Cape Girardeau History and Photos

January 1, 2011January 2, 2011

Sunrise on Lake Worth Beach

We moved to Florida in January of 1973. When we first got here, I told Wife Lila that we’d treat this like a three-year Florida vacation since that was as long as I had ever worked anywhere. We’re still here, but that’s another story.

For that first few years, we hit every tourist trap in the state. When I was working a late shift, I’d grab a snorkel and flippers and head up to the beach to look at the exotic fish swimming off a nearby reef.

She got sand in her shoes

It wasn’t long before my beach fixation waned. Before long, I went to the beach about as often as somebody living in Kansas. I used to joke that the only time my feet touched sand was when bales of dope or refugees washed up.

There’s an old Florida legend (probably started by the Tourist Board) that once you get sand in your shoes, you’ll always come back. I guess my penchant for wearing high-topped Red Wing work boots made me somewhat immune.

Lila, on the other hand, loves the beach. She goes to the Full Moon Drum Circles and will walk up and down the beach as often as she can.

That leads us to getting up at 6 in the morning on New Year’s Day. She wanted to start 2011 off by watching the sun come up over Lake Worth Beach.

Moon and Venus greeted us

A beautiful crescent moon and a bright Venus (cropped out of this photo) hung over the Lake Worth fishing pier.

Lila frolicked on the beach

She immediately headed down to the water’s edge, where she photographed waves, birds, flowers, runners and a family. I, sensibly, stayed up on the dune line where I could be sure I wouldn’t get any of that pesky sand in my shoes.

She traded photos with family

She offered to take a group shot of a family she came across, and they returned the favor by shooting her portrait.

The result

The salt spray caused the photo to be a little soft and pastel-colored. I like the effect. She had a great day. She took about half of the photos here and the gallery, including some I wish my name was under. I’ve added her name to the descriptions, so you can see which ones are her’s.

Gallery of New Year’s Day Sunrise on the Beach

If you like scenic photos, I encourage you to click on any of the images to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the photo to move through the gallery.

December 31, 2010January 1, 2011

In This Huge Silence

Some of my friends who came from Cape have mentioned that don’t have the same connection with the area that I seem to. Maybe I’m lucky that the mental rubber band that connects the new with the old hasn’t snapped. I can still be pulled back into memories of growing up in Southeast Missouri as a kid.

I figure most of you will either be sleeping late or waiting for the holiday weekend to be over before coming back here, so I’m going to cheat and recycle the photo above that I ran just about a year ago. I call it SE Missouri from the Window of a Speeding Car. (They taught me in college that pictures sound more impressive if you give them titles and set the names in Italics.)

For nearly 20 years, I had this framed newspaper edition about Gordon Parks hanging on my office wall. Parks’ words do a better job than I ever could at explaining why I feel a kinship with the Midwest. The poem ran on the back of his funeral program March 16, 2006.

Gordon Parks

In this huge silence

The prairie is still in me,

in my talk and manners.

I still sniff the air for rain or snow,

know the loneliness of night,

and distrust the wind

when things get too quiet.

Having been away so long

and changed my face so often,

I sometimes suspect that this place

no longer recognizes me—

despite these cowboy boots,

this western hat and

my father’s mustache that I wear.

To this place I must seem

like wood from a different forest,

and as secretive as black loam.

This earth breathes uneasily under my boots.

Their odor of city asphalt

doesn’t mix well with the clean smell

of wild alfalfa and purple lovegrass.

It puzzles me that I live so far away

from our old clapboard house

where, in oak tree shade,

I used to sit and dream

of what I wanted to become.

I always return here weary,

but to draw strength from

This huge silence that surrounds me,

knowing now that all I thought

was dead here is still alive,

that there is warmth here—

even when the wind blows hard and cold.

December 30, 2010

Fishing on Cedar Lake?

I don’t know who these boys are, but the place has the feel of Cedar Lake to it. I see a fence on the left that’s going off into the water. I vaguely remember something like that from the half-dozen or so times I went to the lake. The boy on the right has on a Boy Scout T-shirt, but I don’t recall ever going out there with Troop 8.

If I recall it correctly, you’d pull up to a farmhouse and pay to fish. They must have had boats for rent. Jim Stone, Lila, someone else and I went out there once, and there’s a photo of Lila and me in a boat floating around (pardon the pun) somewhere. I don’t know if we rented it or if we just sat in it for the picture.

Lake looks free of development

View Cedar Lake in a larger map

This Google Map looks like the lake hasn’t changed much in the last 45 or so years. I’m surprised that there aren’t houses sprouting up all around it yet. I’m glad it looks pretty much like it always did. I’ll have to take a drive out there on the next trip home.

This may or may not have been close to the bridge where kids would cheat death.

December 30, 2010January 14, 2012

First Presbyterian Church

I captured the final days of the First Presbyterian Church located at the corner of Broadway and Lorimier, across from The Southeast Missourian, in March of 1965. The building was 63 years old.

When I look photos of landmark buildings torn down in those days, I’m amazed at how little was salvaged. The 110-year-old bell that had called out firefighters and warned of jail breaks was saved to be reinstalled in the new church, but beautiful ornate woodwork was knocked down and hauled off.

Cornerstone was removed

A March 30, 1965, Missourian story said that the building’s cornerstone was removed and would be examined later by a church committee comprised of Jack L. Oliver, Allen L. Oliver, Wendell P. Black, Mrs. Clyde A. McDonald and Mrs. Robert L. Beckman.

Bell goes back home

Before the end of the year, the new church far enough along that the bell could be reinstalled.

The re-belling didn’t go smoothly

The Dec. 1, 1965, Missourian story chronicled a number of missteps before the bell was placed gently into its cradle.

It had to be moved to a spot directly in front of the church.
The boom on the crane had to be lengthened.
A parking meter was in the way and had to be removed.
The crane ran out of gas and someone had to be dispatched to bring back five gallons to crank it up.

Finally it was on its way up

The Missourian building is on the left. The Idan-Ha Hotel hadn’t burned yet, and the city was still using the silver star Christmas decorations. Anybody know when those were phased out and what happened to them? I always thought they were kind of classy looking.

Pete Gibbar and Bill Vopelker were waiting

Pete Gibbar and Bill Vopelker, both of Perryville, were in the bell tower waiting for it to be lowered into place.

Bell bolted into place

The bell landed right where it was supposed to and was quickly bolted into its collar.

It works!

Pete and Bill were clearly happy when they rang the bell for the first time in its new home, the third of its existence. It was originally mounted in a wooden tower located on the courthouse side of the original brick Presbyterian Church. The tower and the church were torn down in 1904 to build the church that was just razed.

The bell, which is inscribed, Jones & Hitchcock, founders, Troy, N,Y, 1855,” was originally cast for a St. Louis church, but it proved too heavy to be used there. Mrs. Addie McNeely bought the bell for First Presbyterian for $500. It’s 43-1/2 inches wide at the mouth and weighs about 1,400 pounds.

First Presbyterian Church Photo gallery

Here is a gallery of other photos, including a strange shot I took while changing film on my way up to the bell tower. I include it because it shows some of the buildings in the area. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to step through the gallery.