Then came Autumn

Jennifer, a close friend of Anne's got married in Omaha, Nebraska in early September. Elaine & I (along with Anne, of course) attended the festivities. While there, we had free time to wander about the downtown part of Omaha. A little bit about Omaha: It is the nation's 40th largest city, with a population of about 440,000; if the suburbs are included, it comes to over 800,000. Are you surprised at that?



I don't know who the artist is, but in downtown Omaha, there are many street level sculptures, which we leave for you to critique.









Omaha is on the eastern border of the state of Nebraska. The Missouri River flows right by downtown and forms this border with Iowa. Cargill Corporation and others made a park out of one of the ox-bow lakes that the Missouri River has left due to its many channel changes over the years. A paved path allows you to take a leisurely stroll and enjoy the lake and the waterbirds.





Elaine pulled out all stops and spent most of the time working during the fall. She also continued her singing in the Sweet Adelines chorus and gave 3 concerts in October. Elaine took on the role of President of the American Legion Auxiliary, while I was elected Commander of the local American Legion Post. (for overseas friends, the American Legion is America’s largest veterans organization). I have been a member for about 10 years and have served on the Color Guard for most of that time. The Color Guard attends funerals of veterans whose family wishes the military honors performed. We also open a lot of local conventions. I also am continuing with my piano lessons, which started up again in September. While our social life is active, much of our going out involves attending sports events at the University from which I retired from in December 2007. Autumn is the busiest of the seasons, with football (gridiron for overseas friends), women’s volleyball and men’s & women’s basketball.

This didn’t leave a lot of room for travels. However, Elaine took a weekend out for a quilting retreat. She began her hobby of quilting two years ago and has created some fine items.





Let's play football

I took a weekend out to attend the NCAA Division II playoffs for our football team. UNK had a great season and I thought that it would be neat to see this game. This occurred in mid November. The game was against the University of Minnesota at Duluth. Since this team was ranked higher than ours, the game site was Duluth, Minnesota.
Duluth is located on Lake Superior way up in northern Minnesota. You might say, Don what’s wrong with you? Duluth in November, isn’t that a bit cold up there then? After checking the forecast, which was for sunny weather in the 50s, almost unheard of up there in November. As was scheduled to work four 12-hour night shifts in a row over that weekend, she hardly knew that I was gone. So, off to Duluth on a 13-hour bus trip with 40 other. Made it to St. Paul, Minnesota on Friday night (game at noon on Saturday). Met lots of the team member’s parents on the bus and later at the game. Also met the dance team and the University mascot, Louie the Loper. A Loper is a shortening of the word antelope.





The day was as glorious as forecast, although coats and gloves helped ward off the chill that comes off of Lake Superior.
The stadium was first class, and we were there plenty early to enjoy the pre-game warm up.





Loper fans sat in the guest bleachers, conveniently located so that the sun does not shine on it, while the home team enjoyed the warm sunny day.





Game time.



After a short 3.5 minutes of play





The UNK fans cheered loudly, hoping that mental energy could overcome this early gap.



Two more minutes and the score:



Let’s get back in the game



Ouch!





Thought we might end the half only 21 points behind - ouch again.



Half-time gave us a welcome 15 minutes with no scoring. Then came the 3rd quarter of the game.





Ugh!. Double ugh





The game began to turn due to the efforts of our cheering





Oh, did I forget to mention that Minnesota Duluth is the defending national champion? They have the leading rushing player in the nation. UNK (Lopers) has the 2nd leading rusher – however, we were beaten by a fantastic team.
Thirteen hours after the game ended, we arrived back in Kearney at 4 in the morning. A fun trip, even if we did not do very well.

Off to Branson, Missouri.

To celebrate the occasion of Elaine becoming vested in her pension at Good Samaritan Hospital, her employer, we decided to take a week of relaxation in Branson, Missouri. Vesting, for those who may not be familiar with the term, means that your retirement pension is now owned by you. Before vesting, if you leave for any reason, the employer’s contributions are retained and you lose all that money. In the USA, according to law, once you are employed at the same employer for 5 years, all contributions become vested. In Elaine’s case, she has to work 1,000 hours for a year to count for vesting. Although she started at the hospital in 2001, this was the 5th year working the necessary hours.
A little bit about Branson: This is a small town in southern Missouri. The original equivalent of Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry actually got its start in Branson. Due to a dispute amongst a couple of early country singers, they left Branson and started up the Nashville music scene. Branson quietly became a center of country music and family-type entertainment. Several big stars opened their own theaters here and it became a Las Vegas type place, minus the gambling, prostitution, and explicit shows. Some of the big names here have been &/or are: Roy Acuff, Andy Williams, The Osmands, Tony Orlando, etc. Today there are over 100 live entertainment shows and several million people come here each year to see them.
We stayed at the Spinnaker Resort in Branson. Had a comfortable one-bedroom suite with a fully furnished kitchen. The building & grounds are very pretty, with some flowers still in blossom.





The resort had a number of on-site activities, of which we took advantage of. One evening they hosted a BBQ dinner followed by some of the local entertainers. It was like getting a free hour and twenty minute show. Among the entertainers, of whom I never heard of were:
The Duttons, John Tweed & Ralph Kuster, whose shows we later saw. Also, a few very large family singing groups (like 15 children) and other singers entertained us. The main idea is to expose you to acts that you may want to then pay to see, which we did.
Branson is located in the Ozark Mountain region of Missouri. Even in town, the scenery is very mountainous.





A highlight was seeing the Shoji Tabuchi show one evening. He has a very ornate theater in which he has performed for 20 years. Born and raised in Japan, he came to the USA as a young man and became a renown violinist. For some reason, he put over $1,000,000 into the theater restrooms of which he is very proud, don't ask me why.
Ladies restroom





Mens restroom







That's right guys, a pool table in the men's room, just what we all need

Being the Christmas season, his theater and most others are all decorated for the season and all of the shows have a Christmas theme.





By coincidence, one of our sister-in-laws from South Dakota was in Branson leading a tour group that happened to be at the same Shoji show as we were. Small world.
The 12 Irish Tenors show was another show. They were the only show that didn’t allow photos during their performance. A very high energy act. The lobby was suitably decorated in the Christmas theme.





The shows range from the glitzy ones (Tabuchi) to very small one or two person performances in some tiny venues. For example, Ralph Kuster is a Canadian performer who has a very good voice and puts on a good show. His theater has maybe 60 seats, most of them empty, which are regular chairs like you would see in a café. His songs focus on Bing Crosby, Elvis, and Nat King Cole. Every show that we went to made a point of asking all veterans to stand up and be applauded. Ralph takes this honor even further by offering free admission to any veteran. So, Don got in for free. Made the show even more enjoyable, thanks Ralph. As it was the Christmas season, many of his songs and those of the other shows we attended were in a theme of Christmas.



Our final show was that of John Tweed and his daughter Sarah Tweedle (Tweed must be the stage version of his name). He focuses mainly on country-western songs, Christmas songs and Broadway tunes. Sarah sang show tunes and Christmas songs, of course. Both have very strong and pleasant singing voices. Elaine & I even bought some of their CDs.



In recent years, Branson Landing was built. It is an open air shopping mall. Big deal, another mall. However, this time of year it is decked out with Christmas decorations, with a fountain that dances to music at the top of each hour.





Political correctness is thankfully absent in Branson. It is the Christmas season, not the holiday season or the winter festival or anything else. It is pretty hard even in a normal year (which 2009 has not been) for me to get enthused about Christmas, but Branson did the trick. Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope to see many of you in 2010.