Never Forget: Brother Mark

 

When I attended Brother Mark’s celebration of life in St. Louis over the Easter holidays, I was asked to fill out a name tag, including any appropriate nickname. When I scrawled BRO KEN, it didn’t hit me initially that the two words taken together were more true than I might have intended.

My newspaper buddy Jan Norris often accuses me of “burying the lede,”newspaper talk for putting the most important information at the bottom of the story where it might get trimmed off. In this case a lawyer should jump up and say, “Objection! Assumes facts not in evidence.”

I guess I should start at close to the beginning to put the facts in evidence.

For more than a decade, May 4 has been a touchstone date for me. I could always count on getting a message from former chief photographer John J. Lopinot that would simply say, “Never forget.”

He was referring to the date when Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on unarmed students on the Kent State Campus. I covered and resurrected photos and stories of covering the protest era in Athens, Ohio, every year.

Time to move on

Covid put an end to a plan with the SE Ohio History Center to do a 50th look at the event, and John and I agreed that it might just be time, not to forget, but to focus on more pressing topics.

Mark is my new May 4 Never Forget

My Never Forget this year will be my youngest brother, Mark, who died, suddenly and unexpectedly of a massive heart attack on New Year’s Eve while on a walk with his wife, Robin.

He wasn’t supposed to be the first to go. I was nine years older and, based on family history, thought I was living on borrowed time after age 60. Middle brother David had been a smoker, had undergone multiple heart operations, so we thought he might be the first to get on the goodbye bus. Mark was active, a bike rider, and married to a vegetarian, all healthy lifestyle choices.

I’ll put his words in italic type throughout the post.

The first picture

When I first started to do this blog post months and months ago, my first instinct was to tell his story in pictures. I mean, I had the first official photo of him taken right after he was born, and I had The Last Photo I took of him working on the roof of my house days before he died.

The Last Picture

Tracking down Mark photos was a bit of a challenge because he was rarely my subject. He would show up as a random frame here or there while I was shooting something or somebody else. I had to go through hundreds of directories to ferret out the Mark gold among much chaff.

I’ve decided to take a different approach. There will still be photos, but I’m going to concentrate on things he wrote over the years. He had a real ability to turn a phrase; sometimes he was funny, sometimes acerbic, sometimes profound, and sometimes incredibly touching.

Indeed, and ironically, this showed up on a May 4 post I had done on protests in 2009

One of the coolest compliments

Ken – Mark – David Steinhoff

Me: I just have to share comment I posted on May 5 of that year, which contained an email from Bro Mark. I haven’t been to a doctor recently, so he can’t have secret information that I’m suffering from an incurable ailment (except for old age). That means he must want something.

From Mark: Anyway: I suppose I should save things like this for later, when you are dead, before I recount these stories…but then why should I be the only one who is uncomfortable?

Every morning I look at the newspapers online and then I wander over to your post and see what you have added. I of course look forward to reading about the new things you are getting into down there whether it be on a bike or off it.

Today was a special treat for me with your posting of the Kent State “never forget” story. So much so that I sent an email to someone with your link so they could see it as well. Here is the email that I sent…

Subject: And this is why I have been trying to be like my older brother all my life…

Growing up with a brother who is 9 years older certainly put some “knowledge” distance between us, but growing up I was fortunate enough to realize that he was the real deal.

Other kids had comic book figures or sports figures they idolized, I had him. He was the living encyclopedia that everyone else was out buying and thumbing through to try and catch up with the 60’s.

He didn’t have a regular job, he was a newspaper photographer and he had a police scanner in his car. He would come in and say something like, “car accident with injuries at the intersection of 75 and 25 want to go?”

Like kids who might have been asked if they wanted to take a ride in a rocket ship, we of course clambered into the 1959 red Buick Station wagon and raced to the scene of the accident.

We would sit in the car along the side of the road and listen to the scanner and try and get a look at the accident. The scanner wasn’t really a scanner at all. It was a police radio that you had to manually dial the frequencies for the fire, police and sheriff department. I can remember he had marked with a black magic marker the points on the dial where the different departments were and you still had to carefully tune in the frequency to listen.

He knew all the “10-codes” so he could narrate what we could not understand. “10-97” He would say, “they’re on the scene…” Knowing the “10-codes” was the same as understanding the Rosetta Stone as far as we were concerned.

He could interpret everything they said in code that we weren’t suppose know and tell us what was going on.

Sometimes we were lucky enough to find ourselves locked in the basement with him in the darkroom and we could watch the accident re-appear again before our eyes. It was magical and mystical and we had both front row seats and backstage passes.

The posting this morning is just a sample of what we would hear over the phone when he would call home while he was at Ohio University, or when we would go there over Thanksgiving break….

“Never Forget.”

 A Father’s Day post

When I wrote about Dad on Father’s Day, Mark filled in some memory blanks.

Ken, nice job of pulling out some family history that I was not aware of. A couple of those photos I have never seen, or remembered ever seeing so thanks for bringing them into the daylight.

Each time you show a construction photo I immediately smell the diesel fuel that most of the heavy equipment used, love that smell yet today.

Reminds me of sitting on bulldozer on job sites with Dad as he moved dirt around, good times…fresh dirt being turned over clouds of dark diesel fuel smoke and soggy sandwiches.

Dad and Jim Kirkwood were a perfect match for each other, friendly men who always seemed happy. I remember being at the Kingsway house and Dad was waiting on Jim to come by and pick him up. Dad said, “now watch, Kirkwood will be here exactly 5 minutes before he is supposed to pick me up, he’s never late and always early.”

Sure enough, Kirkwood pulled up early that morning, and we both smiled at each other on how prompt he was. Dad couldn’t have gone into business with a nicer man.

Dad had rules

It’s rather daunting how much a kid can pick up just by watching someone else. Like how to ‘set” a finishing nail properly, how to check the “gap’ on a spark plug and how to deal fairly with other people. Dad was good – if not smart – to always stand so I could get a front-row view of what he was doing and I learned a lot from just watching him fix, tinker and re-invent things.

