Terry Hopkins Archives

November 28, 2014May 3, 2021

Connie Crete Up Close

I’m not exactly sure what this man is doing, and I’m not sure I want to know. It was in the big box of prints and color slides General Sign Company had taken of signs and other stuff it had created from the 40s through at least the 1960s. Terry Hopkins, whose Dad worked there, said he didn’t know who the man was, but it wasn’t his dad. June 1964 was stamped on the cardboard slide mount.

Terry said General Sign made lots of fiberglass figures at the Kingshighway plant, including cows, BIG John, and Shoney’s little guys. I thought this gal looked familiar.

It was Connie Crete

A little deeper in the box was the answer: the girl was Connie Crete, perched high above Cape Ready Mix and down the street from Schneider Equipment Co. at Bloomfield Road and South Kingshighway.

Over the years, the concrete company would be known for the imaginative decorations its concrete trucks would sport. Dad said he bought concrete from Cape Ready Mix because he figured any company that was that creative and kept its trucks so clean probably also turned out a good product.

You can click on the photos to make them larger.

November 21, 2014

Pfister’s in Treasure Trove

Buddy Terry Hopkins stopped by the house when we were both in Cape and dropped off a box of photos. His dad, Laverne H. Hopkins, worked for General Sign Company for years, Terry said. His specialty was drawing people and objects, as opposed to lettering and striping.

You have to remember that signs in those days were individually painted or lettered: they weren’t mass-produced like the ones you see today. A General Sign employee would take a picture of his work to prove to the customer that it was done.

The box contains hundreds of those iconic photos of signs, store fronts and logos we grew up seeing (and probably not really noticing). It’s going to take me a long time to scan and index the photos, but I thought Pfister’s Drive-In would be a good first candidate. Cape Electrical Supply and Cape Memorial Company are in the background, and I think the large brick building on the left might have been the Coke bottling plant.

Click on the photo to make it larger. Here’s a shot of the drive-in and the area from the air, by the way.

August 9, 2014

Class of ’66 Party Group

The Central High School Class of 1966 is big on lunching and partying. Let’s get the IDs out of the way first. According to my best sources, the folks are, from left to right: Dick McClard, Judy McClard, Marilyn Maevers, Lynn Davis McLain, David McLain, Brad Brune, Terry Hopkins and Gerald Ruessler.

Brune was there when I arrived

I wrote about the semi-official monthly luncheon attended by Mother and me. The ’66ers invited us, I’m sure, so they’d look younger in comparison.

Terry Hopkins blew into town on Wednesday and we made a Blue Hole BBQ sauce run and stopped in at Nickie’s Cafe and Sweets in Altenburg before looking in on the L&M Tool Exhibit at the Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum.

He announced that he had invited a bunch of his classmates to lunch on Friday at noon, “but I told Brad Brune we were going to meet at 11:30 because he operates on Brune Standard Time and is always late.” (His excuse last time was that he set his cellphone alarm for 12, but got confused between noon and midnight).

Thursday I got a text from Brune “Come on, Guys!! This is not funny. I’m standing down here in the rain playing pocket pool. It’s 12:23 and I got here at 11:15 so I wouldn’t get razzed about Brune Time late again!!! You guys are DEAD TO ME!!”

It gave me great pleasure to point out that he couldn’t differentiate between noon and midnight for our last gathering, but, now, he didn’t know the difference between Thursday and Friday.

I arrived a few minutes after noon on Friday to see that Brune was already seated. For all I know, he may have slept in the restaurant overnight to avoid further humiliation.

The Dick McClard Memorial Watch

Long about this time last year, a package from Dick McClard arrived at my house. Ever since a stalker ex-husband sent a live snake to his ex at work, and I made the mistake of volunteering to open the box for her, I have been very cautious about unexpected things that arrive in the mail.

Inside the box was a piece of very fine jewelry. It didn’t fit my wrist, so Wife Lila decorated her kitchen wall with it.

