Ken Steinhoff spent more than 40 years in the ink-slinging newspaper business where he had a license to be nosy. Palm Beach Bike Tours renewed that license in his retirement years. The blog is ostensibly about cycling, photography and using GPS technology to figure out where you're going and where you've been. It's really an extension of his lifelong effort to tell the stories of "ordinary people doing ordinary things", which sometimes turns out to be pretty extraordinary. If all that sounds like something in which you might be interested, please sign up for the PBBT RSS feed to keep in touch.
The Seventh Annual Lauren Katzenstein Celebration ride is set for June 28, 2009.
Registration starts at 6:30 A.M. and the ride starts at 7:30 from Barton Park at Lake Worth Beach, 10 South Ocean Drive, Lake Worth, FL.
There will be four distances: 10, 22, 40 or 62 miles.
For more information go the the event web site. There is a $35 registration fee.
Lauren was killed during an MS150 Ride in 2003
The 15-year-old high school sophomore and her father, Dave, had ridden about 30 miles of the MS150 Breakaway to Key Largo charity ride when she was struck and killed by a reckless, unlicensed driver.
Why is it held when it’s so hot?
Lauren’s birthday was the last day of June, so it was determined to schedule the ride for the last Sunday in June as a celebration of her life.
Celebration Ride starts at 7:30 A.M. from Barton Park
A real stinker of a movie – Baby, the Rain Must Fall – was released in January 1965. I’ve attached an Amazon link but, trust me, you do NOT want to watch it. I’ve tried three times and never made it all the way through.
What’s special about Baby, the Rain Must Fall?
My high school buddy, Jim Stone, and I were cruising around town, ending up at the Rialto Theater to catch the new movie, Baby, the Rain Must Fall.
The Rialto was owned by his girlfriend’s mother, so we could get into the movies for free, watch them from the projection booth and – Jim’s favorite – pop popcorn in one of those old-fashioned theater poppers.
This night, though, something unusual caught our eye.
There was a new cashier and she was a real cutie.
Jim’s level of fidelity to his girlfriend was just about as high the fidelity of my car’s AM radio speakers, so we flipped a coin to see who would get shot down first.
I’ve won only two gambles in my life
My birthday came in #258 in the 1969 Draft Lottery, which made it virtually certain that Uncle Sam wasn’t going to give me an all-expense-paid trip to Southeast Asia.
Jim lost the flip, and I got to give the new cashier a ride home.
Lila Perry was a keeper
Any girl who will keep seeing you even after you show up up unexpectedly and take a picture of her painting the house in curlers is a gal you’d better hang on to.
Not only did I like Lila, but I felt comfortable with her brother, John (see yesterday) and sister, Marty.
I didn’t even hold it against her that she didn’t vote for me in the Student Body Presidential election.
Our dates were unusual
I was working for The Jackson Pioneer, which was in our high school rival’s town, so she attended lots of events where she didn’t know a soul. On top of that, she’d be sitting in the stands while I was shooting on the field.
We seldom got to see the end of a sporting event because I had to go home to process my film. It wasn’t unusual that she’d end up stranded in the car listening to police calls while I was out taking pictures of whatever fire, flood or famine we’d stumbled onto that night.
I transferred to Ohio University
My buddy Jim convinced me that I had to get away from Cape or be stuck there for the rest of my life. I’m not knocking Cape. It’s a place I return to to recharge my spiritual batteries, but I’m glad he talked me into transferring to Ohio University in Athens, OH, my junior year of college.
Letters, audio tapes and phone calls weren’t enough.
After the first year, Lila followed me to Athens, moved into a house for International Students and took a job with the county health department so we could be closer together.
One day, Bob Rogers, chief photographer for The Athens Messenger, where I was working, asked when we were going to set a date. I said, “Pick one for us.”
He said, “June 27, 1969.”
For one reason or another, the 27th didn’t work, so we compromised on June 23. Because of the confusion, I can’t remember our anniversary date to save my life. I’m hard-wired to remember June 27.
I said I’d never get engaged in December
At different times, I was sentenced to serve as Society Editor during my stint at The Southeast Missourian. I swore that I would never get engaged in December nor married in June because of the glut of those events in those months.
As it turned out, I did both
Lila, by the way, is the beautiful girl in the middle with the long, white dress. I’m the one to her right who looks petrified.
We hit the 40 year mark today
The only reason that Lila hasn’t been nominated for sainthood is that Mother Teresa had a better press agent.
The night she planned her first big dinner party, most of the guests and I were locked in the university library covering a sit-in.
When we were in the middle of remodeling our kitchen, I took off one day short of a month to cover the Cuban Boatlift. Kid Two was about two months away and she was washing dishes in the bathtub.
Kid One’s due date was give or take about 15 minutes from when I was due back from doing a story about a cheerleader academy in Leesburg. Matt’s birth was announced to the world over the company’s two-way radio system.
I’d list more, but I think I’m better off if she is isn’t reminded about some of the incidents.
We’ve got a great family
Along the way, we’ve had two great kids who have married the greatest daughters-in-law in the world. They’ve somehow or another managed to find wives who have been as understanding about their flaws and foibles as Lila has been of mine.
