Next is one of Audree holding Lindsay, with Mike bundled up by her at the Bloomfield farm (all that mud and Grandpa's truck in the background that we loved to ride in), marked 1949 by Grandma K. 

.The next one is when the Crofton house was just built (no garage, no walks, no lawn, cement block stacked), about the same time as the one above, for Earl's with Lindsay and a dog, and Lindsay looks the same size.

 , 

The next two are at our house in Center, also in that time period, given sleepy Lindsay's size.  I remember the couch and chair set, a blue-green.  Earl's naps at our family get-togethers were a standing joke.

Then two in front of our house, Lindsay with his dad, and his mom hamming it up.  The Brown Photo stamp on the backs says, "JUL 1953." 

The following are of Lindsay's first birthday, in front of our house, with Audree, Mike parked on our big wide front porch before he's allowed up close.  Some of these I may have done before, but that's OK.  (1949, for he was born in 29 July 1948.)

This one of Earl might date from the Christmas at the beginning.  The photo's not in good shape, but it's good of him and funny.  (Larry had been at the upper right.)

  These two are obviously much later.  Audree wrote on the backs, "Penny modeling her new bedroom outfit," and "Mike modeling Penny's new nightie (it's the bust) and her new housecoat.  Get that joyous Ellingson feller!"

And, as a bonus, here's Mom (Velma) with Penny.  It's at our place because that chair behind was Dad's favorite kind for the porch/deck.

                                                                         Bloomfield Neb

                                                                          Jan 3--1920

Dear Evelyn, Joe, & sis

let you know [meant to go after the "to"]  will drop you a few lines to / we are all fine and received your letter O.K. / sure was glad to hear from you say did you / ever get your Xmas gifts you never said / so we was awful late to get it off but you / see we had to wait to get Lizzie stuff / sister we received your gifts.  Kindly say / tell Joe [Evelyn's husband] Dick broke his rivet punch on / his Knife you sent him sure was mad / you bright/ought? to see the stuff Little annie / Clark and Little elizabeth Evelyn Stock / ing [sister Lizzie's three oldest children] some name for a baby has name / it after lizzie and you we was going / to call it Daisy but Pa/Pug did not like / it not changing the subject but how / is the weather and roads down there / the weather is fine up here but oh the / roads bumpy and frozen we got all / the landlords corn shelled and hauling / it now the bought it all of it at / $1.30 per bushel--they agreeded to that / corn is worth $1.25 per bushl but you / see fredicks said the landlady wanted it / (over) we got all the landlords oats hauled / and 405 bu of ours corn shelled / and hauled it to grandads you / aught to been to the wedding that / occured Elma and George {Alma & George Schaller) had / sperkun was the preacher that / married they Dutch old devil sour/ kraut belly elma stein and fred / Doerr stood up for them Rich & chet [Dad's brothers] / went but we didn't ma sure / is mad.  they told ma to Dress them--and have them ready two / Days before christmas and told her / they would be up after but / never did.  Thats what made her / mad.  you ought to saw the / wedding cake they said it was as / big as a 5 gallon jar had two hands / on it and a ring on the fingers of / the hand ("gold" between the lines here) hand are made of some / funny stuff Rich didnot know, cakes / pies saucer aw.  hell every / things rich old devils ought to / have something the wedding cake / cost about 50 dollars   now the / youngs married car filed have / gone to Omaha for a two weeks / visit cheviers got stuned on chevier / ["shivaree" phonetically from French charivari, when friends and neighbors surprised newlyweds with a noisy serenade, beating on pots and pans, etc., and the wedding couple was then to provide something in return, like a dance or refreshments--later, because the element of surprise was key an the couple were usually asleep--unless forewarned] them--it will cost him about 5 hundred / dollars when he got done rich and / chet danced till six oclock next / morning they went down there / at twelve and had 4 meal till six / next morning they was married / at 3 bells say I got a awful / short pencil it wont last much / longer I sure hate a short pencil / to write with that what make / my bum writing you are reading / we are having two weeks vacation / but school is going to start Monday.  Examination is going to start what I / hate we got a dam good teacher / she(s?) got a lot of freckles but she(s?) / kind.  how are your stuff coming / along down there we got five / thorbreds calves we put them in / Every night and Mothers to milker / too we only milk two cows now / Millie and youngs legs we get half / (over) a pails full Pa is feeling fine / but about the same say / mrs bush fred bush wife / killed herself and her children only 1 kid / she killed I tell you about it / you know her sister chris utechs [Utecht's] wife is in the insane asylum and / she worried over other things she give / her baby 3 month old and two year / old was with her at the time seven / year old girl was at school / and other boy was with fred getting /  hay she give her at home with her carbonic [carbolic] acid and took it her self / and when fred come home with the / boy he sent the boy ("little" between the lines) to the house / and he on hooked and the little boy / came runningou saying mother / is down on the floor fred run / in and found her gasping her / last two year old boy had his / throat burnt and died little / baby 3 months old still gasping / her last he sent for doctor carrack / right away and doc cured the / baby the loss is the mother and two year old boy some stunt/ will have to close for now all / I know best regards to all / your Brother / Jack / P.S. be sure to write soon as / possible there hasn't nothing like getting letters and hearing / knews.  all    

dood

four

I know I've put the following photo in earlier, but it was from a small snapshot.  This one is a large photo 7 X 5 and might be better.  That's Grandpa's farm truck, and he's holding cousin Micheal Ellingson (3? 4?) and his fedora.

