Cape Girardeau History and Photos

March 17, 2012March 17, 2012

Downtown Cape Panorama

This panorama photo is made up of six aerial photos taken April 17, 2010. It ranges from William Street on the left to north of Broadway on the right. The western boundary is just beyond Fountain St. The gray parking lot at the top left is Cape’s City Hall on Independence

Most panoramas are taken from one spot and the camera swiveled on a tripod. In this case, the “tripod” was Ernie Chiles’ plane flying along at about 100 mph. Because the angle was constantly changing, there is some freaky distortions of the buildings on the edges of the photo, particularly St. Vincent’s Cathedral on the left. Still, it’s a neat effect. I made it larger than usual, so you may have to scroll around to see it all.

Broadway Theater was a panorama

When I shot the interior of the Broadway theater, I stitched together six photos to show the whole room. It’s a way to cover a wide area if you don’t have a super wideangle lens.

The super-secret assignment

I haven’t fooled around much with panoramas because they were a real pain back in the days of film and paper prints. One day The Big Boss called me in and said he needed some aerial photography done for a super secret project for someone he wouldn’t name. I wasn’t supposed to discuss the assignment. Some days you ask questions. Some days you salute and say, “Yes Sir.” This was the latter.

In 2012, you’d call up Google Earth and have what you wanted in minutes, but this was in the days when the Google Earth guys were still wearing diapers, so that wasn’t an option.

The chopper ride was the fun part

So, I chartered a helicopter, took the door off, put on a safety harness, stood on the skid and leaned out into space so I could shoot straight down as much as possible. It was cool. Because the boss wanted a couple block area covered and in close detail, we flew multiple grids and I banged off a couple hundred frames. That was the easy and fun part.

When I got into the darkroom, though, I realized that I wasn’t as smart as Photoshop is today. No matter how straight to the ground I had tried to hold the camera, there was always a slight angle that kept the prints from lining up.

The next day, I spread out enough prints on The Big Boss’s floor to just above cover the whole shebang. I explained the technical problem, then I handed him two sheets of aerial photos of the area from the county’s tax assessor. He said I wouldn’t need to muck with making the prints; the county photos would do fine. (He was pleased enough with my ingenious solution that he didn’t think to ask why I hadn’t done that in the first place.)

So, what was the whole super secret deal about? I have no idea to this day. From time to time I’d drive through the neighborhood to see if any changes were taking place, but nothing ever sprouted up. I don’t know if the project was scuttled or what happened. At least I got a neat chopper ride out of it.

Other downtown shots

Downtown Cape Girardeau from the air and ground (includes other links)

Common Pleas Courthouse from the air

St. Vincent’s Cathedral and downtown

March 17, 2012

High School Animal Experiments

Four photos ran on the April 16, 1966, Missourian’s Youth Page. The captions explained that “pupils in Howard Bock’s advanced biology class at Central High School have been injecting 60 baby chicks with hormones for the past two weeks to see if a change in the growth rate results. Although Jim Sooy, student teacher, assured the pupils that the hypodermic needle was only going in right below the skin, and ‘the injection probably hurts you more than the bird,’ some of the girls ‘are a bit shaky yet,’ Mr. Bock commented. Lynn Danielson, left, carefully gives the chick its hormone injection while Mr. Sooy holds it.”

Does it work like a dart?

“Miss Carmen Anderson looks as though she can’t decide whether to use the syringe as a dart or to go about the task in a more conventional manner.”

Ready to apply alcohol to target area

“Miss Sally Blankenship looks closely at the chick before applying alcohol to the ‘target area.’ The alcohol has a sterilizing effect, the instructors explained.”

Some elected not to give injections

“Some of the pupils would rather not give the injections themselves. Here, Miss Linda Propst, left, and Mr. Sooy team up to work on a chick while Miss Sharon Hunt, the bird’s owner, looks on apprehensively.”

Chick hormone experiment photo gallery

Here are additional photos of the class. The story didn’t mention what was to happen to the 60 chicks after the experiment or the results of the test. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.