(Although, from all appearances, they seem to score a little higher on the husband desirability chart than I do. It must be their mother’s influence.)
I’m one lucky guy
P.S. Baby, the Rain Must Fall is still a lousy movie.
My brother-in-law, John Perry, is one of those guys I really admire.
If the world ever goes to hell in a handbasket, John and the cockroaches are going to be the last ones standing. There’s nothing he can’t build and hardly anything he can’t fix.
John can fix anything
We save up all of the stuff we either don’t know how to do, don’t want to do or would panic trying to do and beg John to leave Jackson, MO, to bail us out.
Nothing fazes him
When he came down to remodel our kitchen, he wasn’t all at bothered when he came eye-t0-eye to a family of possums living under the kitchen sink.
Note: no possums were injured in the remodeling project. I think John’s shorts may have needed another pass through the washer, though.
Wyatt came with him
His son, Wyatt, came with him this time. Foodie Jan Norris set them up with a neighbor for a father’s day fishing trip on the Coconut Rum II because they spent most of the week remodeling her bathroom.
Father’s Day Fishing Trip
Lots of fish going back home
John and Wyatt had a great day on the water. They caught (and released) a whole slug of fish and they brought back plenty to pack in dry ice and ship back home to Jackson.
My virtual friends over at Let’s Go Ride a Bike and I share the same sick appreciation of puns. Here’s Kermit riding his bike in a classic movie scene. The last line makes it all worthwhile: “If frogs couldn’t jump, I’d be gone with the Schwinn.”
Jackson, Missouri’s, Wib’s BBQ Drive-In was born the same year I was, 1947. I don’t think my parents took me straight from the St. Francis Hospital to Wib’s, but my grandson, Malcolm, below, was still in diapers when he made his first pilgrimage.
My buddy, Chuck Keefer, has been bragging about South Carolina BBQ, so I felt it was time to write about the best barbecue sandwiches in the universe and set him straight.
When we were in Cape Girardeau last fall, I managed to make four visits to the place, much to my mother’s chagrin. We figured that at least five generations of our family have eaten there over the years.
I practically lived there
I practically lived at Wib’s when I was working for The Jackson Pioneer in the mid-60s.
The sandwiches were cheap and they made the best shakes in town. (Unfortunately, they quit making shakes several years ago and the wonderful homemade pies are history, too.)
Best of all, it was located just down the road from the newspaper and courthouse and almost right next to a small park with a municipal swimming pool that was a great source of wild art.
(Nah, Jackson wasn’t THAT wild. Wild art is newspaperspeak for pictures that can run without a story. Think cute kids and animals.)
What’s special about the BBQ?
I don’t know. My mother claims that no pigs are hurt in the making of the sandwiches, and I have to concede that they are a little light on meat.
On the other hand, what’s there is nicely smoked and touched off with a peppery sauce that doesn’t overwhelm the taste of the meat. If you order a Brown Hot (the brown, outside, smokier part of the shoulder) with hot sauce, you’d better have a drink handy.
Smoked with Hickory wood
A short history of Wib’s is printed on the back of the menu. It was founded by Wib Lohman, who had a trucking company. He started out selling barbecue sandwiches to his drivers.
The original smoker used hickory and nothing has changed.
The outside doesn’t look like much
It’s just a concrete block building painted white. There’s plenty of parking and a walk-up area on one side. The front door was always notoriously hard to open, but that was solved when a local teenager ran into the front of the building June 17, 2008, doing about $25,000 in damage.
He fessed up to his parents and restitution was made. The front windows were changed to deeper ones and the balky front door was replaced.
One wag remarked, “That poor kid will have to leave town. He’s going to be known as the boy who drove into Wib’s for the rest of his life.”
Wib sold Wib’s in 1948
Wib Lohman got tired of running a seven-day-a-week, 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. business and sold it to Jack and Sweetie Hoffmeister, who ran it until 1972, when it passed on to A.D. Hoffman. It stayed in the Hoffman family when A.D.’s son and his wife took it over in 1986.
300 sandwiches go out at lunchtime
Wib’s opens at 8:30 a.m. (mostly for coffee drinkers; they usually sell less than 10 sandwiches before 11 a.m.) and stays open until 6:45 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. Saturday they’re open 9 – 6:45. They’re closed Sundays and Mondays.
Prime time is the lunch rush when about 300 sandwiches are served.
Wib’s had four car hops
In the Old Days, the place had four car hops to handle drive-up orders. If you don’t want to eat inside, these days you can go inside to a walk-up window to place your to-go order.
Every kid in Jackson must have worked there at one time or another. Many started in high school and continued through college. At least one couple met while working at Wib’s and the proposal took place in the parking lot.
Ken Steinhoff spent more than 40 years in the ink-slinging newspaper business where he had a license to be nosy. Palm Beach Bike Tours renewed that license in his retirement years. The blog is ostensibly about cycling, photography and using GPS technology to figure out where you're going and where you've been. It's really an extension of his lifelong effort to tell the stories of "ordinary people doing ordinary things", which sometimes turns out to be pretty extraordinary. If all that sounds like something in which you might be interested, please sign up for the PBBT RSS feed to keep in touch.
The Seventh Annual Lauren Katzenstein Celebration ride is set for June 28, 2009.