Here they are in the Bloomfield farm's living room on the blue plush couch against the east wall.  The Last Supper is above them.  You'd never guess how much they liked to wrangle with each other just for the sport of it.

I think this a very characteristic picture of the two and like it very much, a good place to stop for now.

The next one is a Christmas photo, obviously, from which Larry or Earl cut out his head, whoever was sitting to the right, so I had to crop it almost in half.  I think it's at the Crofton house, too.

I'm not sure where this Christmas one came from, but, with the stove there, it's the Bloomfield farm.

I think this one is the most characteristic of him, and he does have on a cap instead of a hat, in his farmwork outfit, overalls.  It's at our house in Center and in the 1940s, because we still have the hand-cranked telephone on the wall in the corner of the dining room, and that lamp is a female acrobat on her back, her legs in the air balancing the ball where the switch is.  I also recognize the china.  It's also apparently when we still had the sliding double doors between the living and dining rooms, before Dad tore those out and made a kind of shelf bar under the wide curved archway.  LJ would be smoking with his coffee, though I don't see any ashtray.   

I think this last one is Up West, by the door to the upstairs.  Grandma had her Last Supper in the dining room.  (Against the north wall was the buffet.)

I don't know where this was taken, but it has to be late 1940s-early 1950s because it's hand-tinted.                                                        

I'm not sure whose kitchen this is, but the little girl is my sister Sue Ellyn, at the lower-right corner.  Nor am I sure of whose kitchen the next photo is in, but she's happy.

This photo is badly damaged, but it's Grandma K. "pouring" at the Braunsroth's 25th wedding anniversary celebration, taken, undoubtedly, in Lillian and Leonard's house.  The Braunsroths were the Koftans' best friends.  Since I have a Golden Wedding Anniversary photo of Leonard and Lillian, I would guess this to be in the 1950s.  Most women had china closets with fancy dishes and knick-knacks then.

This is Easter, because she's got a corsage (trees too early for Mother's Day).  It's outside our house in Center, Behrens next door, Don McGills across the street.  She's talking--not unusual.  The one following is inside our house in the front room, and she's got on her best dress, which, if my memory is right, was a shimmering gold-black taffeta.

The last is at the Plaza Hotel in San Antonio in 1950, her first national RNA convention as a delegate/deputy, with Mom and me along.

There were two.  Near them was my candidate for the most beautiful duck, the wood duck.

  The black-necked swan is South America's largest waterfowl.  Swans are always photo-op swimmers, but I also caught this one sleeping with its head characteristically tucked under its wing.

I don't know what either the bird to the right or the bird below is.  The one above looks the size of a swan or goose.  The one below is clearly a very beautiful duck with distinctive browns and blacks, a cinnamon shading, white edges.

I think this is a Laysan teal above, an endangered Hawaiian dabbler;  there were several, as shown below.  I thought it was a teal, but the white eye fender shape and red eye had me puzzled. 

Down the western side of South America is the inca tern's coastal habitat, an elegantly marked bird which feeds on fish.  It's the only tern not nesting on open ground, preferring holes in rocks.

I really liked the first flamingo photo with all the curved bodies and the S shadow.  Flamingos are mocked because of the common plastic flamingo lawn ornament.  It would be better if they were mocked for their courtship dance, when they are in a large crowded group moving together with robotic 90-degree jerks of their heads to the side.  Their familiar shrimp color is usually from just that, the brine shrimp they favor.  Generally found in warm-weather climates, they are one of the few birds to tolerate saline (highly salty) or alkaline waters, which evolution has seemed to make their niche environment where other creatures would be poisoned.

Another beautifully colored bird is the roseate spoonbill with a greenish head and odd bill seen on the single specimen at the left.  Like the flamingos, they sweep their bills back and forth through the water, scooping up food, but they prefer shallow fresh-water environs.  Native to the southern U.S., all of Central America, and nearly all of South America, they roost in noisy colonies with "untidy" nests. 

 The colorful wading bird below is the African saddle-backed stork that stalks fish and other small creatures the way our herons and egrets do. 

