Beautiful Fall Color

Our Red Oak tree in the backyard reached the height of its fall color earlier this week. It is shown with the Blue Spruce and the Japanese Maple near the house. Our precipitation has already been several inches over the annual 26" normal which appears to have made the trees more brilliant this fall. The leaves of the Clump River Birch (shown with the white bark behind the Oak) turn a pretty yellow and drop after just a day or two. The beautiful fall color and weather appears near its end as a cold front is headed this way and scheduled to arrive on Monday. Hopefully it will be later in the day since we have the Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale, coming out to help dedicate the Kiwanis Parade of Flags at 1:00pm. The display is already attracting a lot of attention at the eastern edge of our City along highway #34 with the large United States flag, 7 Service flags and the 50 State flags. 

Changes in Farming

Elaine's Father, Albert Flowerday was pulling on the fly wheel of the old Model A John Deere to start it in the summer of 1955 when this picture was taken. Grand kids Timmy and Carolyn were watching with interest in anticipation of hearing the "Johnny Popper" starting to run. It appears that Albert was getting ready to spray some broad leaf  weeds with 2,4-D which was the popular chemical of the day. This was one of Albert's last years of some 40 years of farming. I'm sure he could have told of how things had changed during that time. Here he was using a 'Row crop" tractor and chemicals which wouldn't have been thought of when he started farming. Likewise, farmers of today may not even believe that there was a time when you pulled on the flywheel to start an engine. Albert had a farm sale the following year and I suspect the tractor and spray rig may have brought around $500.00. Modern farmers today use spray rigs in the $40,000.00 range. What changes will take place in the next 60 years??

Baby Jack & Family History

We got out to see Jack and the Owen's family today. In addition to Great-Grandmother, I even got to hold him for some time. He seems so small even though he has regained his 7 lb. 4 oz. birth weight. He was pretty sleepy during much of our "holding time" so it wasn't too great a challenge for the holder. Elaine and I look back on the days when we had our first baby boy on August 17, 1950, our youngest son on November 22, 1954 and 2 in between; another boy on March 4, 1952 and our daughter on August 11, 1953. Fortunately, our folks lived nearby which helped considerably, but we still wonder how we were able to cope. Elaine had just turned 24 at the time our youngest was born and I still marvel at her ability, strength, courage, ambition, faith, etc. that helped us though those years. Interestingly, I don't remember ever feeling sorry for ourselves. We didn't have  Health Insurance but were able to pay for whatever we bought and get our first little house paid for before moving to a larger house in the spring of 1955. My salary as a Civil Service technician was minimal and I worked at 2nd & 3rd jobs to make ends meet. While recognizing that it's a different world today, and are most sympathetic to many people's plight, these are reasons why we were surprised at the extent of support for the  passage of the minimum wage proposal. I would rather have seen a reconsideration of the Reagan tax cuts as a way to reduce the expanding divide between the rich and the poor. 

Election Day

Elaine and I voted early this morning and on our way home got this picture of the continuing demolition of the old Seward School Buildings. The 1919 High School Building is slated to remain. The additions next to it, including the gym built back in the 1950's are well on their way down. I have a distinct memory of seeing my brother Jerry go in for a layup in the gym. I sang with the Kitones for Veteran's Day programs in it as recently as 3-4 years ago. Voting and watching the demolition both inspire hope for the future. While we are optimistic, we realize there are tough decisions ahead if our hopes are to be realized. The election winners are seldom as effective as we were led to believe they would be but not as bad as what they were projected to be by their opposition. My expectations are pretty low for the next year here with our Seward City Government regardless who wins the Mayor's race. We can be sure that there will be some changes, we just don't know what they may be. 

Rob Schafer, University of Nebraska Regent

Rob Schafer spoke to our Seward Kiwanis Club this noon. He had come out directly from a UN Board of Regents meeting on which he serves. And brought word that the selection for President of the University had been narrowed down to 4 candidates. The "big news" was that Governor Heineman was not included in the group of 4. Schafer was appointed to the Board in 2013 by the Governor, and there were questions of Rob being a strong voice in getting Heineman selected as University President. As he said, the decision today made those questions "a moot point". I know of a few votes that will come his way as the result of his bringing that message. He was very impressive in speaking to the leadership role that the University of Nebraska will play in "feeding the world".

Mother's Greeting to Uncle Fred Turner

This is a Greeting Card that my Mother sent to her Uncle Fred when she was a young girl. It isn't dated but I suspect it was sent something over 100 years ago. We came into possession of it some years ago through Aunt Dorothy who had inherited an album that Fred kept for years. Neither Fred nor Dorothy had family of their own. Mother had her excellent handwriting even at this age and wrote: "Hello, Uncle Fred: I received your pretty card and was glad to find out where you were. We are all pretty well this winter. We are going to school every day. Uncle George is working for us now hauling hay. I got a letter from Aunt Mary Saturday. I would like to see you, answer soon. Florence"

We have another card that Mother sent to Fred so plan to send this one to my sister Janice for her to have as some family history. The bottom of the card isn't shown in this picture but is all intact. I "uninstalled " a program on my computer this afternoon and it fouled up some of my other programs. It took some readjusting to even be able to get this scanned to my computer. The lesson learned is that if something works, don't "fix" it.

Kansas City Royals,

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series, taking 4 games to the Kansas City Royal's 3. The "rubber" game ended 3-2 with Alex Gordon on 3rd base. How much closer could they come and still lose. Us Royal fans should be very grateful for the exciting end of season run that the team provided. As a long time NY Yankee fan, I began to follow the Royals when Lincoln, NE native Gordon was drafted as a #1 pick out of UN-L. I have a distinct memory of seeing Alex play 3rd base for the Huskers and commenting on his ability. Our interest in the Royals was also stimulated by seeing them nearly every game throughout the season on TV. Not only that, but they have been an exciting team all season as they rotated some players through Omaha. They are a young team that plays like they are  having fun. How can you explain a "wild card" team coming into the playoffs and winning 11 consecutive games other than to say, "GO ROYALS". And, THANK YOU for a great season of wholesome entertainment.