March 15, 2012

College High Junior-Senior Prom

I hope this will make amends to Miss Peggy Schweain for not showing her face when she was crowned College High School Prom Queen in 1967. We ran this action shot of Miss Carol Keller helping Miss Schweain adjust her crown. To add insult to injury, the caption had her last named spelled both “Schwein and “Schweain.” (The latter is correct.)

Miss Keller is the daughter of Mrs. and Mrs. Layton Keller, and Miss Schweain is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Schweain. Miss Nora Reynolds, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Reynolds, Jr., is at right. Click on the photos to make them larger.

College High Prom Court

Maybe I was trying to squeeze out an extra five bucks from the assignment, hoping the paper would run the action shot, then back it up with a group picture. I guess not. It was getting close to the end of the school year, so it was probably pushed off the page by the glut of school news to get in. (The New York Times motto was “All the news that fit to print.” The Missourian came closer to reflecting economic realities: “All the news that fits we print.”)

The May 13, 1967, Youth Page story said the ceremony was held in the Memorial Hall ballroom. In addition to Misses Keller and Reynolds, her attendants were Miss Judy Masterson, daughter of Mrs. Evelyn Masterson, and Miss Ellen Gockel, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gus Gockel, Jr.

The queen’s throne was placed on a platform decorated with a purple curtain held back with gold streamers. At the center of the curtain was a crown of purple velvet trimmed with gold tinsel.

Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Gilbert and the parents of the queen candidates were special guests of the juniors and seniors. The class sponsors were Wendall Wyatt and Mrs. Mary E. Magill.

(As an aside, I could have sworn that Carol Keller was a Cape Central High School student. I don’t know what I assumed that.)

March 15, 2012March 11, 2021

Marcel Marceau: Master of Silence

One of the advantages of working for The Ohio University Post and The Athens Messenger was access to press credentials to cover some of the best performers of the time. I was fortunate enough to photograph Marcel Marceau when he performed at Memorial Auditorium on February 16, 1968 (if the negative sleeve is right).

Never saw anyone do more with less

I was impressed with how little it took Simon and Garfunkel to put on their concert, but Marceau required even less equipment. All he needed was a stage and a spotlight to hold an audience spellbound.

Show was technically challenging

This was a performance where it really paid off to show up early enough to take an incident light reading on the stage before the show began. If I had tried to use a standard reflective light meter, it would have been fooled by the ocean of blackness surrounding Marceau. An incident light meter measures the light falling onto the subject rather than the light reflecting off the subject. That was my preferred method of metering when I could use it. Luckily, I was able to get the spot operator to fire it up long enough for me to get a reading.

I’m not sure what’s happening

I don’t know if this was taken during a rehearsal, before the show or when. The house was packed for the actual performance, but there was only a handful of people around when I shot this.

“White ink drawings on black backgrounds”

Marceau once said, “I have designed my style pantomimes as white ink drawings on black backgrounds, so that man’s destiny appears as a thread lost in an endless labyrinth. I have tried to shed some gleams of light on the shadow of man startled by his anguish.”

When I looked at these frames, I knew exactly what he was talking about. I’ve never seen anyone who used black space more effectively.

Father killed at Auschwitz

A biography on the IMDb website said that Marceau was born Marcel Mangel on March 22, 1923, in Strasbourg, Alsace, France. At age 5, he was entranced when his mother took him to see a Charlie Chaplin movie; he decided to become a mime. At the beginning of World War II, he had to hide his Jewish origin and changed his name to Marceau. His father was deported to Auschwitz, where he was killed in 1944.

Marceau and his brother, Alain, were in the French underground and helped children escape to neutral Switzerland. He later served as interpreter for the Free France Forces under General Charles de Gaulle.

When he died in 2007, Timothy W. Ryback wrote in The New York Times about Marceau’s concern about the fragility of his art. “Unlike novels or plays or operas, which could be printed, recorded, preserved, the art of mime was a transitory and ephemeral art. It existed only in the moment. And, more unsettling still, essentially in one man, Marcel Marceau,” Ryback said.

Photo gallery of Marcel Marceau

I’m glad I had a chance to see the world’s best-known mime. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery. By the way, while researching this, I saw a link to “Marcel Marceau quotes.” I figured clicking on it would take me to a blank page. Surprisingly enough, Marceau said, among other things, “Never get a mime talking. He won’t stop.”