Memorial Day & alcohol; ANOTHER rain-out!!

We got through the Memorial Day weekend with no major incidents. After a nice, quiet weekend, I got into the office shortly before 6 PM on Monday evening. Before I had a chance to get logged in on my car computer or the video camera in my car, I got sent to a domestic disturbance. Dispatch didn’t have much information for me so I didn’t know what to expect. I got to the location, and my Sergeant pulled up at the same time. When I got to the door, I was met by a drunk, belligerent guy who called me every name in the book. He told me there wasn’t anything wrong and to just leave. I asked where his wife was, and he indicated she was inside. When I asked her to come out, he grudgingly allowed her outside. Seems for some reason he wouldn’t let her out to go to work.


We cleared that and I followed her to work, where I asked her to stop at the Police Department when she got off work. She assured me she would. She did stop later, but would not wait for an officer to talk to her.

We no sooner cleared that call than we got sent to the Emergency Room. They had a drunk, loud person there that was causing a problem. When we got there, he was outside. We convinced him to take a ride home with a friend. Less than 30 minutes later, we were dealing with him again, and this time he went to jail for disorderly conduct. Just the way I’d want to spend the end of a holiday…..

The Nebraska Legislature has passed a law that will allow bars to be open until 2 AM, and the Game & Parks Commission has voted to allow alcohol in State Parks. I think alcohol sales need to be shut off at noon!!

Tuesday evening we had storm warnings with wind, heavy rain and hail threatening. It was just a couple of days short of the 30-year anniversary of the Grand Island tornadoes and brought back some memories. I spent that particular night at the house of some friends and when things finally calmed down, found the neighborhood was devastated. We tried to leave, but found trees and power lines across the road blocking our way. It was not an experience I would ever want to repeat. At least this time there were no tornadoes. We did have over 2.5” of rain in our rain gauge when I got home Wednesday morning.

With Wednesday and Thursday being great weather and only a slight chance of any rain, I headed to U.S. 30 Speedway at Columbus on Thursday June 3rd. About half way between David City and Columbus it started getting dark in the west. As I arrived at the track, it looked like it was raining off in the west. I was just getting ready to get in the car to pack track when Jeremy called. He told me there was a tornado watch for Greeley County, which is northwest of Columbus.

The track was rolled in and looked like it would be a good track if the weather held off. We started to get some mist about the time the drivers’ meeting started. The stock car feature, postponed from May 6th, was to be the first race on the track. However, we started to get a light rain and track officials decided to wait 30 minutes to see what the weather would do. About 20 minutes later, the rains came and the night was another rain-out. It’s one thing to have a rain-out at home, but driving a little over a hundred miles each way - TWICE - is a real bummer! I’ve always thought that race tracks are rain magnets.

At least there isn’t anything mechanical to do to the car before Jason takes the wheel tonight. Just have to wash the U.S. 30 Speedway mud off the car and trailer and we should be ready to go. It’s my weekend to work. Next week is the Blue Knights Spring MWRC and we’re schedule to attend that. A weekend of riding and relaxing is just a short week away!!