 (To be continued)

All the memories of buying the tree came flooding back, very different in the 1940s, for we didn't see  bundled trees in front of our grocery stores until December, only two or three weeks before Christmas.  I nagged Mom until we got one--after seeing the stocks not only in Center but also Bloomfield and Creighton.  I got my wish for a tall one, on which an angel ornament for the top would touch or nearly touch our living room ceiling.  I could hardly wait, but it always had to sit in a bucket of water in the basement first a night or two so the limbs would come down--a little boy's torture.  After it was decorated, I often lay under it listening to Christmas music and programs on the radio or falling asleep under it with my dog.  Justin's would've made me delirious.

The sellouts produce the famed "sea of red."  The official colors are scarlet and cream, but it is ruby or cherry or fire-engine red, along with a great deal of black for the vaunted defense, the Blackshirts.  Looks like this.

There's Li'l Red and Husker Bob cavorting on the field.  Oh, wait, that's just Spring Game Day in April 2008, a first look by intramural scrimmage for free.  We also set records for going when it's not season game time.  See if you can tell the difference between the two sets, the following during the 2010-11 season.  First are the big-bucks fans in a special tailgating section north of the stadium near the Tom Osborne-Brook Behringer statue.  Across the bridge to the left on the other side of the highway is our deluxe Haymarket Park for Cornhusker baseball.  By 2013 a brand-new basketball arena will be over there, all the luxury suites already bought but five, which are probably gone now, even though they haven't begun building.  Our championship volleyball players will then take over a Delaney Center east of the stadium, renovated in red just for them. My sister Sue parks way far away in a free area and becomes one of that red stream across the bridge.  East of these lots, behind me, is a very noisy fan zone with ear-splitting rock bands and various vendors.  Downtown Lincoln is a few blocks south through the end of the campus I'm most familiar with, having the Sheldon Art Gallery designed by Philip Johnson, Kimball Recital Hall where I saw national tours of dancers, actors, etc., in the 1980s-1990s, Howells Theater where UNL puts on its plays, the huge Lied Center of Performing Arts where those tours moved to.

The above photo looks southwest, the small empty rectangle toward left center the section for the opposition's fans.  The famous tunnel that sets off the crowd roars as the Huskers come pouring through to pounding rock from the locker room is to the right at the northwest corner, shown below.

The two main sides, the oldest parts, have narrow, very steep stairs hard on old people like me.  Building up the end sections were the first stadium enlargements, then adding on to the two old sections (all the glass over the press sections and luxury suites).  The north end, from where these photos were taken, has the huge video screen, smaller screens at the corners.  The eighth largest in college football, it is 10 X 37 meters, 30 feet X 120 feet.

At the first Cornhusker score, hundreds of balloons go up, like this.  GO, BIG RED!

I was fortunate enough to attend the Cal State Fullerton-Texas A & M game last summer, courtesy of my niece, Cianne, and her dad and his wife, Greg  and Jenny Suhr, who chauffered me to and from, so that all I had to do was enjoy the spacious, handsome new facility with all kinds of amenities, many unseen for the spectators.  Below are niece Cianne Suhr, the three children of Jenny, Jake, Ariel, and Kelly, and Jenny.

For $131 million we have very comfortable seating with leg room for 24,505 (26,000 with standing for other events), "spacious clubhouses, indoor hitting tunnels and oversized dugouts," hitting rooms (for practice swings) near the dugouts, major-league bullpens in the outfield.  A few seats have obstructed views, oddly enough, and consequent irate fans.  The park also has 250 flat-screen TVs and a video board 34' X 54' with 1.27 million LED lights capable of 281 trillion colors.  The knocks-you-out feature for me is the underground plumbing.  "Underneath the three strains of manicured bluegrass is a reservoir of stones that serve as a retention basin to collect and hold up to 71/2 inches of water.  The system applies a vacuum within the subsoil drainage pipe network to increase the rate at which water is moved from the surface and through the soil .... helps with temperature moderation....applies pressure to force air from the subsoil pipes through the soil....to provide aeration while moderating temperature in the root zone."   That means the grass can stay green into autumn and no torrential thunderstorms will flood the outfield. The system proved its worth with our opening CWS when the area had flooding problems from a disastrous summer of Missouri River flooding that threatened our twin cities, especially when underground water seeped under the sandbag blockades.  [All my quoted specifics are from the special Omaha World-Herald edition on 18 June 2011.]  The whole place got rave reviews, with over 300,000 in attendance.  You will now see why.

My first view was after we entered at the southeast corner.  The CWS logo consequently is upside down, meant for the main crowd, of course.  The day was obviously iffy, but we had only a brief sprinkle until the game was over, when we had one of those short, sudden downpours, as shown.  To the left was one of the many ESPN cameramen.  The NCAA and ESPN had design input, with camera positions especially made for the TV sports giant.

