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Statue honors Nelson family
McCOOK, Nebraska -- When Sen. Ben Nelson attended the unveiling of a statue of his hero, Sen. George Norris, a couple of years ago, someone broached the idea of Nelson's own statue down the street in front of his boyhood home.
"An old man sitting on a bench, reading the Gazette" wasn't an appealing idea, Nelson said at Saturday's dedication of just such a bronze. "But to be forever 15 ..." he said, pointing to the sculpture of his father, Ben, looking on while his mother, Birdella, pins on her son's Eagle Scout award.
Created by Martha Pettigrew with private funding through the Nebraska Community Foundation, the statue is "eerily lifelike," Nelson quipped. "How about that flattop?"
A McCook native and former Nebraska governor, U.S. Sen. Nelson said he will always remember that day in 1956 when he earned his Eagle Scout badge -- and the challenge his mother used to goad him into completing it.
At 15, still a "stall-out" age for a lot of Boys Scouts, Nelson was being overcome by fumes -- "car fumes and perfumes," he admitted.
That's OK, Mrs. Nelson said, she would make him a deal. She would complete his final merit badge. Accepting, her son immediately knew he had been had.
"But she would get to wear the badge," he remembers.
He went on to complete his final merit badge and organize construction of a community playground for his Eagle Scout project, receiving his pin at the First Christian Church, on the corner of West First and E, now home to the McCook Daily Gazette.
While his father was a quiet man who spent his career keeping electricity flowing for the McCook and Nebraska public power districts, as well as serving on the volunteer department, the senator said the senior Nelson taught him how to hunt and fish and appreciate all nature has to offer.
When an opening appeared for a Boy Scout and Explorer leader, Ben Nelson Sr. stepped in to help teach his son to finish what he started.
During one winter survival camp out at Camp Opal Springs, his father remarked "if we do this again next year, we're going to have to get warmer sleeping bags."
That drive to "complete what I started" helped Nelson achieve his first governorship -- of Boys State in 1958, when he defeated favored opponents from Lincoln and Omaha, as well as 32 years later, when he won his party's nomination for governor by 42 votes after two recounts.
"Nobody expected me to win, but I never expected to lose," Nelson said.
Reminding the crowd gathered in front of his relocated boyhood home that the statue was about "Family, not me, and community," the senator said it was a lesson that those who have "good beginnings will have happy endings."
Introduced by Mark Graff of the McCook Community Foundation, sculpture Martha Pettigrew said she was honored to be selected to do the Nelson sculpture, and hoped it would serve as an inspiration to young people to "get up off the couch, turn off the TV and go out and do something productive and become good citizens of the world."
Graff also read a letter from former Secretary of State Alan Beerman, now executive director of the Nebraska Press Association, saying to his friend Nelson, "everything you touched improved."
John Gottschalk, chairman of the Omaha World Herald and former president of the Boy Scouts of America and himself native of a small town, Rushville, Nebraska, pointed out the importance of the early mentoring Nelson received from the Scouts, as well has carrying three newspaper delivery routes, working at Sehnert's Bakery, hunting, fishing and attending Cornhusker Boys State.
Also speaking Saturday was former mayor Linda Taylor, who praised Nelson's help in bringing the Work Ethic Camp to McCook while she was mayor, as well as his help in improving McCook Ben Nelson Regional Airport, the new Armed Forces Readiness Center and many other local improvements.
Speaking to the Gazette prior to the dedication of the sculpture in honor of himself and his parents, Nelson said completion of his doctorate was one of the only things he had left unfinished in his lifetime.
Even so, that was a deliberate decision because of his choice to pursue a law degree -- for which he received a juris doctorate degree.
After a tacit admission he would run for re-election in 2012 -- he is raising funds for his campaign -- Nelson said extension of unemployment is one of the pieces of unfinished business awaiting him in Washington after the summer break.
Even so, some way must be found to pay for that extension other than expanding the $1.4 trillion national deficit.
Critics forget that the world economy was about 24 hours from financial collapse before Congress passed the $800 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program -- TARP -- which is now receiving so much criticism. Despite being a "deficit hawk," Nelson said, the spending was necessary to pull us back from the "edge of a cliff" which could have resulted in a worldwide depression.
Much of the money paid to troubled banks and car companies is being paid back, Nelson said.
Congress has to carry through with needed funding for the healthcare reform package to improve the budget deficit, he said, and not resort to "crisis management" which too often turns into "crisis mismanagement."
He has questions for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, and the 2nd Amendment remains a central concern.
Nelson said none of his judicial appointments has been accused of being an "activist" judge, and he opposes any wholesale change in the law by the judiciary.
Nelson said he voted against the McCain Feingold campaign finance reform law on constitutional grounds and was proven right. He is also wary of the Disclose Act because "the ends doesn't justify the means."