It was nip and tuck Friday at The Express as we rushed to complete jobs promised to be ready before the Vestey Festival. One of those projects was an update of the Superior History booklet we originally printed for Beverly Beavers in 2002. The update wasn’t finished until mid-morning Friday.
As a Superior elementary school teacher, Mrs. Beavers used the booklets each year when she taught a unit on local history.
Though she has retired from teaching, she continues to be interested in local history. The updated booklets are available for purchase at The Express office and at the Superior Chamber of Commerce office. All of the proceeds will be donated to the Superior Auditorium.
We filled our orders but we failed to eradicate some weeds or prepare the planned window displays.
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For those looking for a more extensive Superior history, we still have available the three volume hardback series written by the late Stan Sheets.
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And we have for sale at The Express office a booklet written by Sumner Miller, a former Superior resident and contemporary of Evelyn Brodstone. In that booklet, he tells the story of purchasing the bicycle Evelyn rode to Red Cloud when she would go to visit her friend, Willa Cather. I don’t expect it to happen but wish we could find the bicycle.
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I enjoy visiting cemeteries at Memorial Day time, remembering those I knew who are buried there and taking in the splendor of blooming peony plants. The plants are hardy, require little care and faithfully bloom at Memorial Day. Each Memorial Day I vow to plant more peony plants. But when the time arrives in the fall, I get distracted and don’t do it. I’m a lot like the woman who said, “I can’t believe I forgot to clean my sewing room yesterday. This is the 50th year in a row I have forgotten.”
It’s a matter of do as I say and not as I do, but we could do much to beautify Superior at festival time if all Superior residents would plant a few peony bushes this fall. I am particularly enjoying the peonies planted on the little intersection triangles. Those triangles are often a difficult place in which to maintain grass but peonies seem to thrive there for they like lots of sunshine and require little supplemental watering. And just as certain as death and taxes, they bloom near the end of May.
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While visiting the Olive Hill Cemetery on Sunday afternoon, I missed an opportunity to capture a memorable photograph. At the end of the sidewalk which originally led from the county road to the first Olive Hill Church, sets a small building used to store cemetery supplies. I looked over at the building and saw a bull snake standing on his tail and looking through a window into the building. I reached for camera but wasn’t quick enough to have a picture to prove what I saw. The snake didn’t stop for a measurement but he was a big one, certainly more than three feet long. It was about noon and I suspect he would have liked to have found a way into the building and perhaps caught a mouse.
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It was fun to see Russ McCord’s Model A Ford all slicked up and rolling down the street Saturday morning. Russ was one of the chamber of commerce board members who hired me fresh out of Kansas State University to serve as the Superior chamber manager. I replaced a 17-year veteran manager who as more than 50 years my senior. Remember when we were planning an event and I overheard one of the planners, who was also a former manager of the chamber, ask, “Do you suppose the boy can do it?” I no longer remember exactly what he wanted me to do but it involved public speaking.
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The old Model A was purring Saturday morning and it appeared to effortlessly perform its parade duties. That wasn’t the case when I had a hand in showing a spiffy Model A convertible in a Superior homecoming parade. The car belonged to the father of a sophomore member of the Key Club. The sophomore arranged for the car but he wasn’t old enough to legally drive it. The car started easily but while idling in line it began to overheat.
We turned off the motor and pushed the Model A down Central Avenue. The parade route started at the school on Tenth Street and went over to Central and down to Second where it turned east to Commercial and returned to Fourth and Central for a pep rally.
We had it pretty easy rolling to Second Street but from there it was uphill. We all jumped into the car started the motor and rushed it home. We found the car ran fine at the faster speed.
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Sunday afternoon a cousin from Rogers, Arkansas, found me in City Park listening to the music concert. She had made the long trip to Nebraska to decorate the graves of family members in several communities. While decorating the graves of a great aunt and uncle in a rural cemetery near Ayr, she was caught in a drenching rain. She changed clothes at the cemetery before continuing on to the Fairfield Cemetery. She was sure the rain clouds were building again and was nervous her GPS navigation system wouldn’t work if she was caught in a heavy rain.
The musicians who had driven to Superior from Alma, said they had been in heavy rain as far east as Guide Rock. Fearing rain might interrupt their program, they hurried and finished their planned song list early and added to the program. At this writing on Tuesday morning, the expected rain has not yet reached Superior.
But we have hope it will come one of these days for rain always follows a drought.
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The guys who stored the Superior Trolley after Saturday’s parade repored they found a trophy in the trolley. If a reader is missing a festivaltrophy, please call at The Express office, we may have it.
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We were fortunate to have the trolley uptown for the parade. The 49-year-old John Deere tractor, we planned to pull it, with had ignition problems both before and after the parade and parts stores were not open. Before the trolley could be taken up town, a coil wire had to be borrowed from a Ferguson tractor. And after the parade, the tractor had more ignition problems and its battery appeared to fail.
Hopefully before next year’s parade we will remember to change the ignition wiring and probably the battery,
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