Son Verlon

I went through a bunch of  1970's pictures this morning while Elaine was at the Beauty Shop and found a couple of Verlon that warrant some discussion. Soil Conservation pictures for Jon is what I was looking for but as so often happens, you come across more interesting ones than what you looked for. I didn't get the year of this shot but believe it would have been about Verlon's Jr. year of Wakefield HS in Arlington, VA. His "cut-away" model house looks like a very neat piece of work and I must admit to having very little memory of it. Elaine and I were both working full time plus I finished my BA and got my MBA about the time Verlon would have been working on this project. It reminds me some-what of the model houses that Carolyn has worked on recently, including a model of a 7 foot row-house in Alexandria, VA. This picture also shows some of the "undergrowth in the fence line behind Verlon. This doesn't show it, but the walking Cane I use these days, was cut from a small Pin Oak growing in this fence line with a grape vine wrapped around it, which gave the Cane a unique twist. 

This picture of Verlon was taken a couple years later but again demonstrates some of his "artistic ability" that we didn't really appreciate at the time. I have no memory of his working on this vest nor know what may have become of it. I have no ideal of how he could have obtained the Budweiser patch or any other part of it for that matter. But looking back on it now, I don't believe either Elaine nor I gave him credit for developing a pretty unique vest that represented young people's attitudes in the 70's. We are looking forward to Verlon being out to visit later this summer. I've even added a couple "home maintenance" items today to the list of things for him to "take on" while he's here.  He will be here during the Eclipse and observing it will be the top priority. Hopefully, there will be time to do the repair work, painting, tree trimming, and yard work that needs to be done. We might not even have time to go to Bee for fish on Friday night. But, will do some special things and plan to just sit out on the Deck, have a drink,  and talk about things and stuff.

Bob Cerv, RIP

Bob Cerv, 91 died yesterday in Blair, NE. Cerv was a native of Weston, NE and had lived in Blair where he had family for the past several years. The daughter who lived there is one of their 10 children. My first memory of Bob was seeing him play basketball with UN-L back in the "Bus" Whitehead days. Bob was ahead of his time as a very physical, aggressive guard. He was also the Nebraska's baseball teams first All-American. He came to the University after having seen active combat during WW II. He signed with the Yankees following has graduation in 1950. Following the 1956 season, Cerv was sold to the Kansas City  Athletics where he had his best season in 1958 when he hit .305, hit 38 home runs and had 104 RBIs. In May 1960, he was traded back to the Yankees and joined Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle in the HR race.  This picture of Cerv, Manlte and Maris hung in his room at the Blair Care Facility at the time of his death.

During the summer of 1960, Jim Cain (with whom I worked in SCS), his sons Mike and Steve and I with Verlon and Tim went to a game in Kansas City with the Yankees. Maris hit 2 home runs in that game and broke the old Babe Ruth record of 60 HR's in 1961. In his career Cerv had 105 home runs, a 276 batting average with 624 hits. Following his major league career, he coached college baseball at Southeast Missouri State College and John F. Kennedy College in Wahoo, Nebraska where he also coached the men's basketball team. There is standing joke that most Czechs can figure out how they are related to each other if they talk long enough. I remember of my Dad and Mother coming home from a Vrana, Milicek, Ruzicka, Novotny, Moravec Family Reunion held in Weston, NE in the early '60's,  and Dad proudly telling me that they had figured out how we were related to the Bob Cerv Family

Solar Eclipse

With enthusiasm building for the Solar Eclipse coming up on August 21st this simmer, I dug out this picture taken on March 1, 1970. It was at the back door of our house in Arlington, Virginia. We placed binoculars in a shoe box and aligned it so the image of the eclipse was projected on the back of the box. I noted in my Diary that "we had a 95% eclipse maximum during the 1:00-3:00pm time frame. Since taking pictures was more costly in those days, this is the only one we have. As I understand, our duration of totality here in Seward on August 21 will only be for some 1minute and 34 seconds. I will set up a similar system to view this one but will plan to take many more digital pictures. Here is some interesting information on that earlier eclipse.

Don's Role in Our Conservation Family

Brother Don is shown here having just received a Distinguished Performance Award from his SCS boss, Rudy Hraban. Rudy was the Work Unit Conservationist in the Syracuse, NE Office, and Don was a Soil Conservation Technician there. Our son Jon who is with the SCS/NRCS, is doing a paper on members of our family that worked for the Soil Conservation Service and after it's name was changed to Natural Resources Conservation Service. Don just sent me some great pictures that I scanned and have sent on to Jon. In addition to Don's time with the Service, Jon's continuing career, and brother-in-law,  Ed Soucek and my 32 year Careers; we can combine a significant number of years of service. He was very effective in explaining terraces to farmers after having built them for some years.

Don is show next to the "cut-off section of this large corrugated metal tube and riser during an early stage of Dam construction. Earth fill is typically brought in to build a Dam over the top of such a drainage system. The large "riser" is set on a concrete base and the first section of the outlet tube, wielded to the riser. While Don's length of service with the Agency was shorter than the rest of us, it is very obvious from the pictures and all reports, that he certainly "did this Conservation Family proud" during those years and has continued to support the conservation ethic.

Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017

Our oldest son has reservations for flying back for his annual visit at the time of the Total Solar Eclipse on August 21, 2017. Word is that many locations along the route are already booked for hotel reservations. It appears that the "Totality" here will be less than 2 minutes. As I can recall, we had a partial solar eclipse back in the Arlington, VA area in the late 60's or early 70's. I remember of setting up our binoculars to project an image against a poster board.

It is interesting that we should have this event during the same year that we are celebrating the 150th birthday of Nebraska as a State and also for Seward as a city. While there is a full list of special activities already booked to celebrate these events, I haven't seen anything planned to recognize the solar Eclipse. We have had a lot of cloudy weather during the past couple weeks but normally, we get a lot more clouds and rain in April than we do in August. We usually hope for rain in Nebraska in August but not on the 21st.

Japanese Magnolia on North 5th.

We are near the end of the Japanese Magnolia blooming season for this spring. We now have several of them in Seward but this was an early one. This is the house on North 5th street my folks bought and moved to when they retired from the farm in 1976. They had a very Happy Retirement and lived here till their passing in 1989 and '90.  It was in the early '80's that I brought the Magnolia out from Nebraska Nurseries and planted it for the folks on the north side of the driveway. The place was then sold to a young couple that were coming to Seward. During their several years there, they added a parking strip to the driveway and moved the tree to it's current location. We continue to be indebted to them for their having moved the Magnolia since it meant so much to the folks. They made other improvements to the place as have subsequent owners. Many of us in the Florence and Tony Vrana family have so many Happy Memories of the Folks in this place and of the Magnolia that it serves as a Memorial to them as we picture it in bloom and drive past the place on our way to Church.

Baseball Basketball Overlap