But this story illustrates what I think I learned from him the most.

He had a large piece of construction equipment for sale and had found a buyer for it. They agreed on a price and it was x number of dollars. The day came for the prospective buyer to pay for the piece of equipment, the huge machine was already loaded on a 18-wheeler trailer to be delivered to the buyer.

Time came for the buyer to show up and he arrived on the Dutchtown property in his private helicopter. He got out, looked at the machinery on the trailer one more time and went inside to sign the check for it.

Once inside he said as filling out the check, “Now the amount is for $000,000. Right?” The amount he quoted was less than they had talked about. Dad said, “The price is $000,000 as we agreed on.”

The prospective buyer replied, “Yes, but I’m here now to write you a check for this amount and I see you have already loaded it up to be shipped to me, so I’m offering you this amount instead.”

Without blinking an eye, Dad reached for the intercom button and said, “Pee-Wee, unload the truck.”

The prospective buyer’s face went blank and he said, “What are you doing?” to which Dad replied, “The amount we agreed on was $000,000, no more no less. That was the deal.”

The prospective buyer apologized and offered to pay the full price they agreed on, but Dad refused his second full offer. The guy couldn’t understand what just happened. Dad broke it down for him, “We agreed on a price that both of us thought was fair. Then you came here and tried to buy it for less thinking that I would take your offer just because you were ready to write a check and because I had gone to the time to have it loaded up. We agreed on a price, I honored it, you didn’t.”

What did I learn from that? When Dad said something, you could bank on it. If he said he would go camping with us, he would go, rain or shine. At the point he said he would do something for you, you knew he would be there on time and ready to start. He honored his word.

We rarely talked about ‘personal’ things

We usually exchanged jibes, talked about crazy things at work, described neat gadgets we had run across, or figured out what our next project for Mother we’d do.

Here’s an example of one of his adventures:

When I worked for KFVS-TV I had the dubious honor of taking a ride up the elevator to the top on the antenna platform. The actual antenna was 150 feet above the tower platform. I took still photos of the antenna tower before and after it was painted and documenting lightning strikes on the tower.

You can imagine a structure that big being the largest lightening rod around would have some lightning “bites” on it.

There was an out of town tower crew there the day I went up and while I rode inside the elevator (nothing more than a cage that was open on all sides that ran up the triangle structure) and the guy who was working on the tower rode on the outside of the cage. I asked him why and he said, “if it fails, at least I will be outside of the cage and have a better chance of surviving the fall.”

The ride up took 30 minutes. It was estimated that an average man could climb the tower ladder but it would take 3 hours to reach the antenna platform. When I reached the top I was amazed at how much room there was. The platform was triangular in shape but was the size of a backyard deck and the view was everything of “2,000 feet above average terrain” that the sign-off announcement boasted each night.

 While on top I asked the guy how long it would take to hit the bottom if let’s say a person did fall from the platform.

“Funny you should ask” he said “we are stringing new guy wire and we had an empty wooden spool up here and instead of lowering it down we decided to drop it off. The spool weighed 150 pounds, average weight of man. It took thirty seconds to hit the ground below.”

 He then proceeded to tell me that it was not unusual for the tower to get hit by lightning on a clear day.

On the half hour ride down he said that the first trip up the tower they made they had to clear out a lot of large wasps nests before they could go on higher, and a couple of large bird nests as well. Needless to say, the experience was great. Originally when the tower was first built (and that is a story in itself) visitors could go to the tower and take a ride up to the top. Once they returned to the bottom, they were given a certificate that made them a member of the Tower Club.

How high’s the water, momma?

Mark Steinhoff – Dutchtown Flood of 1993

Our property in Dutchtown would start flood water when the Cape river gauge would get close to 39 feet. Dad’s construction company was still using the site at the time of the 1973 “100-year” flood. He donated manpower and heavy equipment to build a dike atop the highway to try to save Dutchtown, but Mother Nature is stronger than Caterpillars.

When the next 100-year flood came along in 1993, Mark and I rented a canoe to check out what the water was like in the main mechanic’s shed. We could barely make it under the door. I went in first, then Mark slid the canoe in. I was perched atop some storage cabinets while he was looking none too comfortable, particularly after I pointed out that he might represent high ground to any snakes around.

He observed:

You read my face correctly. I was thinking at the time the bad thing about being in a canoe is there is a limited amount of space to begin with, add the unstable part of a canoe rocking in the water with one agitated snake trying to climb up the sides inside of a canoe and you are suddenly in a rodeo.

Plus, which, one of us would end up hitting the snake with our paddle putting a hole in the bottom of the canoe in the feverish attempt to liberate the snake with the result of ALL THREE of us in the deep oily water from which the snake had come out of…

We remembered things differently

Mark: By the way. The last time we were involved with anything to do with electricity it didn’t end well. We were installing a CB radio in the yellow truck at home. You were looking for power for it by using a circuit tester. The kind that looks like an icepick with a wire coming out of it. You found the wire that would provide us with the power the CB needed and then you thought you were sticking the icepick end into the seat cushion next to me, when actually you stuck it into my thigh. So finding something that involves batteries for power is always first on my list.

My (correct) version:

Let’s set the record straight about your electrical owie.

  1. It WAS the yellow truck, but it was at Kentucky Lake, not Cape.
  2. It wasn’t the CB radio, it was the trailer lights.
  3. I didn’t stick you. You asked for the circuit tester (which you DID describe accurately), and I tossed it to you.
  4. You were a klutz and missed it with your hand, so you thought you’d catch it by clamping your legs together, a big mistake.

So, my delivery method was not flawed. The receiver was at fault.

