Mary Welch Steinhoff Archives

May 12, 2013May 12, 2013

Not Enough Words

I usually start with a picture, then wrap some words around it. This time, though, I have an endless supply of pictures and not enough words to express how I feel about Mary Welch Steinhoff. So, on this Mother’s Day, here’s a small sample of Mother with her family.

Every picture I ran across led me to another, and there are scores that I remembered and couldn’t lay my hands on quickly. Mother sure has packed a lot of livin’ into her 91 years.

Mary Welch Steinhoff, my Mother

Click on any photo to make it larger,then click on the sides to move through the gallery.

March 25, 2013

Birthdays Come and Gone

When do birthdays stop being a big deal? March 24 is the date of my birth, but I have lost all concept of how old I am. I was prepared to tell folks I had been around the sun 67 times, but that can’t be true because I got my Medicare card last year. Guess that makes me 66.

Back in 2011, I shared a whole page of photos of childhood landmarks in time. I was telling someone the other day that most people think of major milestones and identity crises in even-numbered years like 20, 30 and 40.

I had those periods of self-assessment at odd years, like 24, 27, 32, 57 and 60. Wife Lila would probably say that’s because I never use round numbers in the microwave: 2:16 for popcorn; and that I take naps that are 22-minutes long. (I learned a long time ago that accounting was less likely to question my expense reports if I used odd number like $6.13 or $12.47 because they assumed people who put down stuff like $6.00 or $12.50 were either guessing or making up items.)

Photo staff remembered my 30th

Wife Lila and the folks on the photo staff pulled off a surprise birthday party for my 30th. They were ostensibly gathering at the house to watch the last episode of the Mary Tyler Moore show on March 19, 1977, so I was surprised when they pulled out this photo of me in a gas mask covering riots at Ohio University that the staff had signed. Across the top, someone had scrawled, “HAPPY 30! If you’ve survived this far, you’re bound to make it the next thirty!”

Maybe that’s one of the reasons my 60th was so traumatic: I was afraid that someone had set my sell-by date with that headline. It’s also disconcerting to note that at least half of the people who signed the photo – some of whom were younger than me – are dead.

No respect by my 40th

By the time my 40th rolled around, the staff was a bit less respectful. We had a bunch of turnover in the department about that time. I won’t say this artwork had anything to do with it….

My 50th was a major blow-out at the office, an event attended by all of upper management, including my friend the H.R. Director. I thanked her, in particular, for the shindig since the jokes and gag gifts showed a definite prejudice against older workers, a protected group that I had just joined. My discrimination lawsuit alleging a hostile work environment would make it possible for me to retire to a life of ease, I warned.

I got high on birthday cake and forgave them at the last minute, unfortunately.

A traumatic 60th

Dad and his two brothers died on or before their 61st birthdays, so I was afraid my days were numbered. I told my staff that I would just as soon let the day pass unobserved. As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about it because I came down with some kind of cold or other ailment that I was sure was going to usher me to the Other Side, and I skipped a few days of work. On my birthday, just about the time I was feeling merely miserable instead of on death’s doorstep, the whole Steinhoff clan from three states knocked on the door and dragged me out for a bike ride.

Once I made it past 60, I decided that I had a few more good years left in me. That’s when I stopped doing the math and keeping score. When I wrack up as many Birthday Seasons as Mother, then I may start counting again.

That brings us to today

When I go to bed at night, I usually pull a shade at the head of the bed to keep the room cooler and darker so I can sleep late after staying up until 2 a.m. or so doing these posts. I forgot to do it on the 23rd, so I felt unusually warm when I started becoming conscious on my birthday.

“Maybe I didn’t make it to my birthday,” I thought. Not wanting to open my eyes and confirm my fears by getting dirt in them, I elected to go back to sleep.

About half an hour later, I was jolted awake by a brilliant beam of light. “Darn, maybe I made the cut after all,” crossed my mind. After straining my ears for several minutes listening for harp music that never came, I opened my eyes and saw the open shade.

