The Superior Express -

When I joined The Express staff in 1970, I wanted to be part of a newspaper that showed this to be a good area in which to live and raise a family. I wanted to proved the folks who thought there was nothing to do in a rural community to be wrong. While the activities may be different than those in the city, I knew there are lots of fun things to do in a rural community.

This week Wallet Hub ranked all 50 U.S. states from best to worst for raising a family by scoring each according to 50 metrics spread across five categories which include affordability, health and safety education, child care, socioeconomics and family fun.

Iowa had the most affordable housing while California the least. Utah had the most families with young children per capita, while West Virginia had the fewest. And surprisingly per capita child-care costs were the lowest in South Dakota and the highest in neighboring Nebraska.

I was pleased to discover Nebraska was included in the 10 best states in which to raise a family. The state’s ranked from the first included, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Washington, North Dakota and New Jersey. The 10 worst listed in order were Georgia, Nevada, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Louisiana, New Mexico and Mississippi.

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Received a letter this week inviting me to subscribe to the Saturday Evening Post. Haven’t done so but am thinking about it.

I grew up reading The Saturday Evening Post. It was among the magazines regularly delivered to my father’s gasoline station. It came on the same day each week and unlike Life and Look which we also received was packed with stories. The other two were mostly picture magazines. I counted The Post among my evening reading material while at the station waiting for customers to come in off the highway.

I don’t know if it was because I was a slow reader, or the station had too many customers but I had more reading material than I had time to read. I saved the unread Posts for fireworks season. The fireworks stand was open at least 14 hours per day for 8 days and while waiting for customers I was able plow through many back issues. Also in advance of opening the fireworks stand, I laid in an assortment of library books.

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This week while sorting through a stack of old pictures, I recalled the black leather riding boots an aunt gave me.

I didn’t care they were hand-me-downs. I immediately took a fancy to those boots. But they weren’t large enough. I struggled and finally forced my feet into the boots, but they weren’t wearable. I hobbled around my bedroom like a crippled old man.

Though they didn’t fit, I couldn’t part with them.

I’ve heard of people successfully stretching their shoes with frozen water so I filled bread sacks made of plastic, inserted the filled bags into the boots and froze the water. That trick may have worked for some people but it didn’t for me.

My mother grew so tired of me trying on the boots, she put them out-of-sight on a top closet shelf.

After discovering her hiding place, I would get them when she wasn’t at home, look at them and dream about how much fun I would have if I could only get them on. My feet were growing but age didn’t help the riding boots, they only got tighter with passing time.

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Last week’s story about Kelli Delka competing in the Winter Olympics reminded me of the sled I had in my youth. As a youngster, I tramped over the hills west of the gasoline station looking for the perfect sled run. There were some good runs with curves to be negotiated. Fortunately, ithere were no trees to dodge. Perhaps a ledge to fly off of or a thicket of buck brush. If I would attempt some of those runs today, I suspect I might collide head-on with a cedar tree.

I now classify as noxious weeds most trees growing in those pastures.

One time I flattened the runners of my sled, I was flying down a steep slope and went over a ledge. All that was according to plan. I expected to fly though the air like a missile and land softly in a snow drift. There was a problem between planning an execution. The sled and I landed harder than expected. Had to have the runners straightened and reinforced at the welding shop.

Not wanting to repeat that experience, I begged my father to let me try riding the sled on the highway. There was little, if any traffic moving that morning and Dad agreed. I pushed off in front of the station and was gaining speed as I passed the irrigation canal. I was hoping to slide clear to the Republican River.

Suddenly the brakes were applied, I went flying off the sled and my ride was over.

The sled had encountered the sand and salt applied by the highway department in an effort to help loaded trucks over the hill.

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Elsewhere in this paper we have a picture of a training frame device being used at the Formoso Roller Skating Rink to help beginners learn how to skate. Sure wish the Skatemor had had one of those when I was learning.

I sometimes use something similar when the sidewalks between home and work are ice covered. A wheel chair, grocery cart or freight cart add stability when navigating ice covered walks. I’ve even been known to push rather than ride my bicycle when the going gets icy. I’ve concluded the more points I have on the ground the less likely the ground and I will have an unplanned encounter.

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Wednesday was the 102nd anniversary of my mother’s birth. It is an easy date to remember for it is the same as Groundhog’s Day. For the sake of this week’s notebook entries, I wish I had kept track of how many times a major winter storm has crossed the plains states on Groundhog’s Day, i.e. mother’s birthday.

Monday the newspaper received an alert from the Federal Emergency Management Agency warning about the impending storm expected to hit this area on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you are reading this story on Thursday, the storm was likely not as bad as expected and delivery was made as usual.

There has been at least one other Groundhog’s Day Storm. That morning it was snowing and blowing and only a handful of Express employees had made it in to work when we received a call from The Weather Channel. The storm had taken a more southerly track than expected, had zeroed in on this area and surprised the Weather Channel. In advance of the storm, Jim Cantore had taken up a position at Sioux City.

But since the storm was down here on the Kansas-Nebraska stateline and not on the Nebraska-Iowa line as expected, the caller asked if I would shoot video of the storm for national distribution.

I shared a video I had taken from the front door of The Express and supplied an audio track to accompany it. I didn’t included the requested shot of this reporter standing outside in the storm for I remembered a conversation I had with Lefty Bothwell on a cold October day about 30 years earlier.

Like the first part of this week, we had been having unseasonably mild weather and I had promised friends from out-of-state a Windurfing adventure on Lovewell Lake. The appointed day arrived and it was cold, windy and spitting a little rain. We didn’t let that stop us.

We dressed for cold weather sailing and went to the lake. Not wanting to risk being caught in the middle of the lake and suffering hypothermia, we put the sailboard in at Cedar point and took turns riding it north toward what is now the Willow campgrounds. After reaching shore, we would load the board in the pickup and haul it back to Cedar Point for the next rider. We selected the location as a safety precaution. It we became chilled and dropped the sail, the wind and waves would push us into shore and not across the lake.

Lefty came by to see what we fools were doing. He didn’t say much to my friends but he looked at me and said, “Billy you were raised here you should know better than to sail in this weather.”

We may have gotten colder than we thought for after changing into dry clothes we were in for another surprise. That evening, sitting indoors reliving our Windsurfing adventure, we were as hot as we would have been doing the same while sitting on a sunny park bench on a 100-degree day. We weren’t sick, it was just our bodies reacting to the temperature extremes of the day.