Mother’s arm

US Corps of Engineers Dredge Potter and Pushboat Prairie Du Rocher north of Cape Rock 10-19-2012

You should follow this link to get the full impact of one of Mark’s most masterful tales. He would tell his friends “Don’t stare at my mother’s arm. She’s self-conscious about it.”

When he was queried about that, he’d launch into a long, detailed account of how she had gone to work as a cook on a towboat, The Robert Kirkpatrick, working 20 days on and 20 off. The crew loved her, and she enjoyed her trips up and down the river.

All went well, until the day she had her arm pinched off clean below the elbow when the boat shifted going through a lock. The crew didn’t want to lose her, so the machinists crafted a couple of “snap-on” tools that were more functional than the basic hook that was all insurance would cover.

He would keep piling on details until his audience was SURE that she could switch from a spatula that could easily turn large omelets, to one with a meat fork that had two times so she could pick up meat from the grill, and one that was bent 90 degrees in the other direction so she could open and close the oven door with it.

When OSHA said she had to give up her river job because someone could get stabbed by her special appendages, she became a “Happy Hooker,” a repo wrecker driver.

The world was yours

As a kid, going to the fireworks stand and seeing all the fireworks was a cultural experience in itself. Chinese fireworks with their colorful packaging, exotic graphics and promises of “fantastic light show” was better than any candy display.

The plywood tables under a “circus” tent with all those fireworks from edge to edge was overwhelming to look at, and gazing at them while thinking of the possibilities of what they could do once you put the tip of a smoking punk to them was wonderful.

Black Cat firecrackers were the ones of choice and you hoped there was a buy-one-get-one-free offer when you went to purchase your paper bag of fireworks.

When you were old enough to be handed a lighted punk and told the simple rules of lighting things full of gunpowder and tightly rolled paper you had arrived and the world was yours…to blow up.

Mark opts out of Advance burial plot

Here’s another post with some irony. We decided to cruise on down to Advance, Mother’s home town. While we were there, we stopped at the cemetery, where Mother’s brother Kenneth Welch (for whom I was named) is buried. I didn’t know it, but Mother owned two empty plots next to my grandparents’ graves.

She told Mark that she was going to offer them to him if he didn’t have other plans. Mark decided to try them out for size, but immediately jumped up because of all the stickers in the grass. Mark decided that since he didn’t get a warm feeling from the offered plot, that he may make other long-term arrangements.

Mark’s love affair with a Spyder

Mark Steinhoff on Sears Spyder Bike

We exchanged many calls and emails about his old Spyder bicycle that I rescued, mud-encrusted from many floods at Dutchtown. I hauled it all the way to Florida with the intention of having it restored. When I got the estimate, I came to the conclusion that there is a dollar limit to how much you can love your brother.

I dragged it up to St. Louis. Somewhere along the way, we discovered a guy in Kentucky or someplace along my route who had a Spyder for sale. I hauled it to Brother Land, too.

Here’s one of his Spyder stories:

Mark Steinhoff with Sears Spyder bike 06-27-2010

I hope you find some photos worthy posting of your bike. One of the staples of growing up was seeing you leave off from the house with all the newspapers on the way to delivering them. I don’t think I ever saw you leave the house from a sitting position on the bike, you were carrying so much stuff you always had to start out from a standing position.

As a kid, the bike was my rocket ship, my race car and the thing that would let me go faster and farther each time I crossed over our gravel driveway and headed either East or West. When Dad took me to Sears to get a new bike I had the choice of getting a three-speed bike or the Spyder. I looked hard and long at the three-speed and marveled at the having three speeds to choose from, but the styling of the Spyder won out. The cost for the two bikes was identical, around $33 dollars.

“A bicycle does get you there and more…. And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal. And getting there is all the fun.” ~Bill Emerson, “On Bicycling,” Saturday Evening Post, 29 July 1967

Mark on two grown-up wheels

In later years, we spent a lot of time together riding bikes in and around Cape, a 100-mile ride in the Florida Keys, a couple of MS-150s in MO, and the Tour of Southern Rural Vistas in Florida’s Panhandle and Georgia. Oh, yeah, and then there was the day when we capped off a ride to Altenburg by climbing Tower Rock, where he insisted on raising his bike above his head at the top, as was his custom.

I hated hills, since most of my adult riding was done in flat Florida. We started out on an ambitious ride from Cape to St. Louis on a route that was going to take us across the Missouri Ozarks on a day with 98-degree temps and 98% humidity.

Mark was literally riding circles around me on the hills. Finally, he took off and waited at the crest of one of them while I struggled to keep my bike upright. I looked down at my feet, and saw a turtle passing me. If that wasn’t bad enough, I heard, “On your left!” and a snail passed both of us.

Just before I blacked out, my phone rang. It was Mother. “You guys need to come home. The septic tank is backing up, and it has to be dug up so it can be pumped out.

I never thought I’d see a day when I WELCOMED a chance to dig up a septic tank.

Here’s a selection of Bike Mark photos. Click on any image to make it larger, then stroll around with the arrow keys.

 

We had grown-up Tonka toys

After the side yard property was bought from D. Scivally, Dad brought home a small Caterpillar bulldozer (probably a D2) to level out the wooded area. Dee Voss came over and we were playing on the dozer when Dee said, “Ah, we’d better get off this before the owner comes by and sees us.” I said, “Too late, the owner is setting on the porch watching us right now.”

Toys, we had the best toys a kid could ever wish for.

Wanting a sand pile to play in, David and I were smiles ear-to-ear when we came home from school one day and there in the side yard was the biggest sand pile we had ever seen. Dad had someone from the construction company drop off an entire dump truck load of sand.

One last one. Construction jobs that were based around the building of a bridge were the best ones to go visit because that meant there would be a dragline and water.

It was great fun to stand on the end of a hook attached to a cable from a dragline and then be hoisted up just above the water level and swung across the water laughing all the time. Dad always had that great smile on his face as he would reach for the levers and lower us closer and closer. He TOO enjoyed playing with his big toys as much as we did.

