Mr. and Mrs. Duane Hall returned from a vacation trip to the Hawaiian Islands, suntanned and all smiles.
The Halls were among a number of other Nebraska Citians who toured the islands and attended the Nebraska-Hawaii football game.
Mrs. (Dona) Hall brought back a gift.
A woman of Chinese ancestry gave her a patchwork blanket of Hawaiian prints and said to tell Millie, "aloha."
The story goes back a few years . . . to the Korean War.
Uncle Sam decided this sailor was to do a third tour of duty overseas. This sailor wasn't too happy about leaving his wife again but he had gotten into the habit of saying "yes, sir," and there wasn't much else to do.
This time, Uncle Sam decided the sailor was to be assigned to ComServPac, Staff Headquarters. That meant only one thing — back to the Pacific.
There was a great deal of celebration when the sailor found out that Staff Headquarters was not a moving target but was in heavily guarded brick and stone buildings near Pearl Harbor.
That meant a bed that didn't wobble and bounce with the ocean waves. It also meant our first home.
We lived in an apartment on Kapiolani Boulevard near Waikiki Beach until Navy housing was available. When we moved into Halawa housing (Aiea), Millie met and became close friends with the Chinese woman, Mrs. Joseph (Elsie) Farm.
Millie asked Dona Hall to call Mrs. Farm and say hello from the Nebraskans.
According to Dona Hall, the Chinese woman didn't recall the Beaumonts of Nebraska City until Dona said she was calling for Millie. That apparently brought about a pleasant conversation that followed.
The women were unable to meet as they had planned so Dona could take a gift back to the Mainland for Millie, so a package was left at the hotel desk.
There was the gift for Millie, but there was another . . . an identical gift for Mrs. Hall.
Mrs. Farm said later that she wanted to send something to the Nebraska City people and said that anyone nice enough to take a few minutes to call and say hello for Millie should also have a gift.
It made the trip to Hawaii additionally memorable for tne Halls.
A Nebraska City merchant lost a sale because he couldn't take chickens for cash.
A shopper wanted to buy a certain item that cost $100 and during the sales conversation, it was mentioned that old hens had sold at a recent auction for seven cents each.
The merchant agreed that didn't seem like much of a price. The shopper said he sure wanted the item in the store, and would swap his hens for an equal amount in value.
. . . No, no, said the merchant when he figured that would be 2,212 chickens . . . he lost the sale.
No one kept us from the TV tube the other night when Larry Jacobson and Rich Glover of the Nebraska football team were introduced on the Bob Hope show.
We particularly liked Hope's introduction of Glover:
"Nebraska's Rich Glover is so fast that when he makes a mistake he corrects it on the instant replay."
Jim Pittenger, ticket manager for the University, has his hands full.
He has 25,000 requests from football fans for tickets to the Orange Bowl game New Year's Day at Miami. Guess how many tickets the University has been given to sell?
Yup, about half, 12,000.
The football craze is really something in Nebraska. It doesn't seem that many years ago when Fred Haase and Wm. F. Davis and I attended the games along with 23,000 other football nuts.
The Generation Gap.
Conversation overheard between No. 1 son and his best friend, "Steve-bomb" or "Cowboy" Wusk:
"Those street guys sure aren't (mostly it's ain't) very nice."
"Yeah, wonder why they'd want to tear up a street like that?"
"They're a bunch of dudes."
"Uh-huh, now where we going sledding?"
"Why would they want to dump sand all over that street on that neat hill?"
"Aw, they're grownups, they don't even know what fun is."
"Hey, don't tell anyone about the street near Doc's house."
"Boy, that's a goodie."
"Yea, there's ice all over the street and man, is that neat!"
"I know, I bombed by cycle down there the other day, slapped on the air brakes and skidded sideways half way down the block. Boy, what a riot!"
"Yeah, me too. I crack up everytime I pop a wheelie on that one."