Cape Girardeau History and Photos

I could hear the plants screaming.

Wait. It’s a little early for that. Let’s back into this a little more slowly.

I ended up at Plaza Galleria, behind the Town Plaza Shopping Center Saturday afternoon. I had been back there before on an earlier visit and noted that the old ice skating rink had been closed for some time.

It opened after I left Cape, so I never paid a lot of attention to it. I didn’t bother to look up any information about when it opened, closed or who owns it. That’s not what interested me.

Spirits inhabit old buildings

This is going to sound like I’m letting my Fine Art or nutso side show, but I have always loved to wander around shooting abandoned buildings. Odd as it may sound, I feel vibes in them. I can imagine a young couple moving into the house when it still smells of sawdust and fresh paint.

I hear the footsteps and laughter of young children. I hear voices raised in anger. I feel the sorrow of sickness and death. I think of all of the people who have passed through there in its lifetime and wonder how many looked back at the place when they pulled out of the driveway for the last time.

Chew marks on the window sill

I look for the marks on a door frame showing a child growing up or teeth marks on a window sill.

I shot a closed restaurant the other day (that’ll run soon). I could see a dead plant in a vase through a dust-covered window. Three tables still had white tablecloths on them, just like the day the doors closed.

Plaza Galleria is out of a sci-fi movie

The Plaza Galleria, though gave me some vibes that I had never felt before. They were something out of a science fiction movie. The place is full of plants.

Not all of the plants in this long-closed building were dead. Some of them were very much alive and pressing themselves against the window glass like they were trying to get out. Particularly spooky were the windows where the plants inside were next to bushes and trees outside.

I think the best way to handle this is just to run a gallery of photos. If there was an advocacy group for plants like PETA is for animals, there would be pickets outside the joint chanting “FREE THE PLANTS!”

Gallery of Plaza Galleria Photos

Click on any photo to make it larger (if you dare), then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery. You should be happy I don’t have audio. I swear, I could hear plants screaming.

 

 

I went to lunch with a couple of old classmates last week, Bill Hopkins and Van Riehl. I use the word “old” and not “former” for good reason. That’s Bill in the foreground of a photo from our high school days. You can tell from the body language that he’s trying to work his way out of what would have already been a knuckle-rapping in Ruby Davis’ class. I don’t have any photos of Van because he was an underclassman and beneath note.

During the course of the conversation, they both said that Sandy’s Place, a restaurant down at the Cape Airport has the best catfish around. I take advice like that with a grain of salt from these characters. These are the kind of friends who would tell you, “Oh, sure, the ice is thick enough to skate on,” and “Yes, the electricity is turned off” just before you started working on the light switch.

It never dawned on me that these hooligans could conjure up a near tornado, complete with torrential rain, marble-size hail and wind gusts that made driving almost impossible.

I spent the afternoon up at SEMO talking with Lisa Speer in Special Collections about picking up my Cape photos when I go toes-up. She thought they might have a trash can just the right size to house them.

Storm’s a comin’

Anyway, I called Mother and said, “Let’s hit the catfish joint. Better be waiting, because I think it’s gonna come a gully-washer.” About two hills down Mt. Auburn road, I heard someone on the police scanner say, “We’ve got hail in Chaffee.”

I said, “Let’s find cover, looks like it’s coming our way.” We pulled into a bank drive-through window just as the rain cut loose and the wind began to howl. No sooner had I told the nice lady at the bank we weren’t there to transact business, but to seek shelter from the storm, wind-borne pea-size hail peppered the car.

Video of the storm

After a bit, the hail let up and I thought had caught a break. About the time we were going to turn onto I-55 from William, the hail was back. The water on Siemers Drive was about a foot deep when I spotted a Sonic drive-in with some cover. So did everybody else. There was one last stall open when we got there.

I debated ordering something to justify our parking space, but I saw the curbhops getting blown around and pelted with flying ice that was somewhere between marble-size and maybe an inch around. I figured it would be an act of kindness NOT to have them bring anything to the car. Traffic on the scanner was reporting bad stuff happening all over the area.

