Jim Witherspoon, Omaha, is a retailer who likes to work.
And Mr. Witherspoon has selected Nebraska City as one of the many communities to expand his talents. He is the owner of the Gibson Store in Nebraska City.
And he also owns a great number of other stores. Stock from his company is on the market and last week was selling over $25 a share.
I met Mr. Witherspoon at his headquarters at Nuway Drug in Omaha last week.
I was introduced to him by Arthur Sackles who was making a buying trip and asked me to ride along. I'm glad I did.
Mr. Witherspoon, a well-groomed man who chewed on a cigar, met me on the carpeted steps to his office and extended his hand.
He likes Nebraska City. He feels that the town is a good retail town and said that sales at his store are bearing out that impression.
Gibson's of Nebraska City, and several other stores, were sold to Mr. Witherspoon by Phil Stettinger, Lincoln. The Omaha retailer is well known by many buyers and his business know-how and success are well respected in many circles.
There were a number of hot and heavy rumors a few weeks ago about Gibson's going to relocate from its Tenth and Central location, to a site west on Central.
Mr. Witherspoon said "no", to that.
He said Gibson's in Nebraska City has a good location. He also feels much as many other business people, that moving to another location is expensive.
I couldn't help but be excited with the moon landing by the Apollo 11 crew. I stayed glued to the TV tube so many hours that I can blame the astronauts for an Excedrin headache.
But it really was something. And I'm very proud that it happened during my lifetime.
I went to the office earlier that evening and picked up a camera and some film. Virg Pitstick has a habit of leaving some of his photographic equipment with The News-Press when he leaves for Washington each year, so I used his very fine Lihof 4x5 camera. (4x5 means the film is four inches by five inches in size).
I mounted the camera on a stool about 30 inches from the TV screen, focused and fixed the lens and shutter speed settings, then taped the camera to the stool.
Arthur Sweet had also taken pictures of the moon landing with a Rollei (it uses 120 size film), so I picked up his film and developed it that same night along with mine.
The result were the pictures you saw on the front page the next day.
For the information of you photo bugs, the 120 Tri-X professional film was developed three and three-quarters minutes in HC110 at 68 to 70 degrees. The 4x5 Royal Pan film was developed five minutes in the same solution at the same temperature.
I'm like the man Johnny Carson interviewed the other night. We've been to the moon. Fine. Next is Mars and not for any "grapefruit" pictures. "I want to see the towns," he said.
There is also some jargon we've all got to get with on this moon exploration.
It seems strange to say "moonquake" instead of earthquake.
And we've known about Asian and Hong Kong Flu.
But oh, no, please! Not Moon flu!