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In recent days I watched part of a 45 minute long video in which a hobbyist restored a Maytag gasoline engine. In the nearly 40 years the Maytag Company of Newton, Iowa, manufactured engines, several models were made. Production ended in the early 1950s. As a youngster I didn’t know about the models. I thought all engines with a starter pedal were Maytags and I wanted one. My father wasn’t fond of the Maytag engine and didn’t understood why I would want a Maytag when I had access to other engin...
While talking with a subscriber on Monday, it was suggested I should write more about my life and the business my family operated on a hill overlooking Superior. I thanked her for the suggestion but noted it has been nearly 50 years since I lived on Blauvelt’s Hill and my father sold the business in 1971. I lived there at least part of the time during my first 26 years. I have lived in the same house in Superior since April 1, 1972, and have worked at this newspaper since May of 1970. In the 50 years I’ve been writing this column, I have sha...
Miniseters have long asked people to remember the true meaning of Christmas but it hard to combat the commercialization of the holiday. While we try to maintain some degree of normal, this year all holidays are different. Earlier this week, a friend emailed me a letter from Santa Claus. I’m not sure who wrote the letter. Melanie Mainqusit may have for she sent it to me for inclusion in the Courtland Journal, a newspaper published by her father, Bob Mainquist. The letter addresses much of the uncertainty surrounding this year’s Christmas sea...
This newspaper is dated, Thursday, November 26, 2020 but I suspect many readers of this column will not do so until after the Thanksgiving holiday. However, because the health departments are discouraging family gatherings this Thanksgiving, I suspect the number of people who chose to read the electronic version of this column on Thanksgiving Day will set a record. All paid subscribers have, at no additional cost, the option of receiving the paper both via the internet and in a printed form. Some elect to take one or the other but that is...
A friend from my growing up years in Superior, Stan Copeland will be back in Superior on Sunday to speak at the First Presbyterian Church service. A combat veteran and former U.S. Army chaplain, he is now living near Quinter, Kansas and conducting worship services for country congregations. He has been in Superior several times to assist the Presbyterians. A member of the Superior congregation, Randy Rhoads, said he will definitely keep the attention of those attending this week’s service. The Copeland family left Superior after Stan’s eig...
Since the arrival of the pandemic, area residents have been presented with a series of challenges. Rita and I are long-term Sunday school teachers but the classrooms at the church we have regularly attended are not large enough to allow for social distancing. We have relied on alternatives. When the weather was nicer, we met outside but a new plan was needed as the weather cooled. In more recent times, we have been meeting in the downtown Superior building constructed about 95 years ago to house the Mullet store. Sunday morning, we were in the...
I have often been impressed by the intelligence shown by the animals we closely associate with. A current example is our neighborhood cat. I don’t know who the cat belongs to but he is a friendly animal who enjoys being petted and likes to be with people. He has learned our routine and is often waiting at our back door demanding our attention. Other times of the day, he apparently is either at his permanent home or visiting other friends. On the weekend, I read a story about the German prisoner of war camp that was located in Osborne County, Ka...
Several important days are included in the coming month of November. As a youngster, I thought there was only one important day in the entire month of November, that being Thanksgiving Day. I liked Thanksgiving Day for a number of reasons. It would have been a good day, if for no other reason than I didn’t have to go to school. But there were other reasons, Thanksgiving and Christmas were the only two days of the year that my father closed his gasoline station. On Thanksgiving, we went to his parents’ home for a dinner which featured tur...
When it comes to making mistakes, few people are immune. What sets some of us apart is how we recover from our mistakes. When opening the Monday morning mail, I realized an envelope from a national printing company had been flipped in the printing process. The flap I had to open was on the bottom instead of the top. Not a major problem, I just had to turn the envelope over so my letter opener would work. Looking at it more closely, I discovered the window was in the wrong position. If one turned the envelope to put the flap in the right...
A private funeral will be held for Dale Adcock, one of the last of my old neighbors from the days when I lived on Blauvelt’s Hill. I want to emphasize the term (old) as opposed to those I classify as the “youngsters.” While I consider them to be the youngsters, most readers of this newspaper will put them in a different class. For an example we have recently had an ad in this newspaper for one of those youngsters, Twila Cool, congratulating her on her 80th birthday. The Adcock family purchased part of the farm my grandfather once owned and m...
If we were to assemble a list of all the specially designated days, weeks and months into a book, I suspect that book would be as big as an unabridged dictionary. Though there are only 365 days in a year, the National Day Calendar group now tracks nearly 1,500 national days weeks and months. According to that group, October 1 was National Black Dog Day, National Hair Day, Fire Pup Day and National Homemade Cookie Day. October 2 was National Produce Misting Day, National Custodial Workers Recognition Day, National Name Your Car Day, National...
Monday evening a Superior resident appealed the denial of her request to build a chain-link dog run in the yard behind her home. She had paid the application fee and submitted the requested design plans which apparently comply with city regulations only to have the application denied because the property owner has not complied with a previous nuisance abatement order. As requested, weeds have been cut and inoperative or unlicensed vehicles removed. Council members agreed the property was looking much better, However, the absentee landlord has...