Catfish and pie were great

The storm moved quickly out of Cape, the skies brightened and we made it to the airport uneventfully. We lucked out there, too. Because of the storm, we didn’t have to wait in line. By the time we finished some excellent all-you-can-eat catfish, there must have been more than two dozen folks waiting for our table.

Except for trying to kill me in a storm, Bill and Van had some good advice for a change. I recommend the catfish and coconut pie to everyone. Just check the weather forecast first.

I photographed Doris Bentley at Doris’ Antiques at 627 Good Hope on March 29, 2010. She set up her shop in 1981, after coming from Chaffee.

She had gone through a rough patch. She had broken her hip about a year before; when she recovered enough to reopen, she said she had one good week, then a 10-day ice storm. Right after that, the meter reader discovered a leak in her basement.

Doris probably didn’t weigh as much as a sack of quarters, but she was fiesty beyond her size. A thug broke into the shop when she was working one night. “All I had was a dollar bill and some change,” she said. “I told him it was all I had.” He knocked her around a bit.

“You’re mine and I want you!!”

She described her TV interview after the robbery: “I looked right into the camera and said, ‘You’re mine, and I want you!!'” I don’t doubt for a second that she meant it.

The next time couple of times I came back, the store was closed. I asked a nearby merchant if he had any idea how Doris was doing, and he said he thought she was in a nursing home in Springfield, Mo., and probably wouldn’t be back.

Absolute Auction April 16

Wednesday’s Missourian carried an ad for an absolute auction this weekend where the shop’s contents will be sold. Click on it to make it large enough to read.

Brother Mark is an antique shopper who had been in Doris’ many times. I asked him to tell me what he knew about her. What follows is his account:

Doris was a female Popeye

Doris – If there ever was a female Popeye, it would have been Doris. While I doubt that she was ever in the Navy, and I don’t think I ever saw her smoke a pipe (but I wouldn’t rule that out) and I have no idea if she had any tattoos of anchors on her arms, I wouldn’t bet that she didn’t. She could be gruff if she didn’t think you were good people and the nicest lady if she sized you up as being “square and true”.

Is she open or has she closed?

The store – The first thing that comes to my mind anytime that I would go there to shop was, “is she open or has she closed her door for the last time and I missed it?” Turns out, she was always open when she was open. I heard that she had gotten broken into a couple of times and from then on she stayed in the shop in the back and slept with a gun. Don’t know for certain if that was true, but it’s rumors like that going around that make folks thing twice about breaking in at night.

Aisles were packed with stuff

The aisles were packed with stuff. All kinds of stuff. Cheap yard sale stuff sat right next to McCoy pottery for those who could spot it. You wanted old metal ice cube trays that you used to have in the old refrigerator/freezer? She had them along with Tupperware containers, AVON bottles and stuff that I could not figure out how she ever thought she would sell it.

Trash and treasures

There was trash and there were treasures in the store and you had to either have a sixth sense about finding the good stuff or just be lucky to stumble onto it. Doris was smart in that she knew the value of everything, so you weren’t going to walk out under her nose with a Vintage Fiesta AD Demitasse Cup and Saucer for $15.* [Editor’s Note: Asterisk decoded below.]

T-I-M-B-E-R!

But whenever I walked through her store looking for something that would catch my eye, I was always worried that something from the overstocked shelves would catch onto me and I would end up pulling down everything quicker than you could say “T-I-M-B-E-R!” She had a lot of glassware in the store that made me very nervous.

A picker’s delight

The store was a picker’s (not the musical kind) delight in that you could find something, and she would sell it to you, but she wasn’t going to lose money in the transaction.

Here’s the asterisk

*Vintage Fiesta AD Demitasse Cup and Saucer Set in 50s Forest Green Glaze »

Circa 1951-1959. Stunning example of the very hard to find, vintage, forest green Fiesta After Dinner Demitasse Cup and Saucer. The cup was jiggered on the inside and the slip cast handle had to be attatched by hand – even the foot was hand worked to produce a subtle flare.

Good Hope won’t be the same

Good Hope and Cape Girardeau won’t be the same without Doris and her shop. She was one of a kind.