A Bunch Of Things

Just got back from a two mile walk on the trail by the lake, and my legs are feeling the lack of exercise that generally goes with winter out here. Remember, my walks are not leisurely strolls - I step it out at pretty good pace. Of course, I started the day with some walking this morning in the city auditorium/basketball arena. Twenty-six times around the interior of the building equals one mile, but it's just not the same as walking the trail and watching for squirrels or deer, or scanning the lake (which is not frozen in the center) and watching a bald eagle try a stealthy swoop to grab one of the ducks still hanging around here. Last winter, the fish and game people counted sixty one bald eagles in and around the lake. A lot of them leave in the summer, but in the winter, there are other birds and fish to be had at Harlan County Lake.

A fella named Don Jardon volunteers to open the city auditorium every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from December 15 to March 15 and set it up for those who wish to exercise by walking in circles. A week ago Monday, 46 people showed up between 7:00 AM and 12:00 noon, a new record for a single day. Don tries to break up the boredom by setting up his boom box and playing his collection of old hits. He has almost every genre, from big bands of the forties and fifties to country western hits of recent vintage. Don is a retired school teacher who returned to Alma a few years ago after spending more than a dozen years in Japan teaching at a school on a U.S. Air Force base. He is an interesting guy to listen to.

In the center of what would be the basketball court, a bunch of rolled up pads are stored. These are rolled out in the afternoons for gymnastic practice by the team from Alma High. The kids come down from the school after the noon hour because the auditorium/basketball court at school is used by the boys and girl's basketball teams.

Oh Yeah, last post I asked if anyone knew the identity of Caryn Elaine Johnson. I didn't receive any emails with guesses, so I have to assume that none of my readers know that this is the true identity of View host Whoopee Goldberg. That's not the first time someone has taken a good looking name like Caryn Elaine and turned it into something else. A singer named Jerry Dorsey couldn't get a hit record until his agent changed his name to Engelbert Humperdink, and we all know his history. Let's see who can identify Emmanuel Goldenberg. Born in Bucharest, Romania, he was a great actor who appeared in over 100 films starting in 1916 and ending with his last film in 1973. He never won an Oscar for a specific performance, but he was awarded a lifetime achievement Oscar before he passed away. Remember, you can give your answer by
clicking on the comments link at the end of today's post. It will send me an immediate email.

Tomorrow I travel north to Kearney to get a couple of things unavailable down here in Alma and I intend to visit a computer store recommended to me by a fellow computer junkie I met in Orleans, NE. While in Kearney, I may make a side trip to a branch of Cabela's to check out some fishing gear I can feel calling my name. I am not really obsessive compulsive about fishing. Well, most of the time I'm not. Ok, maybe just a little more than most people. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't sell my kids into white slavery for the right fishing boat, but it would be a close call.

On Thursday, I'll be running up to Kearney again to pick up my daughter Valerie, who is returning from a visit to Dallas to be with her youngest, who is my twenty-one year old grandson Vani. His full name is Giovani Jean Christopher Giunca, and his father (my daughter's ex) was born in Romania. I had always thought that the Romanian language and culture was basically Slavic, but it actually evolves from Latin and is thought to be the first of the "romance" languages to split off from Latin. I guess because Romania was behind the "iron curtain" imposed by Russia, I tended to view Romania as a Slavic nation. Not so. To be certain, there are Slavic influences and some Slavic people there, but the history of the country evolves from the Roman occupation before the fall of Rome.

In between trips to the north, I intend to take advantage of good weather and spend a good portion of Wednesday fishing at the spillway. The weather is forecast to be almost sixty degrees, which is, to me, amazing for this time of the year in Nebraska. In fact, through Saturday it will be spring like. One of the natives remarked to me that she could remember twenty years ago when the temperature hit twenty below and stayed there for two weeks. We certainly have not experienced anything close to that in the two winters I've been here. Of course, winter ain't done yet. Not by a long shot. So, stay tuned, folks, because you just never know what Mother Nature might do around here.