Editor's Notebook

Sept 18, 2022

In June of 1953, the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was exciting news for me. We didn’t have television or the internet then but I was spellbound listening to radio news broadcasts from London reporting on the festivities.

I suspect I curled up on the floor with a toy truck in front of the Philco console radio and listened to the broadcasts. Compared to today’s radios, the old Philco was a monster. It must have been at least four feet tall and three feet wide.

If my parents were present, my father was probably sitting nearby in a red upholstered platform rocker eating popcorn and my mother was sitting on the davenport sewing with a bridge lamp illuminating her work.

When Life magazine arrived in the mail, I studied the coronation coverage and dreamed of having been in London and seeing it first hand.

The coronation was big news. To this day, I mentally picture Queen Elizabeth as a 20 something woman, not the elderly women today news reports picture. As a youngster, I followed the news reports of her sister Margaret’s escapades and dreamed about what it would be like to play with the royal children.

When the big radio was no longer reliable, a television set became the focus of my parents’ living room. However, mother didn’t want to part with the radio cabinet. She had it made into a lamp table which she treasured until her death.

It is a wonder I wasn’t electrocuted but I salvaged the radio parts and reconnected them in the basement area reserved for my toys. I had to prop up the speaker which must have been 18 inches in diameter. The exposed radio guts were nearby. I was pleased if I could get the fading tubes to play for 30 minutes a day. Since the string which connected the turning knob to the tuner had broke, I had to slide the tuner by hand which made changing stations difficult.

Tinkering with that old radio helped develop my interest in electronics. Later I was to assemble several electronic kits including two radios.

I used one of the radios to listen to shortwave radio broadcasts from around the world. Thanks to that shortwave radio and the BBC, I have heard Big Ben strike out the time and English language propaganda broadcasts from behind the Iron Curtain.

When NASA began sending men into space, I listened to radio transmissions from the navy ships standing by to pickup a Mercury astronaut.

Not long after the queen’s coronation, my parents purchased a smaller radio which they could move about the house.

On wash day Mother took the radio to the basement to listen to while she was washing clothes with a Speed Queen wringer washing machine. Wash day required a lot of work. Water was heated in a boiler and a bucket used to dip the hot water out of the boiler and pour it into the washing machine. The clothes had to be run through the wringer as they were moved from the washing tub, to the bluing tub and the rinse tub. After being sent through the wringer for the last time, the wet clothes were taken outside and hung on a line to dry.

I doubt that I was much help, but I like to be in the basement with my mother on wash day.

One morning the radio feature was a remote broadcast from Lebanon, Kan., the center of the 48 states. Near the center marker, a farm was being built in a day. It was exciting listening to the reports of the activity. A large number of workers had been assembled to construct buildings and perform conservation work on the farm which became known as Center Dairy.

Listening to those broadcasts and reading the stories printed in magazines and newspapers whetted my interest in reporting.

I thought then and still think today, that being a reporter and sharing stories and pictures is the best job one can ever have.

However, my interest in British royal affairs has faded.

In 1953, I didn’t care a hoot about what was happening with University of Nebraska football. Not sure I even knew the university had a football team.

This week I have little interest in what is happening with the British royal family. Instead I have been following the circus in Lincoln-- the one that involves the University of Nebraska at Lincoln athletic directors and football coaches

Since 2005, the university has committed to spend more than $50 million to fire athletic directors and coaches.

$50 million is more than chump change.

I’d like to retire and would do so for a much smaller settlement.

This week the university agreed to shell out $15 million for the privilege of firing Scott Frost early. Had they waited 20 days the payout could have been cut in half.

I’m having a hard time understanding why the coach needed to be fired this week. Why couldn’t the action have been taken at the end of the season?

I remember when the Superior Schools fired a football coach in my junior year.

I didn’t like the coach and was glad to see him go, but the guys that played football liked him.

I liked his replacement but my classmates who were on the team refused to give their all for him. As a result, the team’s winning season in my junior year became a losing season in my senior year.

And it was disaster for the poor coach hired as his replacement. He was never able to overcome his dismal experience at Superior and eventually left education.