At the time, Mr. Hopkins hinted very strongly that he would love to have that watch or one just like it.

I left town to go to Cape, and Mr. Hopkins came visiting in West Palm Beach. He slept on my nap bed, ate us out of house and home, and departed with my precious watch. I wasn’t sure how I was going to break the news to Dick that his gift had gone missing from my life.

Hopkins displays his prize

Terry has been showing his prize to anyone who will look. When Dick saw how good it looked on Terry’s arm, I thought he was going to ask for it back. The Man of a Thousand Hawaiian Shirts and One Tuxedo says he may auction it off since it has become so popular. The only catch, he added, is that the recipient must promise to wear it for at least a month.

By the way, the reason the colors are so funky is that the restaurant has a wall lined with red neon signs. There’s only so much color correction you can do in that situation.

Adjourned to Main Street

After the raucous group drove away all the other patrons of the establishment, someone suggested we adjourn to the out-of-doors where Brune passed around some of his signature cheap chocolate-flavored cigars bought for about $12 per railroad boxcar.

When one of those things fires up, Bob Dylan was right, “you don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

Photo gallery from the lunch

Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the images. They have been filtered to remove the smell of cheap cigar, but I couldn’t get the red out of all of them.

August 7, 2014January 4, 2024

Lyndon Moore Tool Exhibit

Lyndon Moore and his wife, Margaret, travel all over the country in a truck with six dogs collecting vintage tools and hauling them back home to Bloomfield. The have an exhibit at the Altenburg Lutheran Heritage Center and Museum August 1 through September 25.

Official press release

Here’s the official press release: The Lutheran Heritage Center & Museum, 75 Church Street, in Altenburg, MO is proud to announce an exhibit opening. The L&M Tool Collection of Lyndon and Margaret Moore, of Bloomfield, MO, is one of the premiere American tool collections in the country. This exhibit is a special selection of the L&M Collection featuring tools manufactured in Missouri, rare tools, tools with broad public appeal, and tools used in the early settlement of Missouri. Also included in the exhibit are rare regional hardware photographs and historic hardware store exhibit cases. The exhibit will be open every day from Friday, August 1 through September 25 from 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. Admission is free.

Pictures and press release can’t do it justice

Snapshots and a press release don’t do the exhibit justice. Friend Terry Hopkins and I stopped by there Wednesday. I told him to open this saw display case and take a sniff inside.

He reeled back and, with a strange expression on his face, said, “That’s Grandpa Hopkins’ workshop.”

He was right. Some combination of oil and linseed oil or something brought back memories of old-time hardware stores and workshops. I’d love to have a bottle of that fragrance. It’s as much a part of my olfactory memories as the smell of diesel fumes and freshly pushed dirt on one of Dad’s construction sites.

Lyndon is the real treasure

Friend Shari and I happened to be there when Lyndon was in the museum. Director Carla Jordan, staffer Gerard Fiehler, Lyndon, Shari and a couple of other folks sat around eating an excellent carryout lunch from Nickie’s Cafe and Sweets. Carla has a way of making strangers instantly feel comfortable with each other.

Lyndon regaled us with a funny tale of scandal in downtown Bloomfield, then switched gears and told us a poignant story of a “pedal car” that got away from him when he was five years old. Forty-some years later he saw that same car, in mint condition, hanging from the rafters in a fellow collector’s “piddle shop,” and finally acquired it. He said it was a good thing his father couldn’t get it for him when he was 5, because he’d have torn it up playing with it.

Carla said Lyndon will be spending a lot of time in the museum. You might be able call ahead to see if he’s there. The number is 573-824-6070.

Be prepared to hear story after story about the history of every item in the exhibit, how he acquired it and how it works.

This is not your usual exhibit, trust me.

Gallery of the tool exhibit

The glass cases that house some of the exhibits are as interesting as their contents. You can appreciate the tools for their utility, their artistry or their history. Click on any image to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.