Jessica Cyders Archives

March 1, 2014

Glenn Yarbrough 1968

You may have noticed I had a varied group of road warriors traveling with me last year. One of the things that makes for a successful trip (meaning that the same number of people arrive at the destination as left) is working out the Rules of the Road before you take off.

Friends Jan and Anne were bike riding partners, so we had plenty of time to work out the kinks of our relationships while pedaling down the road. Friend Shari was my first high school girlfriend (which didn’t end well), and we hadn’t spoken in close to four decades, so I had to learn that she doesn’t become close to human until after her first cup of Starbucks coffee, she needs frequent smoke breaks and she gets up about the time I’m normally going to bed. We were stopping often for her to check out antique shops, so the smoke breaks weren’t an issue, and I’d leave her my car keys so she could get her Starbucks fix before I even thought about waking up.

Curator Jessica from Athens, Ohio, was a going to be a challenge. She was half my age (OK, more than half my age, but who is counting) to start off, so I was afraid we would have generational issues. We managed to compromise on a waking and sleeping schedule, types of eating establishments (she wasn’t picky) and where we would stay (no place that rented by the hour or where bodies had been found in a room recently). The only place where we hit a speed bump was when we got to talking about music play lists.

“No Glenn Yarbrough,” she insisted

I’m not really a Yarbrough fan – in fact, I get Glenn Yarbrough and Gordon Lightfoot mixed up, probably because of the G-names – but I wasn’t going to concede all that easy. “Miz Jessica, Ma’am, you’ve read my blog. You know that Baby the Rain Must Fall, Glenn’s biggest hit, was how I met Wife Lila. Surely you wouldn’t make me cut that from the playlist, would you?”

She would. Yarbrough was a non-negotiable with her. She also wasn’t big on C.W. McCall, but she WOULD let me play the home brew Cars & Trucks mix tape that was a Steinhoff family trip staple.

So, when I was editing some of my Ohio film, I was surprised to run into Glenn Yarbrough in concert at Ohio University on March 2, 1968.

Jessica, this are for you.

He is as bland as his music

While I was editing the film, I cranked up some Yarbrough music. Sorry, Glenn, I had to dump you after about the third song. You make Gordon Lightfoot sound exciting. On top of that, the photos are dull, too. I’m only including a bunch of them in case some reader was one of the folks who bought some of his nearly four dozen solo albums. He also sang on almost two dozen albums with the Limeliters. SOMEBODY must have liked him.

I’m sticking in some shots of the guys in his band just in case they became famous on their own later.

Glenn Yarbrough photo gallery

Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

February 4, 2014

Crash on Independence

This minor three-car wreck near the corner of Independence and Henderson is interesting not because of the crash, but for what’s going on around it. This shot, for example, shows E.C. Robinson Lumber Company in the background. A quick peek at Google Earth shows that the main building is still there, but some of the ones behind it are gone. (Click on the photo to make it large enough to see the details.)

There’s a Greyhound bus parked at the bus depot, and a sign for Budget Laundry & Cleaners is behind it. There’s a boy’s bike with fenders and a rear rack propped up on its kickstand on the sidewalk. On the rack is a baseball mitt. The railroad tracks hadn’t been removed yet.

I apologize for the quality of the film: this frame has some fog flare on the left, and some of the other shots have more spots and flaws that I felt like fixing.

Wrecks as a spectator sport

Cape Girardeans love their wrecks. The sound of a crash will bring folks out to enjoy the excitement. I have to admit that it was a family ritual to swing by James’ Wrecker on the way home from church to see who had come to grief over the weekend. Mother, of course, could never resist the siren call (literally) of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances. When I come home I have to tell her that I don’t have to chase those flashing lights in my retirement. I think that disappoints her.

Even I was shocked, though, when I worked a car being pulled out of a river in the wee hours of the morning in Ohio. Water was still pouring out of it and the driver, a young woman who had served me a spaghetti dinner at a local diner that evening was still behind the wheel. I have no idea where a crowd could have come from at that hour of the morning, but the capper was when someone lifted a toddler up so he could see inside the car. THAT busted even Cape standards.

Probably happened in 1964

The tag on this car says 1965, and some other photos on the roll were of a football game with a plane towing a banner urging attendees to vote for AuH2O in 1964. That leads me to believe that the fenderbender was in the fall of 1964.

I see my station wagon

I see my 1959 Buick LaSabe station wagon off on the right. (I mention that only because there is an active group of collectors who search for any photo or mention of that vehicle they can find.) The body language of the spectators is fascinating.

Curator Jessica and I are considering doing a workshop at the Athens County Historical Society Museum to encourage local photographers to both scour their old photos for ones that have historical significance and to encourage them to document their surroundings on an ongoing basis. As in this case, a wreck that wasn’t even worth putting in the paper contains elements that show what life was like in Cape in the mid-1960s.