When he turned 60

Mark Steinhoff 2cd birthday

I noted the occasion of his 60th birthday with a collection of photos.

https://www.capecentralhigh.com/family/brother-mark-turns-60/

He acknowledged the gesture with this comment:

Turning 60.

I have never been this old before and I will never be this young again.

Mark and his owies

Sometimes a windstorm would roll by, peeling strips of the tin roof off the Dutchtown buildings. Mark and I would head down to nail them back on. Actually, to be honest, HE’D be the one elected to climb up on the roof. I’d wave my Medicare card like it was my 4F draft card, and claim that I was ineligible to serve.

Here’s how he outlined a number of painful mishaps on this visit:

Okay, I’ll admit that I hit my thumb four times.

The first time the hammer wanted to know if I was paying attention.

The second time I wanted to see if the hammer was paying attention.

The third time the hammer let me know who was really in charge.

The fourth and final time I let the hammer know that I was actually in control of it.

I can only hope when I put the hammer back in my tool bag it didn’t talk to the pipe wrench…

Memories sneak out of my eyes

Mary – Mark Steinhoff KY Lake 10-16-08

I got a letter from Brother Mark. It was a rambling thing, all full of non sequiturs and whimsy. On the last page, in the last paragraph before reaching a photo of Mother in one of her signature red coats, he wrote, “As I find myself at the bottom of the page, I couldn’t decide which to end with, so you get both. Put it in context, if you will.

“My memory loves you; it asks about you all the time.”

and

“Sometimes memories sneak out of my eyes and roll down my cheeks.”

My favorite family portrait

Steinhoff family c 1953

Circumstances brought us all together in the living room. You can even see me taking the picture reflected in the mirror.

Mark noted: Dang we were certainly lucky in getting them as parents! Wonderful storybook memories thanks to them.

He could draw pictures with words

Mary Steinhoff funeral 06-24-2015

Mother lead a full and active life up until her last six months. David, Mark and I spent hours with her at home, and, later, when she went to the Lutheran Home. Mark wrote this and left it for family members the day of her funeral. I had been up all night pulling together a slide show of her life, so I didn’t see this until I got home. I was – and am still – moved by those memories that sneak out of my eyes.

I wish I could write from the heart as well as Mark could.

I wrote the thoughts on my phone while sitting on the couch with her one night at home before she went to Lutheran Home.

“Playing like we are happy?”

Weak as a kitten, boney as an old cat… I rub the back of my 93-year-old mother as she drifts off to sleep on her couch at home.

Her pajama top is brushed combed cotton so rubbing her feels just like kitten fur. She wakes herself up and says to me “What are we doing?” And I say “Sitting on the couch together” and then she says , “Playing like we are happy?”….”Yes, like we are happy.”

Outside the window

The sun has sunk down behind the trees and so has she, sunk, bent forward sleeping in her own lap. How is this possible? Her skin is like onion paper and tears so easily yet she is flexible enough to sleep in her own lap. Cars drive by the house outside the window on their way to someplace. While she sleeps going no place yet somewhere in her mind she is far away.

We are both sitting side by side here on the couch and neither one of us not wanting to be here at this place at all.

Damn you, time

Damn you memories. Damn you time.

Damn you Vulcan Spock for not having emotions.

Why only you?

This time is different

 

David – Mary – Ken – Mark Steinhoff

In the past, had the top scoop fallen off my ice cream cone, I could have gone in and gotten another one. This time, this time I can only look at the scoop on the ground and watch it melt away.

Seems like a lifetime ago when I was in the basement of this house stringing tinsel on a Christmas tree. Only slightly worrying about what I would get as presents. Who is that kid and how many trees have come and gone since then?  Seems odd that I have all the original tree ornaments and they look the very same as back then and everything else has gotten older and somewhat tarnished.

Did I sleep too much?

Did I sleep too much, did I waste the days, the moments and the minutes? I want to roll some of them, actually a lot of them back, please. I want to savor them now more than I did when it was a fleeting moment.

So what happens?  Like at the moment you turn off an old tube TV set and the picture suddenly disappears and shrinks to a white dot before the screen goes completely dark, is that what happens?

It’s going to be hard to “play like we are happy” very hard indeed.

I feel cheated

Mary Steinhoff – Mark Steinhoff say goodbye on cold 11-27-2011

I think I want my money back. I want to review the warranty closer and really read the fine print.  ‘Cause I think I missed something, feeling cheated is how I can best explain it. I guess I should have gotten the extended warranty.

I’m not so noble that I want to trade places. I just want to beat, if not cheat, the system a tiny bit. Not stepping on the, “…And on the third day he rose…” story, more of a “Lazarus take up your bed and walk” turnabout fair play thingy. Can you blame a guy?

Mark was the funny uncle

No, he wasn’t the one we kept locked in the attic. Mark was the one who was much loved by his nieces and nephews. I was too straight and reserved.

When I was going though the Mark photos, I started to break them up into categories: Early Mark; School Photos; Kentucky Lake; Mark & Robin; Mark & Family; Mark Portraits.

I called Robin and said, I have a category that feels wrong every time I slot a photo into it. It’s called “Mature Mark,” and I’m not sure I’ve ever applied that label to him.

Click on any photo in the gallery, then use the arrow keys to move around.

The Spitfire goes to Matt

Mark’s Spitfire was his pride and joy, even though the most recent tag on it was dated 1995. Uncle Mark had always said he’d pass the car on to Nephew Matt when the time was right.

That is an undated photo of Matt, Adam and Mark with the car in Dutchtown.

There is an unsubstantiated rumor floating around that Matt called Wife Sarah and said, “Something followed me home. Can I keep it, huh, can I keep it, please, please, please?”

Son Malcolm, thankful that his dad has scratched his midlife crisis itch, refuses to confirm or deny the rumor. The photo was taken at an undisclosed Cape Girardeau location before it disappeared southbound toward Florida.

