Cape Girardeau History and Photos
News photos that have grown whiskers and have become history
Brother-in-Law John and I spent a whole day validating the Rule of Threes: every project will cost three times as much as anticipated, require three times as long as planned, and will take at least three trips to any place you plan to buy parts. Actually, I’m pretty sure we were into the Rule of Sixes and Nines on a couple of items.
I’m too tired to tell the whole story tonight, but I’ll give you a hint that it involves something in this photo.
When I photographed the building that had been the Jackson Skating Rink in 2010, it had already morphed into another use. On a drive to Marble Hill a few weeks ago, I saw that the rink was no more. (Check out the link to learn some interesting things about the history of the rink going back to the early 1950s.)
I don’t think I ever skated there, but Brothers Mark and David did.
In fact, I posted some pictures of kids skating back in the 60s and thought they might have been taken inside the Hanover Skating Rink. Several readers said I was wrong, and some others thought it was the MaryAnn Rink. After a lot of give-and take, Fred Lynch provided proof that it must have been the Jackson rink by the process of elimination.
Follow this link to weigh in (it also lists a bunch of other skating-related posts).
All of us who grew up hearing our wooden wheels click across wooden floors like this one find modern rinks strangely silent.
You have to wonder how many beginner bottoms bounced off those boards.
I had two errands to run that took me past North County Park after dark: I wanted a Wib’s BBQ fix, and I needed to return a cap to Buchheit.
When I was in Cape in 2009, I bought a super cap with fold-down ear flaps that did a great job of keeping my Florida ears from falling off in the cold. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack it, so I went in search for a replacement. Of course, my old faithful wasn’t in stock, and I wasn’t crazy about this year’s model, but it was better than blue ears. When I called Wife Lila last night, she said it was still hanging on the hat rack in the living room, so she’d mail it to MO, letting me return the not-quite-right model..
I liked the original cap well enough to buy one for Brother Mark. Here he and Future Wife Robin posed with the caps when they were new (the caps, not Mark and Robin). I think the classy way he wore it was what tipped the scales to get her to say “yes.”
Anyway, to get to the point of the post: when I passed the park Tuesday night, it was all lit up. If some of the pictures are confusing (like this one), it’s because I couldn’t resist shooting the reflections on a lake that was a smooth as a newborn baby’s butt.
For comparison, here’s what it looked like in 2011 (the post has a bunch of links to other Christmas posts, too).
Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move around. (If you are wondering what the sign that says “P ACE” means, it means that the “E” that would make it spell “PEACE” isn’t working.)
When Curator Jessica and I left St. Louis for Cape in the late afternoon Tuesday, we started out in drizzle to moderate rain. By the time we got south of St. Genevieve, we were in heavy rain, and from north of Fruitland through Jackson, we were in rain as hard as I’ve seen in some Cat 1 hurricanes.
Rain in St. Louis on Monday was heavy at times, but when I pulled onto Brother Mark’s street across from the Botanical Gardens, it had slacked off. The trees in his neighborhood still have some colorful leaves, but they are falling fast.
By the way. on the way home, I stopped at Pevely to top off my tank. Where I was excited about paying $1.73 a gallon for gas on Monday, it had gone down to $1.69. I noticed the price jumped in 10-cent increments the further south you drove.