Editor Notebook

It took 21 years but Friday I finally made it to Deshler and the Spring Creek Model Trains store. I had planned to attend their spring toy show but a family conflict took me south to Osborne on show day.

As a youngster, I enjoyed playing with a Lionel model train and dreamed of expanding the train layout to circle the basement of my family's home on Blauvelt's Hill. I studied the toy catalogs and designed the layout I wanted to build when I got sufficient money together. Of course, there had to be bridges across the two openings that led from the basement and I drew bridge designs. As the concrete surfaced shelf around the basement was at two heights, my plans made provision for helper engines with which to pull the trains up the grades. The dream system would operate in divisions just like the big railroads with communities and sidings along the route. I devoted many hours to dreaming about what could be.

That model layout I dreamed about was never built but should I decide to built something like that today, the Deshler train store appears to have everything I would need.

David and Debby Zucker began the business in a 5x10-foot trailer and have since expanded it to fill a former supermarket building. Without doubt, it is Deshler's biggest store.

The Zuckers have long loved trains. As a youngster, Dave like to meet the Rock Island trains that traveled through Deshler and Debby's father was the Rock Island's last agent-operator stationed at the Deshler Depot.

Every two years, they host a train show on the Thayer County Fair grounds, The most recent show was held on July 25 and it was so big exhibits overflowed into the Deshler Lutheran School.

Their Deshler store is the largest hobby store west of Kansas City and it is packed with merchandise. Thanks to the internet, orders are shipped to customers around the world. While I was there, an employee pushed two full carts of packaged merchandise to the Deshler Post office.

And The Express went along in those packages. Since the Deshler Rustler closed, the store is helping to recycle our left-over or spoiled papers by using them as packing material.

The Zuckers' sons and hired employees help with the operation of the business.

Pre-pandemic, the Zuckers were annually attending 40 train shows a year. With the continued growth of their internet store, they hope in the post-pandemic world to attend about 20 shows per year. Last weekend store representatives were attending a show at St. Louis.

Merchandise is obtained from eight major suppliers and about 20 smaller ones. Many of the items they stock are custom made for the store including several Rock Island cars. Among the items for sale in the store is a book we also stock in Superior about the Ideal Cement Company's railroad that connected the company's plant west of Superior with the rock quarry in Kansas.

While in Deshler, I also attended a ribbon cutting at the Patriot Beef processing plant. Located in the former Zero Pantry building, the building and location is a throwback to the days when nearly every community had a downtown locker and slaughtering plant. I remember when Superior had two locker plants, one where Ideal Market is now and the other where the laundrymat is located. The plant on West Fourth Street also made ice and ice cream. The main street plant did custom slaughtering, sold meat and rented lockers. A second custom slaughtering plant and meat market was located on West First Street.

The owners of the two Deshler businesses have seen and taken advantage of the opportunities offered in a small town.

Deb said they first considered locations in the cities but found the per-foot building rental costs were prohibitive. Deshler's building costs were far less and the post office where there orders are shipped from is within walking distance.

Patriot Beef's Darryl Lindeque left South Africa for the United States in 2010. He took over the former Zero Pantry on June 20 and opened for business on July 2. He employes five workers. The business is doing custom processing.

Lindeque arrived in Fargo, N.D. from South Africa with $50 in his pocket and a carry-on suitcase. At the time, South Africa was politically unstable and as a white man he was unable to obtain employment.

Until the Trump administration changed the regulations, this newspaper was working with another company who specialized in bringing workers from places like South Africa to the United States on agricultural visas. Before hiring someone with an ag visa, the American farm owners had to demonstrate they had tried to hire American workers. That's where The Express came in. The Express was approved to publish advertisements for farmers located in South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Missouri.

Lindeque also worked on a Minnesota farm before being employed by an irrigation operation at North Bend, Neb. He met his wife at a street dance in Lincoln. Her family lived in Juniata and the couple moved there.

Lindeque told a Hebron Journal-Register reporter, anyone can do anything in America. "If you are willing to get out of bed and go to work there really is opportunity."

Since coming to this country, he has gained his citizenship. His mother and father also joined him in the United States and now live in Davenport. His father, Aubrey, is now working at the Deshler business.

Lindeque said the farmers around Deshler were incredible and had helped them get on their feet.

While I standing outside the plant on a nearly 1-- degree day, I watched plant workers load meat packed in insulated coolers into an automobile with Buffalo County license plates.