BOX 168: Mostly Sheboygan and Ohio.

Here's a slide I can date pretty precisely: it's the 1986 4th of July Cardboard Boat Race at the riverfront in Sheboygan. Those familiar with the city may recognize the structures in the background: the domed tavern is still standing, but not the ivy-covered Armory or the

muraled building on the right. I had gotten back from the Theatre Historical Society tour of movie palaces of Illinois and Iowa (see previous post) and had taken yet another photo of Holy Name Church on my corner (and an out-of-focus shot of Kitty, one of a number of disappointing slides I'll leave out of this post). The goal of the 4th of July event was for teams to built a boat entirely of cardboard--it could be painted and maybe sealed for leaks, but no metal or plastic could be used--and then race it around buoys in the Sheboygan River. Some of the boats were quite ingeniously designed:

The shot just above incidentally shows what the south bank of the river looked like before the recent Blue Harbor development. The next shot gives a wider view:

Here are two more shots of the crowd, the first featuring my friend Ellen Luebke:

Another crowd gathered on the beach at twilight, getting ready for the fireworks:

Later that summer I visited my friends David and Debbie Spear, who had moved to Greenville, South Carolina after David got a job as History Professor at Furman University. I'd visited them the summer before as well, but any slides I took, along with those of my 1985 drive out West, have gone missing; in any case, I took only a few pictures on the '86 trip. One shot shows foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, where Furman is located; the other shows a house that may have some historical interest, but I no longer have any idea.

Here are David and Debbie with their daughter Kate. The second photo shows Kate in what must have been one of Furman's newer buildings at the time:

As usual, I spent part of the summer with my family in Ohio. Here is Jim taking a picture of his son, Jamie, holding Jamie's cousin Jay, and then a shot of my two nephews:

And here's the whole family posing, with a glimpse of one of Jim and Dottie's labs.

In September, I see from my slides, I went on a weekend camping trip with Sallie Melgaard, Ellen Luebke, and another woman I don't remember; presumably Craig, Sallie's husband, and possibly other people were there too, but not in my photos. I have no recollection where we camped; the only clue is a river with rapids. The slides were developed in September, but our clothing shows it was already somewhat chilly. The first two pictures below were taken, I think, in the afternoon, and the next two at breakfast the next day. That's Sallie in blue and purple, Ellen in gray, and the unknown woman in red and then bluish-green.

Here are shots of an inviting woodland path and of the nearby river:

I show up in a couple of shots, in silhouette and in a borrowed vest:

And finally, what I think are the two best shots of this trip, of Ellen and of Sallie:

My next photo is of something I baked, presumably a meat pie and presumably from my Dining with William Shakespeare cookbook, which calls for decorating meat-pie crusts with stars and crescents; but I don't remember a recipe calling for a lasagna-size pan.

I probably made it at home, but I could possibly have made it in Ohio, since my next photos are of winter break there. Here are a couple of pics of Jay and me in front of my mother's condo in Brecksville, plus one of Jay with a snowball:

I tried various camera settings to photograph snow-covered trees with a bit of winter sun:

Back in Sheboygan that spring my friend Dave made a birthday cake for me. As I recall, he liked to make unique-looking birthday cakes for friends and family. To show what it looked like when sliced I'll have to include a somewhat unfocused shot :

My next pictures are from a trip I took in the summer of '87 to Spain: a car trip from Madrid to Galicia with a side excursion down to Portugal, and then across the north coast to San Sebastien and down to near Barcelona. I'll show photos from that drive in the next several posts.