Retirement -
After I retired from the University, I worked with the Drivers Education Classes through the Educational Service Unit #3. I worked with Larry Vice at ESU#3 and Ed Stribley at Westside High School operating the Simulator Unit with students both during the regular school year and the summer school program.
One of my favorite trips was when Chick took me to Flin Flong, after I had retired. Chick enjoyed taking someone with him and had taken Dann one time during the summer when Dann was in high school. Chick was a generous person as often paid for the whole trip.
What can I say about Dann. I find it difficult to talk about him. He was my only son. He spent his young years in Early, IA, we moved when he was nine and he grew up in Omaha, NE. He turned out to be a fine young man. Our neighborhood was growing at such a pace that he attended a different school every year until he went to the new Burke High School. He was the first class to graduate from Burke that had attended school there all three years.
He was attending the University of Omaha when his number was drawn in the lottery for the draft. He signed up for the Army and went to Helicopter Pilot training. He always took life seriously both in high school and in the service of his country. He worked hard and became the best helicopter in his crew of friends. He proudly served his country for nine nervous months in Viet Nam and returned home March 7th of 1972. I researched Dann's military ribbons and medals and have them framed.
Dann took some time in Dallas TX, to find himself and returned to Omaha to finish school. He received his BA in Business and married Christy Stevens in November of 1976. He took a job with a trucking company in their dispatch department and worked in Omaha for a year. They were transferred to Little Rock, AZ and had a son, Jason, while there on January 3rd 1978. They were transferred back to Omaha that summer. On October 15th that year, he was diagnosed with Agent Orange induced Hodgkin's. We lost him March 7, 1979. Our family never recovered from the loss.
Jason finished college at my alma mater, Iowa University. He is now working in Omaha, brewing beer at a local upscale restaurant. He has purchased several houses and is renting them to his college friends.
Louise and I enjoyed our life together. We had 57 wonderful years together. I missed her so much after her death in 1999, I realized I needed something to do with myself. After checking into what might be available for someone my age, I found a volunteer program at the Methodist Hospital that has worked well for me. I work in the Patient Education Department with two wonderful ladies, Mary and Anne. I help them by collating materials, stapling, binding booklets and putting stickers on materials they send out. These two ladies have helped me in so many ways, it's hard for me to say. They are truly my good friends.
I started working for their department, three hours a day, three days a week. Now I work two hours a day, four days a week. Over the last five years, I have volunteered over 2,000 hours. My pay is great company and dinner every day I work. I even qualify for mileage through the Eastern Nebraska Association.
Bert and Louise in 1997.
Every time I have been admitted to Methodist as a patient, I have received the materials that I helped these wonderful ladies collect, collate, sticker and bind. I have never failed to tell my nurses that I probably did this, and tell them about my great friends.
With all my stories that you have just read, you have not heard about my mistakes or foolishness. As I read this over, I've made myself sound like a really "Great Guy!" However, there have been some very foolish things I've done or had happen to me, like when I was nine or ten and was playing football with some friends in the park. I had my mouth open when I tried to catch the ball and lost two front teeth. I've had tooth problems all my life. The Army took the rest of my upper teeth before I was 30.
Another thing silly thing I did was to flunk English while I was at Eastern making me ineligible for a semester of football. However, Eastern was having trouble fielding a team, so I was allowed to play, anyway.
Another time, when I was in training for overseas duty, I was on night maneuvers when I fell down a raven. I twisted my right knee badly. Timing was such that I could not be returned to camp for medical care for two days. I stayed at our tent site and was on "hog patrol" until my unit could return to camp. When I got back to camp, I found out that I was up for furlough, so I went to Elgin to see Louise and Jean, rather than having my knee looked at. It has given me trouble all my life.
Oh, yeah, "Hog Patrol." The area we were in had wild ridge back hogs. If we didn't put our belongings in a tree before we left, the hogs would take off with it. Many of us lost goodies from home that way. We decided to leave someone stationed at the tent site to guard the area. That became the wounded. And as it turned out, it was one other guy and me, left to keep the wild ridge back hogs out of our tent area.
Another time in 1953, we had just purchased a brand new car, our first. It had a nice light green body and black top, a two toned '53 Chevy. I was working my regular summer job for the Wadsley brother's and proudly drove my new car to Ivan's farm to work the first day we had it. I parked it on the side of their large gravel driveway, out of the way, or so I thought. Their drive way was at the top of a slope that allowed us to drive in to the barn at the second level as well as the lower level at the back. When I came in from the field that day, I saw my new car had traveled down the slope, unmanned and smashed into the side of the barn. I think it even put a crack in the foundation of the barn. I must have failed to put the emergency break on. It was drivable, but I really didn't want to drive it back to town that way.
Then something I wish I could have done differently, shortly after arriving in Omaha, a businessman by the name of Warren Buffet, came to the college faculty asking for investors. He wanted $2,000.00 from each of us and promised we would not be sorry. We all gulped, and pleasantly declined. Hindsight tells me now we should have figured out a way to do that.
I celebrated my 90th Birthday February 18, 2005. I miss Louise, Dann and Chick in the deepest possible way. With Kym and Jean's continuous care, Jason close by, and my wonderful caring friends, feel I am still living a full life.