December 11, 2013June 23, 2016

Licking the Gateway Arch

I tell newcomers to St. Louis that it is a tradition that first-timer visitors have to lick the arch. I elaborate that in the summertime, entrepreneurs sell alcohol wipes to the germphobes and in the wintertime they sell cups of hot chocolate to chug so your tongue doesn’t stick to the frigid stainless steel.

I tried that at Christmas in in 2000 when Son Matt’s newly-minted wife Sarah joined us at Brother Mark’s for a Christmas celebration. She had been around the Steinhoffs long enough to be inoculated against that kind of foolishness. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Friend Jan almost bit

I came very close to convincing Friend Jan to do The Lick, but she remembered who she was with at the last minute and backed out.

Young and gullible Curator Jessica

It was time to get Curator Jessica up to St. Louis to catch a plane back home to Ohio. Over the kitchen table at Brother Mark’s, I asked if he had any alcohol wipes she could use at The Arch in the morning. Without missing a beat, he said he could provide some, which would save her bunch of money over the ones the vendors sold to tourists.

The hook was set.

On the way to Cahokia Mounds the next morning, I said, “Drat! I forgot to get the wipes from Mark before we left.”

“No problem,” she responded, “I was going to ask you to stop at a Walgreens on the way. I can get some then.”

As soon as she left the car, I called Wife Lila in Florida. “Guess what Jessica’s going to do?” I asked.

“You didn’t?”

“Yep,” I did.

I get The Look

When we arrived at the arch, a group of high school kids were standing on their hands with their feet on the stainless steel. “You might want to lick a different section,” I suggested.

In return, I got The Look, something common to all the women in my life.

Getting down to business

It’s time to pull out the wipes. “All they had was a big package,” she said.

Swabbing down the Arch

Miz Jessica makes sure that no germs are left.

Holy Cow! She did it

Contact is made. Mission accomplished.

That Tram sure is small

When Jan was here, we ran short on time and she wasn’t crazy about climbing into the tram that carries you and four of your soon-to-be closest friends to the top. You can see why here.

We watched a movie on the building of The Arch, something that Jessica’s engineering prof husband would have appreciated. I tried to get her to buy him a copy of the movie in the gift shop, but she saw how much it cost and said, “I love him, but not THAT much.”

When it came time to board the tram, she was less claustrophobic than I was. Of course, she’s about half the size of me and the other guy who was in there with two other women. You develop friendships in a hurry when you’re crammed into a tin can like that.

“You know, you and I are sitting closer than I got with my first four girlfriends,” I told the woman across from me. Funny how it didn’t take her long to exit when the door opened.

On the way down, we met a guy who painted such a succulent picture of the food at Pappy’s Smokehouse that we made a beeline there as soon as we could get back to the car. Like I said, quick friendships.

We made it to the top

After what didn’t feel like a long time at the rate of about 3.86 mph, we made it the 630 feet (7,560 inches, the website translates) to the top of the structure. It seemed like lots of folks were sharing our space, but it’s designed to hold up to 160 visitors. The Gateway Arch website has lots of interesting factoids.

Leaning out feels strange

Miz Jessica wasn’t bothered by the tight quarters in the tram, but she has a touch of fear of heights, so she wasn’t sure how she’d feel in The Arch. I warned her that leaning out to look at the window can feel like you’re going to cause the thing to sway.

A tour guide assured us there was nothing to worry about: it was designed to sway as much as 18 inches, nine inches to either side. I tried to convince Jessica to get the visitors to run from side to side to see if it would start it swaying, but she nixed the idea.

That was probably just as well she didn’t waste her effort. The guide said that it only sways about 1.5 inches in a 50 mph wind and will, in theory, survive a major tornado and earthquake.

A friendly group

Everybody on the top was friendly, with lots of people volunteering to take pictures of groups. Maybe the knowledge that you might be trapped in a tram with your neighbor if it jams, something that happened quite a few times in the early days of operation, puts you on your friendliest behavior.

View to the west

We were lucky to be there on a fairly clear day when visibility could have been as much as 30 miles. The green-domed building is the Old Courthouse, which is part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

A lot of new buildings since 1967

Compare this photo I took in 1967 with the one today. There has been a lot of new construction over the years.

Ballpark to the southwest

The round, reddish structure to the southwest is Busch Stadium.

Yellow building is the Casino Queen

The yellow building on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River is the Casino Queen. If you strain your eyes to the horizon, you might be able to see Monk’s Mound at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. (Or it might just be the massive landfill to the west of it.)

Gateway Geyser

The round body of water is the Gateway Geyser, which shoots water as tall as the arch three times a day during the spring months. It is all part of the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park, which includes a 40-foot Mississippi River overlook. Malcolm Martin was the man who was instrumental in protecting the area from commercial development and as a green complement to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial grounds across the river.

Project started in the 1940s

What I didn’t realize until this trip was how long the project had been in the works before the gleaming stainless steel structure was yanked out of the ground. It got its start in the 1930s, partially as an urban renewal project to get rid of scores of old buildings that cut off the view of the waterfront.