Light was terrestrial, not celestial

I was much relieved to determine the brilliant light was terrestrial, not celestial.

Later in the day, the whole family gathered out at Son Adam’s to help him put some solar panels on his roof. I waved my Medicare card and was exempt from wrestling 4 x 12-foot panels in 23 mph (gusting to 45mph) winds, but I did get to make a bunch of trips up and down the ladders.

The family wasn’t sure I was capable of blowing out my cake candles, so they elected to serve it outside where the wind took care of extinguishing them for me.

Thanks to all my Facebook friends who left me birthday wishes, including those who were kind enough to add “you’re looking good,” something they never said when it was really true.

The next step is for them to say, “Don’t he look natural?”

March 10, 2013March 10, 2013

On the Road to Florida

I had to pull out of Cape on March 4 in order to make it back to West Palm Beach by March 6. As usual, I got a late start. No departure would be complete without taking a final photo before backing out of the driveway.

I think I’m getting better at these photos. Either my arm is getting longer or Mother and I are shrinking in our old age, which makes it possible to get us both in the photo.

Headed across the bridge

This is an appropriate bookend to the trip. I posted a photo when Friend Jan made me turn around to get the bridge and the moon in a picture the night we pulled into Cape.

Atlanta skyline and traffic (what else?)

I left Cape in snow flurries, and woke up in Manchester, Tenn., to rain. By the time I got to Monteagle Pass, the rain had turned into a monsoon and the winds were threatening to blow me across two lanes of traffic. It was hard enough to stay on the road in my Odyssey van. I don’t know how an empty 18-wheeler could have handled it.

I hoped to get an Oink Moo Burger at Dave’s Modern Tavern, but it wasn’t open. A woman in a nearby business recommended an Italian joint just down the road. Their pizza was excellent. Just as I was switching from my eating glasses to my seeing glasses to pay the bill, the left side of the frame came apart and dropped my lens on the carpet. Fortunately, there was a CVS drugstore next door where I could buy a replacement screw. A helpful women at the checkout counter put the screw back in for me since I couldn’t see to do it.

All of this piddling around put me into Atlanta at rush hour. I hadn’t planned to take another photo of a traffic jam in my favorite city, but we were stopped and the skyline was interesting. I think all the cold weather may have caused the lube in the camera mirror mechanism to stiffen up. I had a few frames with dark tops a couple of days ago, and the gremlin struck again here. While I wouldn’t mind some kind of out-of-this-world General Sherman coming down to devour Atlanta, that was simply not happening here.

Crawfish at Bubba Jax

I get odd cravings on the road. For some reason, I had a hankering for Dairy Queen’s chicken strips with white gravy and a Blizzard for desert. A sign promised at DQ in Valdosta, but I couldn’t spot it. As luck would have it, I opted to make a U-turn into Bubba Jax Crab Shack. It was a nondescript kind of place, but there was a fair number of cars in the lot, so I decided to take a chance. A chalkboard at the entrance said they had a special on crayfish.

I love Cajun forms of crawfish, so I placed an order without asking how they were served. While waiting for my order to arrive, I saw plate after plate of lightly battered fried oysters and onion rings walk by. I was wondering if I had made a mistake.

When the server placed a bunch of red shells in front of me, I was sure I had. “This is embarrassing,” I confessed. “I’ve shucked oysters, peeled shrimp and cracked crabs, but I’ve never tackled crawdads before. How do I attack these beasts?”

She said, “I’m not exactly sure. I know you eat the tails and some folks suck out the insides from the top, but they’re not exactly my thing.”

When she came back, I suggested that she put these on the menu as the Dieter’s Special “because you burn more calories peeling them you gain in consuming the critters.” I got better and faster, but I sure wish I had ordered the oysters. I’m going to put crayfish on the list of things like crunchy rock shrimp I’m going to avoid as being too much work.