This is National Small Business Week, a week designated to celebrate the resolve and ingenuity of American entrepreneurs. The week is usually observed the first week of May but this year the pandemic changed the date. While small businesses are still responsible for more than half of this country’s jobs, small businesses appear to be an endangered species. The cost of complying with government regulations and soaring health care costs have discouraged many small business owners. Earlier this week, I was present when a junior high school s...
Lots of things going on in this world today that I don’t understand but thanks to a reader who saved the original clipping, I have this week reread a story the Hastings Tribune published in 1973 that is applicable to this country’s current situation. For that article, Roy Alleman interviewed Father John Prachar who was then serving the St. Stephens Catholic Church. Later he was to serve St. Joseph’s Church at Superior. Father John was quick to speak in defense of the freedom he experienced in America. What he said 47 years ago applies today...
Like many people, because of the dangers associated with COVID-19, I’ve been staying close to home. Only go out when absolutely necessary, and so I miss meeting and talking with people. My grandparents taught me to people watch. On the Blauvelt side, they liked to park in downtown Superior on Saturday night. Grandfather would drive his automobile downtown Saturday afternoon and find a suitable parking place. He would then leave the vehicle and walk home. After supper, he and Grandmother would walk back downtown, sit in their automobile and visi...
Tuesday was the 75th anniversary of the signing of the treaty which officially ended our war with Japan. A war that began with the bombing of our ships in Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Elsewhere in this issue, we have published stories told by area residents about the jubilation Americans felt when the war was finally over. The Japanese had surrendered earlier but the signing of the truce treaty meant the war was officially over. I’ve heard my parents tell their story about Sept. 3, 1945, so many times, I almost think I was there that day. F...
In the summer of 1970 people and businesses served by U. S. Highway 136 and Nebraska 14 were upset by a highway improvement plan being promoted by state roads department which they thought was shortchanging their highways and the southernmost Nebraska counties. A headline in an August issue of The Express proclaimed “Will U.S. Highway 136 Be Ignored?” At that time, Kansas and Nebraska were still working to complete Interstates 70 and 80 across their respective states but planners were looking ahead and identifying future projects. On Oct. 14,...
When many people were planting larger gardens this year, Rita and I decided we would attempt to raise more with less. Our plan was smaller but more carefully managed garden space than we have had some years. One of our goals was to use up seed left over from prior years. To make up for lower germination, we planted more seeds expecting to thin as needed. Among our saved seeds was a package of cucumber seed. Apparently the seed company’s package had been damaged and the seed was transferred to a plain envelope or it was purchased from a bulk s...
It’s been hard to find subjects for this week’s notebook entries. Most weeks when it comes time to write the piece to fill this space, I review what I have done in the past week and conversations I’ve had. Before his death eight years ago, a conversation with my father often sparked an idea. In his retirement years, Dad had a daily coffee circuit and often shared tidbits of information he gained from the other coffee drinkers. Sometimes those tidbits led to newspaper stories, other times the tidbits directed our thoughts back to prior event...
The author of a newspaper column I regularly read often begins his column with “Things I know and things I think I know.” If I were to attach a title to this week’s column it would be “Things I don’t understand.” Saturday morning I received a telephone call apparently sponsored by one of the national political parties. The caller indicated she was taking a public opinion poll and wanted to ask Roy Blauvelt a few questions. I responded by saying he was not available. She wouldn’t settle for me telling her my father was not available. Sh...
When my family sold and raised watermelons, our customers had their own ways to determine which melon was best. Some picked the melons up and shook them. I assume they did so to determine the weight and suitability for their family size. Some thumbed the melon and listened for the sound. My father said that method was not a reliable way to determine if a melon was ripe. “Others insisted a selected melon had to first be plugged. To do this we had a special knife which would reach to the melon’s heart and withdraw a round cylinder. Plugged mel...
A news release from the Central States Center for Agricultural Safety and Health, recently crossed the editor’s desk. The release was directed to the agricultural community and contained many safety tips with regard to the handling of hazardous materials. I’m not disagreeing with the tips but I’m sure glad my father didn’t know about some of the tips when I was growing up. If he had, my childhood would have been much different. The one I particularly noted advised children should not be allowed near fuel storage locations. I grew up playing...
A promise to help a friend who was out-of-town for the weekend with an early morning task got me out and about in Superior earlier than normal on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. My morning jaunts were so interesting I stretched them out a bit longer than was absolutely necessary. Superior was abnormally quiet on both mornings but even more so on Sunday. Were it not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Superior would have been hopping Saturday morning with the 38th running of the Firekracker 10K (sic) and related events. Because of the pandemic, the...
A few days ago a friend living out-of-state said "I love sand but I prefer it on the beach." I didn't understand the comment when it was made but I do now for it referred to the Saharan dust plume that reached the United States in late June. We got to experience the edge of that plume Sunday. While it apparently was much worse on the gulf coast, I certainly didn't enjoy the sand storm it brought to our area on Sunday. I don't want a repeat, but weather forecasters indicate another plume of...
With the combination of the COVID stay-at-home recommendation and the National Weather Service category 3 severe storm forecast for Sunday afternoon, Rita and I stayed pretty close to home. Since the latest cornavirus arrived in this area, Rita and I have not been physically attending Sunday morning worship services. Weather permitting, we have participated in Sunday morning parking lot services and planned to do so again this week, but with all of Sunday's thunder, lightning and rain, we change...