The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial was envisioned to occupy the 62-plus acres where the original French colonial town of St. Louis was founded. Architect Eero Saarinen won a 1947-1948 competition to design the site. His vision of an arch became the focal point of the memorial instead of just a point of interest. Construction of the arch started in February 1963; the north leg opened in July 1967, and the south in May 1968. That must mean that I really was one of the first visitors.

It was all about the river

St. Louis became the gateway to the west because of its location near the intersection of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers and being just upstream of the Ohio River in Cairo. Like Cape Girardeau, it’s still a river town at heart.

Basilica of Saint Louis

The Old Cathedral, the building with the colorful trees around it, was closed when we visited, so we couldn’t go in it.

[Editor’s note: I think this may be the last of the Curator Jessica stories from this trip. If you are wondering who she is, Jessica Cyders is curator of the Athens County (OH) Historical Society Museum. We became acquainted about a year ago when one of her interns stumbled across my collection of protest photos. I made a swing through Athens with Friend Jan at the end of January and we hit it off. Since then, I’ve done several exhibits and presentations at the museum and at Ohio University. She’s working on persuading me to donate my Ohio photos to the historical society when I go toes-up.

[She stared following this blog and listening to my many tales of growing up in Swampeast Missouri and decided to take a road trip with me to see if anything I told her was true. As you can tell from this account, every word that comes out of mouth or pen is absolutely gospel. (OK, maybe it’s gospel according to Ken.)]

December 8, 2013December 9, 2013

Cahokia Mounds Historic Site

A couple of Curator Jessica’s coworkers who are in to Native American archeology insisted that she visit Cahokia Mounds when she went up to fly home out of St. Louis. The Mounds are across the river in East St. Louis. I think the last time I was there was in the 8th grade at Trinity Lutheran School when we went on a field trip to St. Louis.

The bus driver made a wrong turn and we ended up in East St. Louis, driving through neighborhoods that looked like a bombed-out East Berlin after World War II. We wide-eyed kids peered out the windows in fascination, but the driver and our chaperones were more than a little uncomfortable. They were trying to figure out a way to explain the loss of a whole 8th grade class. My impression was they were prepared to go down with the ship rather than have to do that.

Museum was closed

When we pulled into the site, we found the museum area was closed. Because it was a cold, windy day, we opted for a quick walk-around and then planned to head over to the Gateway Arch. The fall colors had pretty much peaked, but there were still splashes of brilliance here and there. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Monk’s Mound

Off in the distance and across the road was the largest of the earth structures in the park: Monk’s Mound, named for a group of Trappist Monks who lived on one of the nearby mounds and who gardened the first terrace of this one and nearby areas.

Largest earthen mound in North America

The historical site’s webpage says this is the largest man-made earthen mound in North America. You get a hint of how tall it is when you see this steep staircase.

Now, back a couple of years ago when I was doing a lot of bike riding, I was in pretty good shape. I used to like to surprise techs who would come to service the cellular antennas on our building by running up the stairs.

Rashly, I said to Jessica, “Want to race to the top?”

Curator Jessica, who checks the obits every morning to see if I have kicked off so she can claim my Ohio collection of photos for her museum, gave me The Look and a nod. After about the first 20 stairs, I remembered that my travel partner is half my age (OK, MORE than half my age, but who counts half a decade or so) and is a runner. She showed the old man some mercy by matching my speed.

I kept my eye on the steps

By halfway up, I was gazing down at the steps so I couldn’t see how many more were left to climb. When we got to the top, I was congratulating myself for having gauged my energy levels just about right. I wasn’t even breathing too hard.

That’s when I looked up and saw that the mound had TWO levels and we had just reached the top of the first one. My legs turned to rubber.

On the way up what I hoped was the final set of stairs, I spotted lots of interesting viewpoints that called out for me to stop to record them. It was interesting how I kept finding more and more of those the higher we go.

That couple you see going up and down the mound? They said they climb it two or three times to stay in shape.

I refrained from remarking that one trip up says you can pass the aerobics test. The third trip up would mean you failed the IQ test.

A puzzle for space aliens

Once you regain consciousness at the top of Monk’s Mound, you can look west for a spectacular view of St. Louis and the Gateway Arch at the left of the frame.

If I’m reading the map correctly, the flat mound in the middle foreground is Mound 42, also knows as Merrell Mound. It is well preserved and supposed to be very near in its original form except that the top was leveled to support a house that stood there for nearly 100 years.

In the far distance is a huge mound that is larger even than the one that nearly killed me. Future archeologists (or space aliens) will have a field day trying to reconstruct the religion of the area’s inhabitants based on the relics they find there. What is it? It’s a modern-day landfill.

[Editor’s note: I think there’s only one more Curator Jessica story left from this trip: her visit to the Gateway arch, including a photo of her licking the arch, which I convinced her was a requirement of all first-time visitors. (THAT’LL get even with her for the Mounds expedition.)]