Family at the Celebration of Life

The last thing we did before hitting the road for Florida, Texas, South Carolina and Missouri was to take a Steinhoff group photo. Mark’s neighbors and next-to-family Wally and Deeds snuck in on the right.

It’s not a bad photo for handing a camera to a random person and saying, “Please push this button.”

We were missing some key players – Dad, Mother and Mark – but I’m pretty sure they were there looking over our shoulders.

Gallery of Mercurial Mark

Here’s a selection of a few of the hundreds of images I have of my brother. There’s no rhyme or reason to the selections. I hope you find some amusing, some surprising, and maybe a few will cause a memory to sneak out of your eyes. Like the earlier gallery, click on any image, then use the arrow keys to move around.

Mark Lynn Steinhoff – 03/10/1956 – 12-31-2021

Mark’s official obituary.

Mark Lynn Steinhoff passed away suddenly on New Year’s Eve 2021, having suffered a fatal heart attack during an unseasonably warm afternoon walk with his wife, Robin.

Mark was a friend to everyone he met, sincerely interested in each person’s story and what made them tick. He counted his closest friends as family. Always curious, he was a lifelong learner, always striving to make each day interesting. Most recently, he was studying for a commercial drone pilot license.

Although he had a successful and fulfilling career, his jobs did not define Doc—his personality and interests are what made him who he was— a truly unique, fun and loving man. Thoughtful and generous, he was a do-er, always taking care of the people he loved. A devoted husband and best friend to his wife Robin, they were a perfect partnership and she is lost without him.

Born in 1956 in Cape Girardeau, MO, Mark was the beloved youngest son of Mary Lee and Louis Vera Steinhoff (both deceased), brother of Kenneth (Lila) and David (Diane), son-in-law to Maurice and Marian Hirsch, brother-in-law of Jeff Hirsch (Donna Parroné) and Tracy (Andy) Speller, uncle of Matthew (Sarah) Steinhoff and Adam (Carly) Steinhoff, Kim (Casey) Tisdale, Amy (Ian) Hawkins, Jake Speller, Anna Speller, and Caroline Parroné (Ben Maddocks), and great uncle to Malcolm, Brynn, Taylor, Emery, Cole, Graham, Elliot, Finn, Hudson, Harper, and Charlie. Mark loved his family deeply and always said that he had the most perfect childhood.

There aren’t enough words in the dictionary to succinctly sum up all that/who Mark was. He was loved like nobody’s business and he is truly missed.

Longest post ever

This has to be the longest post I’ve ever done. Maybe I just didn’t want to acknowledge that it was -30-

That’s newspaper speak for “The End.”

 

 

Bill East and Scout Uniforms

Central High School’s Bill East, Class of 1966, died May 24, 2012, and was the subject of a moving obituary mostly written by his buddy, Terry Hopkins. It was fate that caused me to run across a 4×5 negative of Bill almost on the anniversary of his passing.

I got to looking closer at Bill’s uniform, and some things popped out. First, I think this must of been a recycled shirt, because there’s a dark circle on the pocket on the left. We’ll talk about what that might have been later.

Badge of rank

He sports a Star badge, which was the rank above Second and First Classes, and below Life and Eagle. He has two service stars above his pocket, but I couldn’t see whether he had been in for two years, or if the stars had numbers in them.

His handmade neckerchief slide says, “Preparing to Aid Camporee 1963. It was just big enough to hold a dime for a phone call and, maybe, a bandage. His neckerchief is tightly rolled; I usually wore mine bloused out and tied in a knot at the bottom like his is.

I’m not sure what the boot patch with “59” on it signified.

Steinhoff uniforms

Steinhoff Boy Scout Uniforms

I have a large box of Scout uniforms, including Mother’s den mother uniform. These two were still hanging in a closet, so they were fairly presentable.

This one belonged to one of my brothers. It sports a round Camp Lewellen patch which is probably what was missing from Bill’s shirt. The wearer had been to the camp at least three years.

J.L.T. stands for Junior Leader Training, which is interesting. When Bill Hardwick, Martin Dubs and I went to Philmont Scout Ranch in 1962, we were there for J.L.I.T. (Junior Leader Instructor Training). It was explained that we were junior leaders already, but our reason for being at the ranch was to learn how to teach OTHER Scouts how to be leaders.

The colorful patch on the pocket flap indicated that the wearer was a member of Order of the Arrow Anpetu-We Lodge 100. The senior patch indicated that one of my brothers was approaching Boy Scout old fartdom.

Shoulder patches

Steinhoff Boy Scout Uniforms

Mark and David were members of Trinity Lutheran School’s Troop 8 in Cape Girardeau. Older boys could become instructors and Junior Assistant Scoutmasters.

Both brothers earned the Eagle rank. I only made it to Life. To become an Eagle in those days, you had to earn 21 merit badges, including some in specific categories.

I had more than enough badges, but I tended to go after ones that interested me instead of required ones. My path to Eagle status was sidetracked when I got involved with photography and girls.

Dad was an active Scouter

Steinhoff Boy Scout Uniforms

By the time I left Cape for Ohio, Dad was winding up his business, which gave him more time to get involved in Scouting with my brothers.

His uniform showed he was a member of the troop committee, and a member of the Order of the Arrow, Scouting’s national honor society. He, David and Mark were Vigils, “the highest honor that the Order of the Arrow can bestow upon its members for service to lodge, council, and Scouting. Membership cannot be won by a person’s conscious endeavors. ”

Dad was awarded the Silver Beaver

Dad was awarded the Silver Beaver, which is described as “the council-level distinguished service award of the Boy Scouts of America. Upon nomination by their local Scout council and with the approval of the National Court of Honor, recipients of this award are registered adult leaders who have made an impact on the lives of youth through service given to the council. The Silver Beaver is an award given to those who implement the Scouting program and perform community service through hard work, self-sacrifice, dedication, and many years of service. It is given to those who do not seek it.”

