We're going to miss John Klingman very much this fall. He graduated from the School for the Visually Handicapped a week ago.
John sang bass in our church choir. I was fortunate to sit beside him in choir and he was kind enough to listen to my bumbling effort at music.
I can't read music so I used to elbow Rod Cushing and he whispered the first note was an f sharp or some other jibberish.
I then leaned over to my friend (I called him Big Bad John), and repeated Rod's message. John would let loose with a silent hum and that was my cue to get started right. John has perfect pitch, something music people tell me is quite rare.
John had his music punched out in Braille and he got along marvelously in choir. (I used to threaten to rub out some of those Braille marks just to get him to hit a wrong note — just once.) He enjoyed good humor and is a good sport.
The bass row in the church choir will miss John. I'll probably fumble and fiddle and get by, but it will be without the finesse offered by my friend, Big Bad John.
Best wishes on his "laboring" years and a good vacation this summer at his home in Chappell, Nebr.
A lot of years ago, a young blind woman served as Sunday school teacher for our class in a country church in Kansas.
She had a leader dog that was about the most intelligent animal I had ever seen. The woman never let blindness interfere with her enjoyment of children. I remember well how she took her Bible school class on picnics and mothered over them, sightless or not.
The senses of the handicapped are a marvel.
I learned to operate a linotype from two deaf mutes at the Daily News in Fairbury on a parttime job while attending Junior College.
The two men lacked the ability to pick up sounds of trouble on the often-complicated linotypes, but they held a sense of feeling vibrations that made them both expertise in their work (I think one of them works for the World-Herald now).
They were patient, too. Before they agreed to teach me how to run a linotype, they required me to learn the hand sign language. They were excellent teachers, but I confess that my sign language lacked the speed and accuracy necessary to communicate freely with deaf mutes.
I haven't had any regular use for the hand language since leaving the Daily News but occasionally I use it in conversation with someone.
On one occasion, a travelor of sorts came into the office with a note that he was a deaf mute and wanted a handout.
I read his note, then rattled off a little sign language to start communication. He shook his head "no," he didn't understand.
Well, I've known a lot of deaf mutes and I don't have much respect for anyone who takes a handicap of my friends and uses it so loosely.
So, I gave him a special kind of hand sign that every man understands and he flushed and left.
A cousin of Lester Horton of Riverview Terrace in Nebraska City, will be out of a job soon at a shoe factory in Natick, Mass., but not because of foreign imports.
The owner says he can't get the labor. Mrs. Pearl Vitale, an 80-year-old "floor girl" was featured recently in a newspaper story about labor problems at the factory.
The company manufactures specialty shoes for garagemen, police, fire and military personnel. The company is one of the few which produces saddle shoes and the sales crew claims the supply doesn't meet the demand of accounts.
During the past four years, 45 shoe manufacturing firms have closed.
Mrs. Vitale has been in the business 42 years, works eight hours a day and some times because of a lack of help, she runs five machines at once.
"Now, come on out and get to work," she wrote cousin Horton.
The Boy Scouts in Nebraska City are going to miss you, Don Scheele.
He has accepted a position in traffic for Consolidated Blenders, Inc., at Fremont and plans to move his family there soon. Don worked a number of years for the Burlington and has been employed at Dawson Oil and Transport as the bookkeeper for several years.
He has been a No. 1 builder of the scouting program in Nebraska City and can look back with pride to the number of boys who received their Eagle badges during the years he was either scoutmaster or was associated in some way with the scouting program sponsored at First Christian church.
Best wishes to you, Don, on your new job. Tell ole' Winston Rashleigh up thar in Fremont that if he doesn't come down to visit us soon, I'm going to write a story about him that'll stink up the river.
Glen "Pete" Peterson has retired after 36 years with the J.C. Penney company. A feature story on Pete appears elsewhere in today's paper.
Actually, Pete is not retiring from the retail business. He's going across the street and work for his wife, Dee, in the Merle Norman Cosmetics and Gift Shop.
The couple plans to do some traveling. Pete has been a pretty busy man and he'd like to catch up on some recreation.
We don't know for sure, but we betcha his new office will be the golf course in Nebraska City.
Best of wishes from the News-Press, Pete.
Thanks to the National Guard.
We were surprised and pleased with the recognition given to us at the National Guard Association's annual meeting last week in Lincoln.
The scroll and plaque were presented on behalf of the Guard for the news recognition given the National Guard in Nebraska. Actually, as we told the men, we were just doing our job. And since the Guard fellows are so easy to work with, the job has been interesting and enjoyable.
Rusty, the 14-year-old Cocker Spaniel of Mr. and Mrs. Carroll Luther, 1016 Sixteenth Avenue, is dead.
Mrs. Luther said she has had the dog since he was a pup. The animal was a gift to her from the Ed Hunters.