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First Baptist Church

This time change has me messed up. I like sleeping an extra hour in the morning, but I’m not used to it being dark by 2:30 in the afternoon. The good thing, though, is that a lot of Cape’s buildings look neat at twilight.

I was driving by the new First Baptist Church the other evening and noticed the way the white steeple and light inside looked against the darkening sky.

Church established in 1834

The first First Baptist Church in Cape was established in 1834 on Lorimier St. Sixty years later, the congregation moved to Spanish St. and Broadway. In 1928, a growing congregation caused a move to a larger facility at Broadway and Harmony. Finally, in 2006, the new church at Cape Rock Dr. and Lexington Ave. was built.

Painting the old steeple

I ran photos of the steeple of the Broadway and Spanish church being painted in 1967. At that time, a Missourian photo caption said it was the General Baptist Church.

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Marquette Lake Fishing Hole

Families and guests of employees of the old Marquette Cement Plant could go to the Marquette Lake to fish when I was a kid. I was taken on a late-afternoon visit to the lake on a day when the setting sun gave everything an orange glow.

The private lake is located behind what is now known as Buzzi Unicem on South Sprigg Street.

Anybody ever lucky enough to fish there?

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Tattered Flag on Veterans Day

A couple of decades ago, World War II veterans started the Avenue of Flags tradition on Cape County Park North on Highway 61 between Cape and Jackson.

On patriotic holidays, including September 11, volunteers put up flags representing a deceased veteran who served in a war era or in combat.

American flag was frayed

While I was walking around looking at the flags, I noticed this one that was a bit yellow. It had a hole or two in it and part of the edge was fraying. There was no name on the pole, that I could see, so I don’t know who it represents.

Just then, a gentle breeze stirred the flag and I saw a square field of stars. This was a 48-star flag. Alaska gained statehood in 1959 and caused the rows of stars to be staggered. This flag could be as much as half a century old. I’d love to know the story behind it.

Photographers’ delight

Cars with license plates from all over the area drive by. Some stop and their occupants take photos. The late afternoon wind was calm, so the photos weren’t as dramatic as other holidays.

Law Enforcement Memorial

Some visitors pause to look at the Law Enforcement Memorial for officers killed in the line of duty. Others charge off, apparently to track down a specific flag.

Nearly 700 flags are displayed

A Missourian story said that one person can put up the nearly 700 flags in less than two hours.

Display of the flags is governed by the Federal Flag Code. If there is a 40 percent or greater chance of rain, the flags aren’t displayed. Flags are supposed to be up only between sunrise and sunset unless they are illuminated. When we passed the park after dusk, the flags had already been put away for the next patriotic holiday.

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Thoughts on Veterans Day 2010

A number of images and events come to mind on Veterans Day. Watching the Vietnam War play out nightly on the family’s  Zenith television set in our basement is one.

Gary Schemel 1946 – 1965

Gary Schemel was one of Central High School’s first casualties in the Vietnam War.

A fellow vet posted this 1932 poem on The Wall in his memory:

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there; I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on snow,

I am the sun on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there; I did not die.

Posthumous Medal Presentation

A father an mother leave the Athens County Courthouse with a box of medals awarded posthumously to their son in 1969.

Homemade memorial to this generation’s dead

Missing from this handmade memorial to this generation’s war dead was the name Liz Jacobson, my son’s 21-year-old former girlfriend, who was killed by an IED while on a convoy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Adam got permission to add her “stone.” On it, he wrote some lines that she had sent him: “We’re only on this earth for a little while, so live life to the fullest and carry a smile.”

This photo was taken in 2007. I wonder how many more Liz Jacobsons there would be there in the picture today.

Support our boys in Vietnam

I don’t agree with all of the political sentiments this woman is wearing, but I can get behind the Support Our Boys in Vietnam button she sported at a pro-war march in Washington, D.C., in the fall of 1971.

Civil War Memorial Statue

Pigeons show no respect to this Civil War soldier in Washington, DC.

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