He was so proud of his Vigil honor and Silver Beaver that we had it carved on his tombstone.

Patch jackets

Steinhoff patch jackets

It was the custom to collect patches from hikes, camporees and activities that weren’t worn on the uniform. Again, I’m not sure which brother these belong to.

 

 

 

 

 

The Symbol of the Nation

Tattered Flag 10-02-2020

Ripped apart, hanging by a thread

When I went out to the car this evening, I was shocked to see that the flag in front of the house was torn almost in half. I had planned to replace it because one corner had gotten snagged on rosebush thorns and was torn. I had no idea that it rip asunder like that. I knew we had gotten a little wind, but I didn’t think it was strong enough to do that.

I’ll replace it tomorrow if there are any left in town after all the Trump rallies.

I don’t want to belabor the point, but I’m afraid that flag is a symbol of this nation: ripped almost apart, and hanging on by a thread.

My First Grade Flag Drawing

When I was kindergarten age, my morning ritual was to eat breakfast, then head out to put out my tiny American Flag. In the evening or in bad weather, I’d bring it in. One night, we had been out for a drive and got back home after sunset. I was in tears because I had violated the Flag Code.

This first grade drawing is probably why my Art 101 prof at Ohio University said, “It’s a good thing you’re a photographer.” To be honest, the work I handed in to him wasn’t much improved.

Mother’s flag a focal point for “so long” pix

Robin Hirsch, Mother – Mark 10/17/2011

Mother had a Flag she put out almost every good day, and brought it in at night. It was used for many, many family backgrounds. We had two family traditions: we always tried to take a “so long” photo (Mother never said “goodbye, so we scratched it on her casket), and when we left the house to go on a trip, we’d give two toots on the horn.

My frozen Flag

Frozen flag 02-11-2018

When I bought the house after Mother died in 2015, I moved the flag holder to the front of the house, installed dusk to dawn lights and flew an all-weather flag 24/7.

I said that in these times when groups are wrapping themselves in the Flag, I wanted to demonstrate that it was MY Flag, too.

An ice storm in 2018 made it look almost like a painting.

 

Jack Rickard 1955-2020

Over the years, there have been only two or three stories that were so big that I couldn’t get them written. Jack Rickard is one of those stories. Seeing his obituary on August 31, 2020, gave me the impetus to finally do this. Even though it’s long, I’m afraid it fails to fully capture the man.

Camera pointed at bridge

Brother Mark and I were cruising Cape on our bicycles on a beautiful October afternoon in 2008, when we stopped for a break at the Mississippi River overlook where the old bridge had been. I had noticed some time ago that there was an active web cam pointed at the bridge, and I pointed it out to Mark that I suspected it was the one mounted on the house at 14 Morgan Oak.

Do you guys have daughters?

While we were admiring the beautiful woodwork on the garage doors behind the house, we noticed a ruddy-faced man. He was wearing a red shirt only a couple shades lighter than his face. We introduced ourselves and complimented him on his house.

With no preamble, he asked, “Do either of you guys have daughters?”

“No” we confessed.

“Well, I do, and I drink. Come on.” We had just met Jack Rickard (his first name was Marion, according to his obituary,  but, trust me, this was NOT a Marion kind of guy.

This is not your typical Cape garage

He led us back into the garage through a room that looked like a cross between a automotive garage and a laboratory. Hanging overhead was a vintage wooden Chris Craft boat, and the rest of the room had small cars and lots of scientific paraphernalia coexisting.

Then we entered a wood-paneled room that had wooden casks of what we immediately assumed were spirits, particularly since the room also contained some highly-polished stills made out of imported Portuguese copper.

14 Morgan Oak built in 1890

Jack was a fountain of history and lore. The house he lives in was built in 1890, and the original builder was an accountant for the Houck Railroad. “I don’t think he spent any time in it, because he went bankrupt even before the construction was done. Ernest Osterloah bought it next. The family had three girls who never married, so far as I know. They owned the three small houses built in 1904 behind the big one.

After the patriarch and Main Street book store owner died, the family sold the house to the Cape Bridge Company in 1929. Between 1929 and the 1970s, “it was Cape’s Hard Luck House. Almost everybody whose house burned down or their dad died or some other tragedy occurred ended up down here for 40 or 50 days. It was almost kind of a flop house.”

Trucks went ‘whomp, whomp, whomp’

Jack bought the house in 2003 while the old bridge was still active. “It was almost impossible to sleep with the constant ‘whomp, whomp, whomp’ of the truck traffic causing the windows to rattle and the walls to shake.” He made The Missourian by refusing to leave when the old bridge was demolished by blasting in 2004.

We asked if he had ever considered opening up the restored house as a bed and breakfast (that’s before we learned more about him).

“I like bed, and I like breakfast, but I’m not a sharing person. We’ve got people pounding on the door all the time wanting to know when the museum is going to open. I open it in my underwear and tell ’em it’s my home.”

Mark was a satisfied sipper

We spent almost two hours admiring his distillery, sipping on his wares and getting an education on the brewing arts. Well, Mark did most of the sipping. I’m close to a teetotaler and said good whiskey would mostly be wasted on me.

Mark, on the other hand, can fake sophistication quite well. He was throwing around terms like “buttery,” and “full-bodied,” and “smooth with a kick.” My wine education consisted of drinking Ripple we hid in photographic paper boxes in the fridge of The Ohio University Post. The more Mark sampled, the more he tried to convince Jack that he should adopt him, even going so far as calling him “Dad” from time to time. 

Missouri law has loophole

Jack was taking advantage of a tiny loophole in Missouri laws that allows private individuals to produce wine, beer and alcohol for personal use. Most states don’t allow the latter, and he said the feds could probably put him away for 3 to 5 years for doing it, but they have more important priorities.