   A major difference from Rosenblatt is the full-circle wide concourse around the stadium, easily handling crowds coming and going to the new vendor stations--trendy and pricy--and large restrooms, in contrast to the narrow walkways and facilities at Rosenblatt, always stacking up lines and making getting in and out Zen moments (patience! patience!).  Around the concourse are giant posters for famous past CWS players.  Mine is a bit blurred but is Terry Francona when he played for Arizona and was named CWS MVP the year Arizona won the championship.  After playing ten years in major league baseball, he managed, most famously, the Boston Red Sox, whom he guided to two World Series championships before losing last year and hence losing his job.  (The Boston Red Sox were Dad's all-time favorite team, which explains why I took the photo.)

I should mention the deliberate orientation of the stadium makes batters face into the prevailing winds, home runs more difficult now and and pitchers the stars instead of the big sluggers.  Oppositely, Rosenblatt's batters had those winds helping several homers hit the outfield bleachers. Ameritrade also gives most of the audience a grand photo op of downtown Omaha behind the spectacular color board with its millions of LED lights and their trillions of color combinations.

    My first view of home plate is on the left.  To the right, a side shot of the huge color board gives an idea of its huge size, as well as having the CenturyLink Center in the background.  I said you could walk completely around the playing area, but that day we were kept away for some reason.

When the rains came, the big overhang of the top tier with all the press boxes and expensive suites provided a large area beyond the concourse for people to wait out any downpour or to watch the grounds crew lay out the huge tarp.  (The grass has that sensational plumbing to protect it but not the diamond, of course.)  Because the game had also ended, people streamed out the corner exits with none of Rosenblatt's congestion.

If they left at the southwest corner toward downtown, they had a great view of the nation's third largest public mural, "Fertile Ground," which has its own entry in my blog earlier. On the west side, buses and shuttles are ready, and the visiting team's easy exit is also there, shown in a photo with the Texas A & M uniforms and bus.

A gift by CWS, Inc., to Omaha for the 50th CWS anniversary here, the famous Road to Omaha sculpture now sits at the northwest corner at the main entrance, Gate 1.  It got more notice than usual this year because the player at the right was modeled on Brian O'Connor, coach of Virginia, here this year, and former Creighton U. ball player.   Notice the amount of exterior glass, which helps make the stadium much lighter than Roseblatt was.

 As part of the area's face-lifting, Cuming Street was widened and now curved at its eastern end toward the airport, running along north of the stadium.  I have a shot looking east past the stadium's northern side.  Across the street is a special area owned by Union Pacific called Home Plate where several very special, historic cars were parked for entertaining special guests during the series.  One of our most famous corporations, headquartered here, UP's presence also shows up along the lines for general admission.

The right photo immediately above shows the closeness of the Missouri River, just beyond the high-rise condominium towers, with only the two white masts with black tips showing of the extremely popular, photogenic Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge across to Council Bluffs.  Finally, all around the area are big orange stanchions telling you where you are in case you've forgotten.

I should add that TD Ameritrade Park's first baseball game was for a private birthday party for Little Leaguers, though all the official sources will tell you it was the later Creighton-UNL Cornhusker game.  Creighton U.'s Blue Jays will be playing baseball here permanently now (they finished their season in the Missouri Valley championship here).  The Omaha Nighthawks, our first pro football team--besides the Omaha Beef, our arena football team-- also played football here but are not likely to survive the economy.  The Red Sky Music Festival had a five-day stand and will be back.  P.S. In the Midlands section of the Omaha World-Herald, 6 January 2012, was the banner story, "New downtown stadium 'paying its way,' claiming "a net operating profit of $5.6 million in its first official fiscal year...."  It also added the several later events after the CWS:  ..."a college home run derby, an international baseball exhibition game between the U.S. and Japan, five nights of the Red Sky Music Festival and four Omaha Nighthawks professional football games." 

That was David Larry at four months.  In those years the Bloomfield Monitor had regular baby picture sections.  As you can see from this torn-out section I lightened from its aged darkness, it dates from 30 October 1947.  Next to David is, coincidentally, the daughter of one of Betty's best friends, Marge Peterson, with whom she sang duets for special occasions.     That's Grandma Fern Koftan's writing, David and his mom, of course.

 The photo beneath the tricycle picture is undated, but that's him with his sister, Linda.

I really like this Little League photo, dated May '56.

Two school photos, the one at right at "12 yrs." in Gram's writing.

He looks fine in his army uniform, but I laughed at part of his inscription on the back:  "I'm giong to hold out longer than you on the marriage status I believe.  Of course if I had a whole dorm full of girls...."

Finally, two Christmas snapshots, one marked by Gram as 1960, with Ryan and Linda and a very little P.T., Grandpa Koftan's dog, the other clearly at our house in Center, with his parents, marked "JAN 68."