While helping to organize the youngsters’ letters included in this week’s newspaper, I observed the names of the toys youngsters of 2021 are hoping to receive.
Made me thankful to not have youngsters on my Christmas gift list for I didn’t recognize the names of the popular toys.
The exercise took me back to my childhood when I learned about the new toys by visiting stores’ toy departments and seeing what my friends were playing with.
When given an opportunity, to go where I wanted in downtown Superior, I visited the toy departments and dreamed about how much fun I could have if I had the toys on display.
My want list knew no bounds.
The Concordia toy store was my favorite store. I could have stayed in that store for days looking at toys and drooling.
At least once I was allowed to walk from near St. Joseph’s Hospital to the toy store while the adults I was with attended to other matters.
When walking to school, I was known to dilly-dally and be late. That wasn’t the case with the toy store. I made a beeline straight to the store.
Had Legos been available when I was youngster, they would have been at the top of my list for I liked to build things. I built buildings with plastic blocks, bridges with an Erector Set and power lines with Tinker Toys.
The power lines may have been one of my more dangerous endeavors for I strung string from pole to pole and didn’t understand why my mother didn’t want a power line in front of her kitchen door.
When it was mild enough to play outside, I liked to build roads and I wanted all sorts of construction equipment. I didn’t enjoy building roads in the sand box for rain would wash away my graded roads and level the sand. I preferred to build my roads with dirt which stood up better in the rain. I not only built roads but I dug rivers and canals and constructed dams. Rivers and canals required bridges which I nailed together. I liked to haul buckets of water in my Mercury coaster wagon and make the rivers and canals flow. If I had firecrackers, I used them to blow the dams. I liked to see the mud and water fly.
Santa never brought me the Tonka dump truck I longed for but once the Gambles store advertised the Tonka truck I wanted. I had saved enough money to pay for the truck but I feared the clerk would think I was too old for such a child’s toy. When I went to the store to purchase the truck, I asked to have it gift wrapped.
I didn’t want to tell my mother I had spent some of the money I was supposed to be saving for college on a toy, so I hid the package in her car. Then I snuck it into the house and printed a gift tag which said “To Billy From Santa Claus.”
That didn’t work so well because the Santa Claus I shared the house with immediately knew something was up.
————
Early in my childhood, I noticed Santa Claus didn’t always look or talk the same. My parents explained Santa was like the sheriff who had deputies to help enforce the law. Santa Claus also had deputies who helped at busy times. When there wasn’t enough snow on the ground for his sled, Santa travelled by airplane. On Christmas Eve I watched the sky hoping to get a glimpse of the flashing red light on his airplane or Rudolph’s flashing red nose.
Deputy Santas regularly visited the country school I attended. One year Deputy Santa wore shoes identical to those my father wore.
When I questioned why the Deputy Santa’s red suit was made from Blue Line feed sacks dyed red, my parents explained Santa was strapped for money that year because of having to buy so many presents. To save money, Mrs. Claus made his suit of the cloth recycled from Farmers Union Mill feed sacks. I understood that explanation for my mother used similar sacks from the Superior mill to make shirts, pajamas, dish towels, pillow cases and aprons.
Santa problems aren’t limited to my childhood. This week a Santa Claus called The Express to order a newspaper gift subscription and also had a problem.
She gave me the recipient’s address and asked that I hold the line while she got her debit card. After a long delay, she came on the line, apologized for being so slow and said she couldn’t find her purse. After another delay, she breathlessly read me the card information and explained she had carried her groceries into the house but had forgotten and left her purse in the car.
———————
This week I have added another story to my collection relating to dealings with Windstream, the longtime provider of telephone service in southeast Nebraska.
Last Wednesday’s hurricane force winds damaged the line which connects my house with the company’s main line in the alley. The drop line is not only sagging and resting on my garage roof, it is hooked under and lifting the garage shingles. There was a time when I would have gotten a ladder and fixed the problem.
I am no longer eager to take on such tasks.
I tried to call the company. Repair numbers were once boldly printed in the company telephone directories. That is no longer the case. I did find a couple of numbers in the 2021 directory but they were so small I had to use a magnifying glass to read them.
The first number I dialed took me to the phone comany where I was given a menu of numbers to select from. I selected the number for service problems and was promptly told that number was no longer in service. Thinking I made a mistake, I tried again and got the same result.
I found an 800 number to dial, tried it and was connected with the Superior Publishing Company’s voice mail service. I have a close relationship with Superior Publishing Company and I knew leaving a message with them would not solve my problem.
After trying both numbers multiple times and getting the same message, I gave up and dialed the number for billing problems.
I did actually reach a live person who chastised me for calling the wrong number. She promised to connect me with the right department. After being on hold for more than enough time to have gotten a ladder out and corrected the problem, I finally spoke to a live person. She also had to put me on hold.
If I had Glenwood service at home like I do at the newspaper office, I could have stopped by their Superior office and personally left the message.
When the county commissioners met Monday at Nelson, they were told Windstream is trying to stop the plan for South Central Public Power and Glenwood to team up and jointly offer fiber optic services throughout the power company’s Nuckolls County service area. Reportedly, Windstream claims to be adequately serving the county with fiber optic service.
I’ll argue with that. The company’s current service falls far short of what we want and expect.
Reader Comments(0)