The luncheon
Thanks to farmers and especially their wives for the fine luncheon for Nebraska City business people.
To get down to the nitty-gritty, the farmers uprooted the luncheon given for them by local businesses. The townspeople served beans, the farmers served beef.
The growing success of the farmer-sponsored luncheon would indicate that next year will be more work yet I took just a wee bit of just about everything and walked away with a heaping plate. It was all good. Thanks much.
Hello, Mary Bell
Arbor Day is celebrated in Albuquerque, N.M., and a Nebraska City woman said she attended the ceremony and "it made me feel proud."
Mary Bell writes from Albuquerque that it seemed strange when she got an invitation to attend the Arbor Day ceremony there honoring a friend, Mrs. Erwin A. Rice.
" but when someone I know personally becomes involved in a city the size of Albuquerque with something I grew up with, it made me very proud of my Nebraska City roots."
Mrs. Erwin Rice was recognized for 14 years of voluntary work on "plant exchange," a project to omit the waste of unwanted plants and find new homes for them.
Mary said the paper keeps her up to date with Nebraska City and she looks forward to visitors from Nebraska City stopping in Albuquerque.
Mary works for the Salvation Army. The address is Box 381, Albuquerque, N.M., 87103.
The pork banquet
There were a whole lot of people at the annual pork producers banquet the other night. And we'll tell you one thing, they didn't serve any roast beef. It was pork and it was good. (I particularly liked the large cup of iced tea which helped whip off that piece of chocolate pie.)
It was the second or third time we had seen Sev Sorensen's slides of farming in Korea and we enjoyed his interesting and entertaining presentation.
Congratulations to Lois Peterson, Lincoln, on being selected as 1979 Pork Queen, and to the other winners of various contests. Don Kasbohm did an excellent job as emcee and his wife (nurse) Nancy was there to watch him all the time.
The chicks
John Sanders said in his column "The Grinder" in the current issue of the Auburn Press - Tribune that the "cheep-cheep" of baby chicks in the mail is seldom heard these days.
Raising chickens is an effort that few families attempt. The feasibility of producing grocery money just doesn't exist these days.
Growers can produce a broiler of several pounds in a month, but its bones can't keep up and the critters can't stand up.
"That's a far cry from the big old Buff Orpington or Rhode Island Red roosters which ruled the farm yard in our childhood days."
Snowbound
Mr. and Mrs. Verne Jones enjoyed a week with their daughter and family in Boulder and looked forward to the drive home. It was to be different.
Verne (Cale Yarborough) Jones thundered down the highway in his van, later followed various snowplows (there were "a hundred" cars behind him), stopped at Ogallala, got a motel room and settled down for the night.
The next morning, the area was a bedlam of truckers and other motorists who wanted to get back on the highway and head out.
Tell 'em Margaret
There's a special item attached to the refrigerator door in the Slim Steinman home.
It's a cartoon of two boys at a grocery store where prices were readily marked "up."
"I used to think when Mom sent me to bed without supper it was my punishment. Now I think it's to save on the grocery bill."