With the weekend’s winter weather, this writer stayed home. I went straight home after work on Friday and didn’t leave the house until I walked to the office on Sunday afternoon.
Throughout the pandemic I’ve been keeping pretty much to myself and trying to avoid coming in contact with the virus. If our newspapers are to maintain legal status, we must print an issue every week. And for the last 19 years I have been the press operator. I must not miss a press day.
Without lots of social contact, I spend more time thinking about past events than I once did. I was amazed when a former customer who was also shut-in by the weather emailed me a copy of a bill I sent him on Sept. 30, 1967, for taking his wedding pictures.
I charged $46 for photographing his wedding and the enlargements cost another $67.50. I smiled when he added, “You did a great job. After 54 years we are still looking at them.”
I’m glad he liked the pictures for I misspelled his name on the bill I presented for the completed work.
I’m amazed he kept the wedding bills for so long. They aren’t what I would consider to be “keepsakes.”
When another wedding customer visited the newspaper office a year or two ago, I asked how he liked his wedding pictures.
I was told they were apparently satisfactory but he didn’t remember them.
His was my strangest wedding assignment. The couple hired another photographer who wasn’t able to attend. Prior to the wedding, the photographer asked if I would help him and take the photos. He agreed to do the darkroom work.
I shot the wedding and submitted my film to the contracted photographer for processing. I have never had an opportunity to see the finished pictures.
One client not only looks at the pictures regularly but has saved the bills. The other hardly remembers having had pictures taken. I didn’t ask but I doubt he saved the photographer’s bill.
The important thing is both marriages have lasted more than 50 years.
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And speaking of 50 years, it was 50 years ago that Nebraska created regional natural resources districts. Nuckolls County is divided into two districts. The Little Blue NRD serves that portion of the county drained by the Little Blue River and the Lower Republican NRD serves the southern portion which contains the Republican River.
Prior the creation of the natural resource districts, Nuckolls County had its own conservation district. Val Bohaty was the district conservationist. I remember assisting him with the promotion of a flood control and conservation dam which was proposed to be located on Lost Creek, a short distance upstream from Superior.
I was at the dam site and talked with Soil Conservation Service technicians as they surveyed the site and drew the plans. I considered the proposed project to be an exciting one that would have sparked community growth. All the funding was to come from outside the community.
In addition to the flood control benefits, there was a potential for a housing development adjacent to the resulting lake.
The project was delayed by the creation of the NRDs but the Lower Republican district eventually adopted it. But that adoption came too late.
Some local funding was needed and community support for the project had faded. It was never built. I don’t have any hope for it today for the rules governing the Republican River Compact no longer allow projects that have that much potential for changing the river flow.
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Commenting on this week’s weather, a friend said, “I’d rather be sunburnt and covered with mosquito bites trying to figure out how to stomp a copperhead with a flip flop than to deal with winter weather.”
Just as the proposed Lost Creek Dam ran into opposition, some area residents want winter weather.
On Thursday a middle-aged woman was telling me about her New Year’s Holiday plans. She was hopeful her family would beat the weekend storm to her house. As expected she was planning to have lots of good food and games to entertain. Unexpectedly she also hoped for enough snow the family could go sledding. She noted it had been two years since they had been able to do that.
A friend I sailed with on Lovewell Lake in the 1970s now maintains homes in both Florida and Canada. While many residents of this area have either gone or are planning to go to warmer climates for the winter, this family left their home in Florida and flew their own airplane to Canada for a winter vacation in the home they maintain in that country.
I’ve been getting pictures of the snow and temperature reports with notations about how much they are loving winter in Canada.
COVID or No COVID I don’t plan a winter vacation to visit them.
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Another friend who raises horses reported on preparations for the arrival of the New Year’s storm. Six horses had been blanketed that morning. Only one of the horses had to be tied and that wasn’t because he wouldn’t stand still. It was because he kept grabbing the blankets being put on the other horses and jerking them off before they were snapped in place. The horse was in a playful mood and considered Snatch the Blanket to be a fun game. The other horses may have enjoyed the game but the adults did not.
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If everything went as expected. It would be a boring world and we wouldn't have anything to write about.Happy New Year!
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