One of the most interesting family trips we've taken occurred about 10 years ago and opened our eyes to a problem that we as midwesterners generally know little about – smog.
We were cruising along in our Rambler station wagon with the children and grandparents en route to Anaheim, Calif., the site of Disneyland.
As most of us know, when you're vacationing, it usually means too much to eat for a couple of weeks and staying up late every night. That's what a couple of us thought as we approached the Disneyland area, not enough sleep. Our eyes began burning and by the time we got to the fun city, we knew all about smog.
President Nixon said the other day that the smog in Chicago is as bad as it is in Los Angeles. And from what we read, air pollution in the big cities is expanding at an alarming rate.
Makes you feel pretty fortunate to live right here in lil' ole' rinky dinky Nebraska City, doesn't it?
Farle Reynolds, Omaha, a representative of the independent business association, told one the other day about two little fellows who peeked through a knothole in a wooden fence surrounding a nudist camp.
Later, they were scolded by parents and asked:
"Was it a camp for men or women?"
"We dunno. They weren't wearing any clothes," the children said.
Mr. Reynolds also told another story about a catalog sales company and a farmer. He said the farmer was awakened in the morning to the alarm clock purchased from the company, milked his cows with equipment bought from the company, ate his breakfast cooked on a stove purchased from the company and drove to town on tires from the company.
"And what did that company do for the farmer?" Mr. Reynolds asked.
"Printed its catalog in slick paper."
The Nebraska City Chamber of Commerce and Earl Wurtele (in charge of the Chamber float) are looking for suggestions on a special kind of float that will hold up under many miles this summer.
The Chamber's Sister City this year is Ogallala. Last year Earl Freeman towed the float umpteen miles including to the Czech Festival at Wilber, our Sister City.
Dan Austin, the U.S. Chamber executive who spoke here the other night to the local board of directors, had a number of complimentary comments.
Mr. Austin spent only one day here but gave this first impression: "A clean, progressive town with four of the nicest tourist facilities, plus a fine business district and river development."
Like the man said, "how's that grab you?"
The Chamber has another project it would like to intitiate this year and that is playing host to seniors in the high schools and the new University chancellor.
Wayne Brown, the First Presbyterian church member who authored the annual meeting resolution not to give any financial support to U.S. draft dodgers in Canada, has heard much about the resolutions since the story appeared in the paper several days ago.
He has received letters, clippings from other newspapers and telephone calls commending him for introducing the resolution, which by the way, was approved overwhelmingly by those attending the meeting.
Most of us disagreed with the state traffic engineer when he said that state studies did not show a need for a traffic light at Eleventh and First Corso.
We felt that that particular study was lacking somewhere alone the line. It seems to us who drive that intersection a great deal that it is a hazardous corner and needs traffic direction. But the state man said no and he feels supported in his statement by a state-conducted survey.
Nebraska City may some day have one-way streets as proposed by the Planning commission and the state highway department in separate studies. Many of us don't like one-ways for one reason or another. I'm usually the fellow that goes up the one-way the wrong way.
But they are a coming thing what with the increased number of vehicles traveling the streets. The state man did have one good point—streets are made for moving traffic, not for parking cars.
Beatrice has one-way streets and we read the other day that the town is now proposing a one-block mall construction similar to the mall in Atchison, Kansas.
Nebraska City Planners have aired several ideas on malls and perhaps one day such a design will occur on Central Avenue. The big drawback here is off-street parking. It's pretty tough to close off street or two to pedestrians without additional parking lots. Perhaps time will change that and to the good, we hope.
The state survey also showed that the central business district is the most accident-prone area. You don't have to tell that to a Nebraska City policeman. Chief Iversen's officers conducted 154 traffic accidents in the business district area during the period of the state study.
Story for the day:
Know how the Polak got 48 holes in his face?
He was trying to learn to eat with a fork.