I knew I couldn’t stop or I’d never get going again, so I tried to keep it slow and straight until I got to a point where I had to make a right turn. I was able to kick it around, but about 75 feet down that road, the car went into a slow-speed skid.

I used all the techniques I had learned over years of winter driving. At the last second, I cut the wheels to the left and tried to use the front wheel drive to pull me out of the slide, but we ended up bumping up against the curb, which stopped us.

I give my passengers credit. Unlike Friend Jan, who would have been pounding on the dash and screaming, “We’re all gonna die!!!” Anne sat stoically and braced herself for the impact. Mother said she’d have screamed, but she was busy biting down on a pillow to keep from doing it.

We exited Thebes no worse for wear, but it took me three bucks in the car wash the next day to get all the mud off.

July 1, 2013November 4, 2016

When Did You Quit Smoking?

I have no idea why I took several photos of a TV screen, but this image caused me to pause because you won’t see it today. Cigarette ads were as ubiquitous in the 1960s as car ads are today. (To be honest, I don’t know what ads are running these days. One of the advantage of TiVo is that I bleep right past the ads like they were names in a Russian novel.

The last national cigarette ad

Want to take a guess what the last cigarette ad was and when it ran? I’ve already looked it up for you.

On New Year’s night, 1971, millions of Americans were tuned in to NBC to watch the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. At 11: 59 Johnny went to a commercial break, something he had done thousands of times since he took over the Tonight Show in 1962. But there was something special about this break, a 1 minute commercial for Virginia Slims cigarettes. Cigarette commercials had been a mainstay of advertising in the first 25 years of television. But this commercial was different. It was the last cigarette commercial broadcast nationally in the United States. One minute later at midnight on January 2, 1971, The “Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act” went into effect. This law banned the advertising of cigarettes and tobacco product on television and radio.

Dad quit cold turkey

It was rare to see a photo of Dad without a cigarette in his hand or nearby when I was growing up.

One New Year’s Day I found him crankier than usual. I had stayed out a little later than I was supposed to and he jumped all over me. That usually didn’t happen.

A couple of weeks later, he let us in on his secret: he had decided to give up smoking at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. He threw all his cigarettes in the fireplace without telling any of us until he was sure he could do it.

He never smoked again, although he chewed a lot of gum and ate a lot of hard candy for quite awhile.

I was lucky. I never took up the habit. Maybe that’s why I’m still around. Dad and his brothers died at or before 60.

June 30, 2013June 30, 2013

Thanks for Stopping By

Friend Anne and I thank those folks who stopped by Hastings Saturday to look at our books and calendars. Wife Lila shot this while we were chatting with someone just out of camera range.

I’m pretty sure it was Jesse James. I’d list more names, but I don’t want to take a chance I’ll forget someone.

I’ll have more calendars and Smelterville books for sale at Annie Laurie’s Antique Shop at First Friday on July 5. Once Lila gets home next week, I’ll post how to order the materials by mail. Here is a sample of the calendar and more information about Anne’s book.

June 29, 2013June 29, 2013

Sexual Desire and Ken’s Calendar

BRAIN FART ALERT: I may make calendars, but I have trouble with dates. In an earlier version of this post, I had the wrong date for our Hastings visit. It will be Saturday, June 29, 2013. (That’s today unless you are reading this in the future.)

Now, retuning you to the original programming

What do those two topics have in common. Not much, to be frank.

Let’s try to straighten this out. Anne Rodgers, my former colleague at The Palm Beach Post, bike riding partner and road tripper, is promoting her book, Kiss and Tell: Secrets of Sexual Desire from Women 15 to 97. She spent two years working with a gynecologist surveying 1,300 women and doing in-depth interviews of a hundred of them. The result was a decade by decade picture of what turns women on (and off). You’ll be surprised to see what the teens had to say. You’ll be even more surprised to read the chapter that includes the experiences of a 97-year-old.

We’ll be at Hastings June 29

How do I fit in this picture? Anne has heard me talk about Cape so much that she, like Friend Jan, just had to see the place.

To help make the trip pay off, she scored a book signing at the local Hastings store in the Town Plaza shopping center on William Street Saturday between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

The nice folks at Hastings said I could sit next to Anne, so I will be there with a stack of my 2013-2014 Snapshots of Cape Girardeau calendars for sale. I’ll also have prototypes of my “Smelterville: A Work in Progress” book.

My work is better than Anne’s. I have pictures. She, however, is better looking.

Come on by, let’s talk, look at old pictures of Cape and catch up.

If you miss me there, you can find me at Annie Laurie’s Antique Shop on First Friday, July 5. I’ll also be appearing on the KZIM morning show on that day to talk about the Smelterville project. (I’ll hold the photos up to the microphone, but I’m not sure how they are going to look at the far end.)

Click the link to read reviews of Kiss and Tell: Secrets of Sexual Desire from Women 15 to 97 and order online (I’ll actually make a few pennies on the transaction).

Calendar photo gallery

Click on any photo, then click on the side to move through the gallery. (By the way, the girl on the cover of Anne’s book isn’t Anne. I’ve been asked.)