Nebraska has nothing to be ashamed about in the way they played. The match-up between Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and Nebraska defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh thrust Suh into the Heisman spotlight and he will be making the trip to New York at the end of this week. Wouldn’t it be a great honor for a defensive lineman the caliber of Suh to be the Heisman recipient? His interview with the Lincoln TV station was very gracious and he said he wouldn’t even be considered for the award if it weren’t for his teammates.
With the big game on TV and the weather being decent, we expected there to be a lot of traffic in town during the evening. However, it appeared that the parties were all at home as it was a very quiet night, even after the game was over. There was not much traffic on the street all night long.
Winter has taken aim at southeast Nebraska and after dropping about 6” of snow on us Sunday afternoon and evening, we are bracing for what forecasters are saying will be another 7” to 12” by the time it stops sometime Wednesday. So far, we haven’t had much of a wind, but the weather service says we could get 40 MPH winds in the next day, too.
Even with the nasty weather Sunday evening, there was a lot more traffic on the streets. It’s almost like some people don’t have the good sense to stay home when the weather is nasty. If I hadn’t had to work, I would not have left the house. The Sheriff’s Department was busy with two injury accidents between 6 PM and 7 PM in the Wymore area. Fortunately, none of the injuries were serious. The snow stopped before midnight and Beatrice street crews began cleaning the downtown streets.
Of course, the snow started again on Monday evening and as of 6 PM Tuesday, we’d gotten another 9” of snow. I got the snowblower out just after noon and cleaned the driveway as I had to get the grandkids from daycare. When I got home, I wasn’t able to get the car back up the driveway. I got an area on the street cleaned so I could park the car close to the curb, not 3 feet from the curb where the street crews cleaned the snow. On the way back with the kids, I saw a sure sign of a huge storm coming in when I passed two people who are well-known to local law enforcement. They were walking along the street, each carrying two 30-packs of beer. I’m guessing they were afraid of running out of beer before the snow stops.
I remember snow storms when I was in grade school and junior high. From about the 5th grade on, Crete had students from country schools that had closed, and those were the only bus routes. If I remember correctly there were five bus routes then. The kids that lived in town usually either walked or rode their bicycles to school. It seemed like after we had bus routes we had a lot more days off for snow.
I also remember when I was in 7th grade, in February 1965, a storm that we had. Dad worked at Cushman’s in Lincoln and went to work the morning the storm started. Dad ended up staying with his cousin in Lincoln and didn’t get home for 3 or 4 days.
I happened to check the Beatrice Speedway website last night and found that the schedule for 2010 has already been posted. Spring Nationals is set for Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 18th, 19th & 20th. Thursday night will be an open practice for all classes. Friday night will have IMCA modifieds, IMCA sport mods, IMCA hobby stocks and factory stocks. Saturday night will be IMCA modifieds, IMCA sport mods, IMCA hobby stocks and IMCA sport compacts. The regular season is scheduled to start on Friday April 16th. I hope that the snow will be gone before Spring Nationals time is here. The R & R Racing #6 entry should be ready to race long before the practice night.
Beatrice Speedway’s car show & test & tune are scheduled for April 10th, and the regular season opener is scheduled for Friday April 16th.
I’ve attended the NASCAR weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway each year since 2003. Each year, we’ve taken two days to drive each way, and spent Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the track. The economy has hurt the attendance as in 2009, there were a lot of empty seats in Turn 4. That is where we sat in 2003 and 2004 and except for not being able to see Turns 1 & 2, we had decent seats. The cars came out of 2 and down the back straightaway straight at us.
We’ve enjoyed the city, the vendors, the tailgating and making new friends at Las Vegas. I keep track of what’s going on in the valley by looking at the Las Vegas Review Journal on-line several times a week. Every time we go back, there are a lot of changes on the strip from the year before.
In 2010, we plan to go to the spring Texas NASCAR weekend. It’s the same weekend as the scheduled start for Beatrice Speedway, but I’ve decided I want to do some other things in 2010 than just race. I’m hoping the weather in April is nice enough that we can take the Gold Wing when we go to Texas. Due to the economy, ticket prices have been lowered and, depending on the location at the track of the tickets, I can get Friday, Saturday and Sunday tickets for $100. If I book the hotel soon enough, it looks like I can get a room for about $65 a night. I’m guessing we’d stay overnight in Oklahoma City on the way back, so all in all, it would not be as expensive as going to Las Vegas again.
This last weekend I found out that Dad gave the Veterans Day speech at Crete High School this year. He’d originally been asked to talk to a class about his experiences in WW II. Somehow, that didn’t develop, and he was asked to do the Veterans Day address. He even found one of his old uniforms to wear. Mom said he talked a little longer than he was supposed to, but everybody enjoyed it. He also got a video of it, and I want to be sure to see it soon.
As police officers, we see the best and worst of society. I’ve dealt with kids that I’ve never seen their parents and wonder why the parents had kids if they weren’t going to take responsibility for them. I’ve tried to point teens and others in their early 20’s in the right direction and hope they become respected, contributing members to society. Now I’ve come across a website honoring the heroes in our current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The website, http://www.Americanvalor.net gives short stories of our soldiers, Marines, sailors and airmen/women who are doing their jobs at a great risk to them selves. As I read through some of these stories, it struck me how young most of these heroes are. I can see that many of our younger people ARE becoming responsible citizens. These are our next generation of heroes. Thank you to our military for keeping us safe at home.
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