Mary Welch Steinhoff Archives

November 26, 2013

Truck on I-55

I’ve passed this high-flying 18-wheeler a bunch of times over the years, but this is the first time I’ve bothered to pull off the road to snap a picture of it. It’s on the east side of I-55 near Sikeston. And, yes, it’s the real deal, not a billboard or a model.

I was prepared with an excuse if a cop pulled up to tell me that stopping on the Interstate isn’t allowed: “But officer, my Check Engine light came on and I wanted to make sure everything was OK.”

Of course, when your van has 181,000 miles on it, the Check Engine light is ALWAYS on. I get out, raise the hood, check to see if the engine is still there and then keep driving down the road. If the light ever DOES go out, I’ll assume that the bulb burned out, not that the problem mysteriously healed itself.

The Kid has theories

(That might be the reason Kid Matt concocted this Shameless Plug page. He doesn’t want to have to drive to some Podunk town to pick me up when the van dies.)

(He has a second theory, too: he says everybody is too busy heading out for Turkey Day, preparing for Turkey Day or recovering from Turkey Day that they aren’t going to be reading the blog this week. That’s why you’re going to get some light-weight content while I’m on MY way back to Florida.)

Oh, by the way, I covered the Sikeston Rodeo. Jim Nabors performed there in 1965. Here are more photos of the 1965 Rodeo.

On the road

Speaking of travel, I left Cape Monday morning for Athens, Ohio. I was worried about the weather because of all the freezing rain, ice pellet, snow and sleet warnings along the route. On top of that, there was a forecast for four inches of snow in Athens on Tuesday.

To get home I was going to have to go over some pretty tall stacks of rocks where Florida Friend Jan saw her first snow in January. I may end up staying an extra day in Athens if West Virginia gets any serious snow.

As it turned out, I must have been racing the frozen precip all day. I could see I was on the eastern edge for at least 40% of Monday. The snow pellets sounded like my car was being peppered with BBs; the snow, fairly heavy from time to time, was pretty. It swirled around in the wake of traffic, but it never stuck.

Here was the obligatory Good-Bye selfie. It only took 19 frames to get one even close to having both of us in it.

November 16, 2013

New Emergency Sirens

We saw a bunch of heavy equipment parked around the fire station up the street, plus a big pole on the ground. When I got back from Perry County the other day after dark, Mother said there was some new kind of gizmo sticking up in the air.

It turned out to be one of the new emergency sirens the city was installing to augment the four it already had. When we went under a tornado warning the other night, we could barely hear a siren off in the distance.

Of course, that might be because Mother is Storm Central. She had the TV blaring, a scanner in the living room talking away and she was holding a portable scanner. From time to time, the weather alert radio in the hallway would add to cacophony.

Ain’t no storm going to sneak up on her.

Bad weather has been in the news

For about a week, the weather folks have been hyperventilating about a cold front predicted to move through here this weekend. Much to their dismay, it looks like it’s just going to be – as they are fond of saying – just a “wind event.”

… Wind Advisory in effect from 8 am to 8 PM CST Sunday…

The National Weather Service in Paducah has issued a Wind Advisory… which is in effect from 8 am to 8 PM CST Sunday.

* Winds will increase and become strong and gusty Sunday ahead of an approaching storm front.

* Timing: south winds will really pick up during the daytime hours Sunday as a weather front approaches. The strongest winds with the highest gusts will be ongoing through the midday and into the afternoon hours.

* Winds: south winds will average 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40 to 50 mph at times. These will be the regular gradient winds occurring without the aid of a thunderstorm.

It’s probably good this isn’t going to be a big deal storm, because the new siren hasn’t been hooked up yet.

This is not a good thing

“This is not a good thing,” I warned her. “I can write the story right now: ‘A house at the corner of Kurre Lane and Kingsway Drive, just a hundred yards from an inoperative emergency siren, was struck by a tornado that picked the structure up and carried it to parts unknown. Observers reported hearing what they thought sounded like a police scanner getting fainter and fainter as the house was sucked up into the clouds. City work crews will have the siren hooked up Monday evening.'”

Kinda makes me think of Guy Clark singing Tornado Time in Texas:

well, the sky was blacker than a funeral suit

hotter than a depot stove;

hide in the cellar

here comes amarillo

blowin down the road

ya got yer hail stones big as hen eggs, boy,

yer clouds as green as can be

old mother nature’s raisin hell

she parked a pickup in a tree.

tornado time in texas

take the paint right off of your barn

tornado time in texas

blow the tattoo right off of your arm

November 3, 2013November 3, 2013

Color Finally Arrives

I was surprised at how little color there was this year as I’ve driven across the country. It wasn’t until last week around Louisville that reds and yellows started popping up.

We had a serious storm (tornado sirens and the whole deal) blow through Cape a couple of nights ago, so I thought most of the leaves would be blown off the trees before they had a chance to show their stuff.

Just the opposite happened: it was like the wind slapped the trees around and woke them up that winter was coming. Mother, Curator Jessica and I meandered all over the place Saturday afternoon, marveling at the changes that 48 hours had made. Jessica ignored my “are you kidding?” look and decided we should climb out on the breakwater off the Trail of Tears State Park marina. Click on the image to make it larger.

I’m glad we went. The sun kept popping in and out of the clouds until just the right combination got stirred in.

We’re on our way to St. Louis in the morning so she can hop on a plane back to Ohio and her husband and cat. I won’t tell you which one she seems to have missed more.

I’m sure we’ll stop along the way to appreciate even more color. Stay tuned.

October 18, 2013

Birthday Season #92

October 17 marked the high point of Mother’s extended Birthday Season, which kicked off way back in August when Steinhoffs from Oklahoma, Florida and Missouri stopped in. Mother is showing Brother Mark a letter she got from a hearing aid company offering her a discount on a hearing aid. “I thought you guys were getting together to buy me a hearing aid.”

Still has the lung power

She might have candles on her cake representing 92 years, but she can still puff them out with a single breath of air. Click on the photo to watch her blow out the candles. (This is a fairly large file, so it might take a little while to load.)

We were going to fill the cake with a full 92 candles, but the firefighters in the station across the street saw the delivery truck from Acme Birthday Candle Company pull up and intervened.

Tag: Mary Welch Steinhoff