Lunch with the grandsons

While I was out of town, Grandson Graham turned 2, and Elliot was added to the family on February 4. Parents Adam and Carly asked if I wanted to meet them for lunch at a hamburger joint on March 7. Are you kidding? This was my first glimpse of Elliot. I’d have shot more photos except that he was sound asleep. I learned with Graham that you do NOT want to have a screaming awake baby on your hands. I had forgotten they don’t come with a mute switch.

Graham’s a big boy now

There’s nothing like having a newborn in the family to make a two-year-old look like a big boy. It’s incredible how much more he’s talking than when I last saw him about six weeks ago. Grandson Malcolm, who is eight, is almost as tall as his grandmother, and looks like he’s going to be asking for the car keys in another week or two.

Graham, even after getting a spit-shine from his mother, is still wearing a significant portion of his lunch. (You can, as always, click on the photos to make them larger.)

March 4, 2013April 19, 2016

Mr Beams MB273 LED Light

Friends Shari and Jan both commented that we should do something to put more light on our basement stairs since Mother is up and down them to feed the fireplace, do the laundry, do her bookkeeping and hide from tornadoes. I discounted them by saying, “She’s been going up and down those steps for 57 years, so there’s not an inch of them she doesn’t know.

When I stayed with Brother Mark in St. Louis on my way to and from Ohio, he mentioned, “We should do something to put more light on the basement stairs.” He’s a guy, even if he IS my brother, so I had to pay attention to what he was saying.

Our house was built just about the time Edison came up with a great idea about making light bulbs. He’d have come up with it sooner, except the light bulb cartoonists use to indicate a flash of inspiration hadn’t been invented yet.

I told Mark that the last thing I wanted to do was overload a circuit by adding another tap for more lights. We noodled around a bit coming up with all kinds of Rube Goldberg ideas until I needed to go upstairs to visit his reading library for a few minutes.

Mr Beams MB273 LED light

When I came back, he had discovered Mr. Beams MB723 Battery-Powered Motion-Sensing LED Stick-Anywhere Nightlight, 3-Pack on Amazon.

To be honest, I’ve bought a bunch of LED lights over the years and most of them have turned out to be junk. The Amazon customer reviews made me take a second glance, though. Of 495 reviews, nearly 400 rated the product a 4 or 5 out of 5. Most of the low ratings were for quality control issues or minor nits like the mounting tape not sticking.

I was heading back to Florida on Monday, so I ordered them Friday morning and paid a little extra for one-day, Saturday delivery. They actually arrived when promised.

Saturday night, I used the enclosed double-sided foam tape to tack the three lights where I thought they’d do the most good. Then, I went to bed without telling Mother what I had done. (Sometimes she can be a bit cranky about surprises.)

She loved her new toys

She was delighted with her new toys. She liked the way the one at the top of the stairs came on as soon as she got near the basement door, then each of the other two lights came on about two steps before she got to them. They turn off about 30 seconds after motion stops, and they turn on only when it’s dark. The lights, which are about 3.75″ wide, 3.25″ tall and about 1.2″ thick, are powered by four AA batteries (not included). The vendor claims the batteries will last about a year under normal use.

The are suitable for both indoor and outdoor use. They come with a flat plastic mount that attaches to the wall with double-stick foam tape (my method) or screws. I started to put in the screws just to be safe, but I had trouble getting them to fit into the little countersinks and decided that I’d trust the tape to hold them on. It sure seemed secure to me.

Bottom line: if you have a place that could use just a little light and you don’t have an electrical outlet nearby, these are worth a try. They won’t replace a 100-watt bulb, but they do a great job of filling in dark spots. On top of that, they slip right off the mounting bracket, so you COULD use them as an emergency flashlight if you had to. Even though mother keeps a flashlight next to the bed in case she has to make a storm run to the basement, I told her she’d appreciate having those lights if she had to make it with the power off.

How can I get them?

I got mine through Amazon. If you click on this link, it’ll take you right there, and if you order them, I get a piece of the action without it costing you anything extra. By the way, I tried to depict the actual light on the stairs as accurately as possible. It might be just a shade brighter than the real world, but not much.