My life in a nutshell

My life (so far), in a nut shell

During my senior year in High School I was in the band, playing the sousaphone at all the home football games and in the concert band.  My younger brother Darrell, was a freshman that year and he also played the sousaphone.  I took shorthand and typing classes, with my goal being a secretary to someone at Union Pacific Railroad.  I went with the EUB Church group on a missionary trip to Trinidad, CO the week after graduation and the next week Dad took me to Omaha where I had enrolled in an 18-month Business Assistant course at CE School of Commerce at 16th and Howard Streets.  Dad & I stayed at the YMCA the one night he was there and we went to the school.  They, as part of the schooling, had lined up a sleeping room for me and a job.  I stayed in an upstairs bedroom in a house at the base of WOWT-6 TV Tower about 36th & Farnam or Harney.  I took the bus the 10 blocks or so to school until one morning I just missed a bus and walked the distance, beating the next bus.  From then on, I walked to and from school.  The tuition was $440 per 9 months; I got 90 cents an hour at my cafeteria job in Brandeis store about 3 blocks from the school.  In 9 months I was able to pay off that $440 loan and save up the $440 to pay the last 9 months of my schooling.   I, and several other guys, would leave school at 11 am, get our lunch and get our white aprons on and be on duty by 11:30.  I bussed dishes, cleaned tables, and later progressed to helping carry out food from the kitchen to the food line.  We would leave by 1:30 and be back to classes for the afternoon.  Then we would be back to Brandeis by 4:30 to help clean the kitchen and put any food away.  They were open Monday and Thursday evenings for supper, so those nights we worked until 8:30 when the line was open and then clean up.

I had started that in June of 1961 and about March of 1962 I got heated about something one of the bosses did and I walked out.  The school got me a job cleaning up in a valve/spigot factory after hours, but I only worked there a few days before I quit.  They sent me to a job calling people to set up appointments to have garage doors sold, but I left that after a couple days.  Then, the school lined me up with a job starting at 11 pm at night to 7 am the next morning working in the police station typing up accident and incident reports.  I worked that job until I got my Diploma from CE and started working full-time for Union Pacific in October of 1962.  During this time I met a girl in typing class from Iowa.  We started dating and there were days that when I was supposed to be sleeping after school and before going to work at 11 pm we would spend time together.  There were some pretty sleepy nights at work for a while.
When I got my Diploma as Business Assistant I was offered two interviews; one at the Omaha Federal Reserve Bank and the other at Union Pacific headquarters office.  I have wondered where we would be today if I had gone to the government job.  I went to UP and was hired in the Freight Claims department typing the checks for payment of damaged goods being shipped.  From there I moved over to the Personal Injury department and handled all the filing, incoming mail and general gopher work.  Phyllis & I started dating in September of 1962 and got married in Shambaugh, IA on March 10, 1963.  We stayed one month in an apartment and then I bought a mobile home at 84th & Blondo Streets - the far west side of Omaha at that time.  We lived there until October of 1965 after having our son born in April of 1965.  We then bought a house in the town of Millard, southwest of Omaha.  I was still working in the Personal Injury department when, in May of 1967, a promotion to Assistant Claim Adjuster in the Personal Injury department in Salt Lake City, Utah was offered.  We sold our home, had the car and a small camping trailer as well as all our personal belongings put on a railroad car and moved to Salt Lake City.  I was the secretary to the District Claim Agent there and was to learn the business of handling personal injury claims.  They had a large Diesel shop there and I spent some time there.  I eventually got to interviewing employees involving injuries on the job and also employees in vehicle accidents.  By 1969 I was handling a few cases on my own, but feeling the pressure.  In January of 1970 I was offered the job as Junior Claims Adjuster in Kansas City, Kansas and we moved there, finding a duplex in Overland Park, KS.
It seemed to me that in most cases of claims, if the claimant was happy with the settlement, the boss was unhappy because it should have been cheaper.  If the boss was happy with the settlement, usually the claimant was ticked off.  I decided I wasn't cut out for the job the day I went to a farm near Falls City, NE to talk with a widow about the death of her husband who had failed to see a freight train in Hiawatha, KS and been killed in the accident.  With her two children, probably under 12 years old, sitting on the couch and her crying, and my stating our condolences as the company and that i would be in touch with her, I decided I wasn't cut out for the job.
We looked around the Callaway/Broken Bow, NE area for jobs and then in the Clarinda area.  I was interviewed by Maurice Rarick, plant manager for Hygrade Foods, a dry sausage plant, and he put me to work with the plant accountant who was to retire in two years.  We rented a rather run-down place some 5 miles from town and planted a garden, bought a calf to raise to butcher and generally enjoyed the life back in the country.  Our daughter, Michelle, had been born in Salt Lake City in late December of 1967 and the two kids enjoyed the country life.
In October of 1972 we bought 12 acres about 4 miles west of Clarinda on the side of Highway 2 including all the farm buildings.  About that time we were advised that HyGrade was sending in an accountant who had been with HyGrade 24-years and was in a plant they were closing in Tampa, FL.  I did several jobs not in accounting - working with employee insurance, safety stuff in the plant, etc.  I was offered a job at Clarinda Elevator being  "outside salesman".  I did calling on people in the country and also filled in at the office when the boss didn't make it to work many mornings.  In 1974 I was offered the job as Manager of Coin Grain Corp., an elevator bought by my boss and 3 other men as well as I had a small stake in the purchase.
I hired Phyllis to keep books and we spent the nearly 20 years (October of 1974 to September of 1994) working there.  I had many differences with one of the owners who was also the district feed salesman for Purina and we often locked horns.  We were finally able to force him out when he took bankruptcy in the late 1980's.  We got as high as 8 employees and were running a feed mill, liquid fertilizer business as well as the buying/selling of corn, beans, wheat and oats and storage of beans and corn.  The business changed as many farmers got their own semi-trucks and started taking their own grain directly from the farm to markets in St. Joseph, MO and other places.  We finally sold the fertilizer business and a bagged feed store we had opened  in Clarinda, and by 1994 where down to only one employee beside myself and Phyllis.  Over the years, the other owners had sold out and Phyllis & I owned the business.  I finally announced closing the elevator in June or July of 1994 and by September we had bought and sold all the grain in storage, sold out the inventory and sold the buildings to various farmers.
In 1984 the agriculture side of things was slowing down and I had bought a magnetic sign machine and gotten into selling signs.  I was on the Iowa State Grain Elevator board for a year and made a lot of contacts there.  One of the people came to me, finding we could make signs, and inquire about our selling the 4-sided diamond then required on any building with any chemicals in it.  They put out the word and we started sending them everywhere in Iowa.  There are hundreds of warning signs, on anhydrous tanks as well as all around the fertilizer business that are required and we made them.  We also got into the 4' x 6' and 4' x 8' business signs that were put on posts in front of buildings.  By 1994 we were real busy at that so didn't have any down time after selling the elevator, but was super busy with the signs.  I built a double-car garage in front of the old garage we had and also filled in between the old garage and the house with an office.  By 1998 we were going full blast there.  We worked that until we sold the business to a neighbor across the highway in the fall of 2008.
We started going to Texas for a bit in 2006 and by 2008 we had bought a travel trailer and spent two or three winters in it at an RV Park in La Feria, TX (Next door to Harlingen) and in 2010 we bought a permanent mobile home there.  We now spend our winters at that location, but still pull a small travel trailer and explore the areas we drive getting to and from Kenwood RV Park each fall and spring.

So, now you know (at least some of what we did the last almost 60 years)
Lynn