Mercury's ready to put on a show

Welcome to Tuesday. Your editor asked for a volunteer to move the column from Saturday to Tuesday and evidently I won. This will give me a chance to make my observations of the machinations of the City Council a little more current. Then too, in my busy "retired" schedule, it will be easier to crank out the weekly column on Sunday afternoon followed by a little tuning up after the council meeting on Monday night.

Council meeting on the 5th was a short one. The best move was to save over $7,000 for the City by allowing a street contractor a little wiggle room for completing Norris Avenue repairs this summer. Then I wondered if anyone else saw the humor in proclaiming "National Police Week" concurrent with "National Nursing Home" week! I personally am a lot closer to moving to the nursing home than any of our McCook City Police although the only retired officer that I know, Lonnie Anderson, was the councilmember chosen to read the proclamation.

The following is by e-mail from my cousin, Sharon Dennison, who lives near Martin, S.D.

Sharon grew up on a farm south of Culbertson but has lived most her life near Martin. She is a county commissioner and has served her community for years on an ambulance first responder team.

She wrote:

"Dick, I had to laugh at your column last week about the NASA guys and their response to the food and lodging prices in McCook.

"A few years back, we had to meet a Med Jet from New York, in Gordon Neb., with a local resident who had a stroke while in New York. When the Jet finally landed through a much lower cloud ceiling than was allowed, the crew was a bit shook about that, (400 feet vs. the 800 feet reported) but they soon got over it. Anyway, we had to load the patient on our ambulance and take the two flight nurses (both men) to return to Martin. We told the two pilots to take one of the courtesy cars and where to get the best food. They just could not fathom that, and I explained that the cars were there just for this kind of use. The ranchers fly in to town for groceries, parts and such and they are always there.

"We headed back to Martin by way of Merriman and those two nurses were in back with me and the patient. They could not believe the scenery on the way as the Sandhills were so green and the lakes seemed to be everywhere. One said he always heard this was the Great American Desert, and the history books were so wrong as far as he could see. They just marveled at the sights along the way. Anyway when we got back the two pilots were laughing and joking about what a great meal they had for $4.85; Chicken fried Steak, salad and dessert and how great people were.

"Like I always say "We are the best kept secret in the Midwest."

Sharon"

And yes, I agree with Sharon, there are beautiful spots no matter where one happens to fall in this wonderful United States of America. One of my very favorite is close by. It is the ten mile or so stretch of county road from Wellfleet west along the Medicine Creek toward Dickens.

The road bed is good country gravel, not exactly straight but beautiful to behold. To the north one sees a long sloping Sandhills vista punctuated by neat farmsteads. The meandering Medicine is on the left with deep patches of cattails, little ponds, red wing blackbirds and an occasional pair of ducks. Across the stream the terrain rises almost bluff like to a series of small steep canyons about half covered in dense cedar (western hemlock?) trees.

It is an especially pleasant drive on a hot summer evening when dust hangs in the still air with a gorgeous red sunset backdrop in the west. For me it is one of the prettiest spots in Beautiful Nebraska.

That is the way I see it.