The brewer as a scientist

He takes a scientific approach to his work. He can tell you more about the wood in his casks, whether they are charred or straight wood, the precise ingredients in each one, and on and on and on. My eyes were starting to glaze over from knowledge overload, and Mark’s were beginning to just plain glaze over.

Drinking whiskey isn’t a race

He rhapsodized over the health and spiritual benefits of the contents of his casks. 

“Good whiskey: You don’t really have to drink all of it. Kids, they think they can drink it all. But, it’s OK to take a glass of whiskey and just sort of drink it all night. Just sip it. I’ll often have a glass of iced tea or a beer, but I’ll also sip a whiskey. It’s not a race. You don’t have to drink all of it the first time. You have to drink it regularly. It’s good for your health.

“It’s good whiskey. It’s expensive, but if you’re not drinking a bottle a night… if you’re having two fingers in a glass, it’ll last a long time. It’s not like swilling beer. I actually think it’s phenomenally good for you.”

Drink to where world starts to make sense

“But, if you swill it down like a a heathen, you know, it’s probably going to be unpleasant to drink. But, if you sip a little bit until the day doesn’t have quite a rough edge, it makes the sunset look better. You drink just to the point where the world is starting to make sense, and before you lose your mind entirely. “

Better than bass fishing

“It’s probably the greatest hobby in the world. Here’s why: it doesn’t cost any more than bass fishing. I mean to do it right, you have to buy five or ten thousand dollars of equipment. That’s half as much as a bass boat, and you ain’t caught a fish yet. If you lose interest in distilling or wine making for a year or two, then you just don’t do it for awhile. Then you go back and taste it. It really likes the idea that you left it alone for two years. It got better while you weren’t doing anything.”

We disagree on drinking and driving

We had to agree to disagree on one topic: drinking and driving. I’ve photographed too many wrecks caused by drunk drivers. That’s something I have zero tolerance for.

Jack has a different viewpoint:

“I can tell you two things:

“1. Drinking doesn’t cause accidents. At all.
“2. You are more likely for the drunk to be killed by a 17-year-old driver, than the reverse. By several orders of magnitude. It’s not close.

“My dad drove around all the time with a six-pack next to him, about half roaring drunk, and he never had an accident in his life. How could that be? He was a pretty good driver. He didn’t hit people, and he idled around at about 25 miles per hour all the time.”

After a spirited exchange (no pun intended) we decide that it was a topic best dropped. (Note: I don’t know if this wreck being worked by Trooper Norman Copeland was caused by drunk driving, but it’s typical of others that were.)

Jill Rickard dropped by

His wife dropped in to complain that she had been trying to call him on his cell phone, and he hadn’t been answering. The photo is of Jack and Jill Rickard at the Nettie Hopper-Spicer Family Reunion in 2013.

He’s even got a DC-3

His excuse was that he had been up in his helicopter taking pictures and must not have heard it ring. That caused my ears to perk up a bit. Later,  I asked my old earth science teacher and pilot Ernie Chiles if he knew anything about Jack and aviation.  (That’s a picture of Ernie circa 1966. I’m pretty sure that hangar burned down in a lightning storm not long after.)

“Yeah, he’s got a whole hangar full of aircraft at the Cape airport, including an old DC3 that he flies.”

That means he wasn’t BSing us when he said, “I’m type-rated for the DC3, and I’m grandfathered forever. I’ll never have to take another check ride again. The FAA ran out of people who could fly them, so they just grandfathered everybody who had one. You’ll have one until you die, then that’s it.

“Planes will do two things: eat money and kill you. The more money you throw at the first, the less likely the second will happen.”

He could afford expensive toys

At some point in the afternoon, Jack let slip that he could afford all his toys because he got in on the ground floor of the internet. He gave a lot of credit to Al Gore, despite all of the people who mocked him. 

Al Gore was instrumental in the birth of the internet. He didn’t turn the screwdriver, but he managed to get a bill passed that provided the money that established it. “He provided the stone you needed to make stone soup.”

Jack published a magazine called Boardwatch that attracted a large enough following that he could sell it for close to forty million dollars. (Terry Hopkins will have more on that later.)

Google wasn’t much help

To be honest, my BS meter had been twitching all afternoon. I couldn’t quite figure out if Jack was real or just a really good fibber. A Google search didn’t turn up much on him. One reference, though, quoted someone as saying that “Jack Rickard just fell off the edge of the earth.”

The next day, I stopped by to see him to drop off a CD that contained copies of the photos I had taken, plus the recording of the session.

Dropping off the edge of the earth

“Jack, I read something about you dropping off the edge of the earth. I told you that I was a journalist, but if you truly wanted to drop out of sight, I won’t use any of this.”

“Well, I didn’t drop off the edge of the earth, but (gesturing to the edge of his house overlooking the river), “I can see it from here. I’m not hiding.”

Meet your new husband

Just before Mark and I took off, an attractive young woman walked up. Jack pointed to Mark and said, “Meet your new husband.”

It was his daughter. Even behind her sunglasses, I could see her roll her eyes. With a flip wave, she left us.

Nobody gets out alive

“I buried my mother at 93; she didn’t know who she was, her skin was coming all apart; she wasn’t really happy. My dad died horribly over the years with Alzheimers. It’s an ugly thing, and I can’t remember a whole lot about it, so it might be coming my way.

“I have to be OK with it. I know one thing for sure: nobody gets out of here alive. Everybody in the country treats death as an exception: ‘Oh, what happened?’

“It’s as natural as being born. In the United States, we’re kinda like in a brain fog over this. ‘Oh, no, my grandmother died. She’s in her 90s. She’s dead. What happened? Is she exceptional or what?’ So, I’m somewhat fatalistic about it.”

He’s cheated death

“But the one thing that occurred to me, both in the Plymouth I rolled seven times at 120 miles per hour and in an airplane crash on an aircraft carrier where everybody died but me, is that it’s a whole lot louder here than it is on TV. The decibel level is searing There’s the shrieking of the metal and the busting of the glass. You can hear it with your stomach. It’s so loud, it’s so loud.

Jack and the Pool Rats

In the fall of 2018, Wife Lila and some of her Class of 1966 buddies decided to hold a pop-up 70th Birthday class reunion since so many of them were hitting that landmark year.

In addition to that, the Capaha Park Pool Rats figured they’d split off for a reunion at Jack’s house since everybody was in town. I asked Terry Hopkins to pen some memories of Jack. Here’s his account as only Terry could recount it.

Boy with the towel over his head

When one of your students or “kids” you have coached dies, it is a very strange experience. I always feel that is not the right way, we older people should go first.  It is akin to having one of your kids die. Maybe it is exactly like having one of your kids pass away. 

The young boy with the towel over his head, who was always the last in the pool turned into a well-respected adult, who was truly a leader in the biggest life-changing technology in the last 100 years.  That was Jackie, a dry wit with a deep understanding of technology and way of explaining it to others.  Rest in peace, I am sure heaven will need improving, and you, my friend, will be leading the way.

Gosh, stories of Jackie Rickard, Jack was his dad, so “Jackie” was what I always called him, and I was not ever corrected, even by him, ever.

1968 swim team

  My earliest memories were of Jackie at the pool early in the morning.  He was probably 8 or 9 at the time. Jackie was not a morning person, unlike his brothers Tommy, and Andy. All the kids would be running and jumping around at 7 A.M. swim practice and Jackie would be slowly moving around with towel over his head like an old man, and usually was the last one in the water. 

Once in the water he was fine and swam with an ”I am not awake yet style.” He was fast, and a versatile swimmer. The boys relay team he swam on was rarely beaten. Jackie could – and did – swim all the strokes and excelled in butterfly and breaststroke.

Seven swimmers logged 50 miles in 1968

  It is hard for me to talk of Jackie without his family because they were ALL involved at the pool. All the Rickards swam on our team: Tommy, Andy, Carole, and Patty.  Patty even coached the little kids in the diving well at Capaha Park pool. Mrs. Rickard, who we all called “Ma Rickard” ran the swim lessons in the morning, so she and all the kids were around all the time.  Good family and good kids!

Jack mastered the black arts

  As Jackie got older, (15 or so…) I hired him to be a basket boy at the pool, probably his first job. He excelled in it, giving out pins for your basket of clothes, learned to read the water PH and check the chlorine levels every hour.  He even learned backwashing the pool and – the highest of the black arts in those days – changing chlorine gas tanks!  At this point, I noticed he had a brain and could use it.

Who knew internet was going to be big?

 In the 80s, I was visiting Cape and went by to see the Rickards. As it happened, Jackie was there. He was excited to show me this new thing called The World Wide Web.  With an old phone modem, computer, and an orange monitor, he hooked it up and messaged a guy in Washington, DC.  He asked the guy “What is the weather like there?” The guy typed back, “nice and sunny”.  This whole process took about 10 minutes, and he was smiling!

I picked up my brick phone and called the time and weather phone number in Chicago, and gave him the time and weather in 10 seconds.  I patted Jackie on the head, laughed a little and left.  Who knew this was going to be big!

Jack founded Boardwatch magazine

Years passed. Around 1995 or so, I started working with a new thing called the internet and, in my studies, I ran across a magazine called “Boardwatch.”

Boardwatch was THE ultimate source for all information on the Internet, Jack Rickard was the editor/owner. Boardwatch was having a convention in San Francisco for all these new internet people.

I called to order a ticket to the convention and talked with Patty Rickard who, at the time was the office person, and low behold she GAVE me a FREE ticket to the convention, which was pricey!  I flew out to San Francisco and attended the convention. 

Jack was King of the Internet

During the convention I was invited by a nice lady to go to penthouse to meet with Mr. Rickard. I thought to myself, wow this is long way from Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  Jackie and I got to meet and talk, joke around a little and then “Mr. Rickard” was whisked away again.  I was left standing with all the major officers of Cisco Systems and Intel.  They were all impressed I knew the Great Man and even bought me a drink or two.

Our Jackie was King of the Internet, and I was introduced as his coach to one all.  Yes, our Jackie Rickard was the KING of the Internet and the source of ALL knowledge at that time.  It does make you proud when one of your kids, (students, people you coached) does well, and Jackie was at the top on the newest most earthshaking technology on earth.

Jack returned to his roots

Years pass, Jackie sold his interest in Boardwatch for Mega Bucks and moved back to Cape Girardeau. My dad still lived in Cape and I visited my Dad in the early 2000s every couple of months and, as the years passed, I was in Cape two weeks a month. 

Of course, I would visit with Jackie, drink his homemade booze, ride around in his electric cars and sit in his backyard and look at the river.  No longer coach and swimmer but just two guys with common interests.  

We both had discovered the power of doing TV on the internet, YouTube and other streaming video platforms. I must admit that most of the electrical stuff he talked about was way over my head. He did help on the movies I did in Florida with advice and counsel.

Terry Hopkins got a treat

We continued to stay in touch when I visited Cape, until I had to move my dad to Florida after his health began to decline.  My dad mentioned that the first house he and my mom lived in after they married was Jackie’s house by the river in 1947. He even pointed out the room they rented on top floor facing the bridge.  I mentioned this to Jackie, and he invited me to spend the night in that room.  It was very a very moving experience for me, and I thank Jackie for making that possible.

The pool was home for many of us

Jumping away from Terry’s account for a second, if you were a one of the hundreds of us who spent the summer in the Capaha Pool, follow this link. Especially take the time to read the comments. It seems like a Who’s Who of us Boomers.

Jack Rickard Photo Gallery

Here’s a collection of the 2008 photos, including the ones you’ve already seen. Click on any image to make it larger, then use the arrow keys to move around.