A dozen years ago, about the time I married my wife, Suzanne, her oldest daughter, Megan, heard the Allman Brothers Band’s song “Ramblin’ Man” on the radio.

“Is that Dave’s song,” Megan asked.

“Yep,” her mom replied.

I never intended it to be “my” song, but I smile whenever I hear it.

“Ramblin’ Man” came out in 1973, beating the debut of my Ramblin’ days by nine years. I was Eastern Iowa reporter at The Gazette in 1982 when talk came up about me writing a feature column. Titles that I don’t remember any more were tossed around until Mark Bowden, then state editor and my boss, slapped “Ramblin’ with Rasdal” on my first column. It stuck, although it was shortened to “Ramblin’” in the early ’90s.

Today, my Ramblin’ column comes to an end. But I’ll be in the office through Friday. And I’ll remain a ramblin’ man till the day I die.

At the time we were naming my column, the book “Blue Highways” by William Least Heat-Moon began its ascent on best-seller lists. The author had been laid off from his college teaching job in Missouri when he set out to see America. He packed his belongings and a sleeping mattress into a simple van, collected his credit cards because he was nearly broke, and took off along the back roads often marked by blue lines on highway maps.

Inspired by Iowans I’d written about earlier, and the people William Least Heat-Moon encountered on his travels, I followed the blue highways philosophy around Eastern Iowa. I concentrated on the small towns to find fascinating folks who had stories to tell, stories that may not have otherwise found print.

Asking for a favorite would be like asking which child is your favorite. They all are.

But if two columns stand out, they would be my 1993 truck trip to California and back (an eight-part series that ran as a day-to-day account exactly two weeks after it happened) and the columns in November 1992 after I got beat up after flashing my bright lights at a slow moving car on First Avenue in Cedar Rapids.

A lot of people (including past bosses) have told me I had the best job in the world. Yep, I got paid to listen to people, to help tell their stories. More than 3,500 stories.

In 2011, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of my first column, The Gazette published “Ramblin’ Reflections of Hidden Iowa,” a coffee-table book filled with photographs and columns. I’m thankful for that. And now it’s time for another chapter.

I turn 60 on Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day. That doesn’t seem possible. Wasn’t it only yesterday that two-dozen St. Patrick’s Day babies of all ages joined me for my 45th birthday aboard a rain-soaked float in the Cedar Rapids parade?

Life is short, fleeting and unpredictable.

As I bid farewell, to borrow from the Allman Brothers:

“Now it’s time for leavin’; I hope you’ll understand; That I was born a ramblin’ man.”

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Motorists travel the dirt path of the early Lincoln Highway from Marion to Cedar Rapids (now First Avenue) before the route was changed in 1924 to follow Mount Vernon Road SE. (Gazette file photo)

Happy birthday, Lincoln Highway. Our nation’s first transcontinental automobile route turns 100 this year — officially on Oct. 31, 1913.

But, the Lincoln Highway has always been a favorite Ramblin’ topic, whether it’s the Youngville Cafe or the Tama bridge or old routes in Cedar County or through Marion and Cedar Rapids. So, what better way to wind down my Gazette career than write about it in this, my second to last column? (My final Ramblin’ column runs Wednesday.)

A lot is going on this year with the biggie being the Lincoln Highway Association’s (lincolnhighwayassoc.org) 100th Anniversary Tour along the original route, gravel roads and all. Cars leave Times Square in New York City on June 21 and San Francisco on June 22 to converge in Kearney, Neb., on June 30 for the centennial celebration and national conference. (June 28 features lunch in Mount Vernon and various stops on the way to overnight in Ames.)

The Lincoln Highway ties in with a follow-up to my Feb. 25 column when I asked readers about five vigilantes posing with guns in front of a Ford Model A in a photo sent by Keith Techau of Lisbon. The picture was in a scrapbook owned by Bonnie Pauls of rural Mechanicsville who died Aug. 9, 2010, at age 96.

Several folks responded, but Keith nailed it when he ran across a Lisbon News story about the robbery of the Union Trust and Savings Bank in Stanwood on Feb. 2, 1932. It says one bandit, R.D. Forbes, 35, was killed and the other, Robert Wall, 29, captured in Lowden after the noon robbery that netted $500. They escaped in a Model-T, driving west on the Lincoln Highway.

Outside of Stanwood, they transferred to a Model A and turned around. As they came to Lowden, a group of vigilantes — M. V. Pauls (Town Marshal), A.F. Clemmens, Hans Andreson and Roy Marks — had blocked the road. The shootout ensued. Forbes was shot in the back seat of the car.

Pauls, Bonnie’s father-in-law, was identified far right in the photo by several people including Marilyn Benishek of Belle Plaine who is his niece. “Walt got shot in the leg,” she said. “He didn’t get hurt too bad but he limped the rest of his life.” He died in 1970.

The robbers were identified after Wall told authorities to check at 1011 Second Ave. SE in Cedar Rapids. So, I checked out The Gazette.

On Feb. 3, this newspaper ran the photo, identifying the four men on the right standing in front of the bandits’ stolen car. The story’s details said Forbes had lived in Stanwood, where his father was a barber, until age 10. As a contract painter, Wall had done work at the Cedar Rapids Police Department in 1931.

By then, the Lincoln Highway through Iowa was Highway 30. But, as “The Main Street Across America” with 2,400 Boy Scouts markers placed along the road and icons such as the late George Preston’s sign-decorated service station in Belle Plaine, fans have kept it alive for a century.

These five men formed a vigilante group in 1932 to stop bank robbers who had escaped from Stanwood and drove toward Lowden along the Lincoln Highway. From left are an unidentified man, Hans Andreson, A.F. Clemmens, Roy Marks and Lowden Town Marshal M.V. Pauls. (The photo appeared in the Feb. 3, 1932, Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette and Republican.)

Joannie West of Cedar Rapids carves a decorative bowl on Sunday, Feb. 8, 2009, in northeast Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Discover the Art in Intarsia, a wood art show to raise money for the establishment of a woodworking shop for veterans, will be held Saturday and Sunday at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids.

“Our mission is to build clubs for intarsia carvers around the United States,” said Joannie West of Cedar Rapids, president and co-founder with her husband, Jim, of the National Intarsia Carvers Association. “These clubs would then, in turn, build woodworking shops for veterans in their areas.”

The show runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $5 per day or $7 for both days.

In addition to demonstrations and displays, the show features a seminar by Judy Gale Roberts, a nationally known award-winning artist from Pigeon Forge, Tenn. The seminar is $55, which includes a materials packet, and must be reserved ahead of time by calling (319) 551-3126.

Intarsia (in tar’ see a), West says, is a style of relief wood carving where the artist incorporates grains, colors and textures of wood into the finished piece that is assembled like a puzzle. The pictures are created without using paints or stains.

West founded the organization last summer after being inspired a year earlier during a show in Dubuque. At that time she learned that the Freedom Center in Dubuque had created a woodworking shop for veterans that even drew them from the Department of Veterans Affairs Hospital in Iowa City.

“They have found that woodworking has significant therapeutic benefits for veterans, particularly those with post-traumatic stress disorder,” West said. “We believe that making something with your hands is a highly satisfying activity which increases quality of life.”

For more information, see www.intarsiaassociation.com or contact West by email at DiscoverTheArtInIntarsia@yahoo.com or by phone at (319) 551-3126.

Kevin Dochterman of Cedar Rapids holds a scrapbook given to him by Katherine of Peru, one of 50 children around the world he has helped support through Compassion International. Photo was taken Tuesday, Feb 26, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Even though Kevin Dochterman, 48, has never married, he’s helped support 50 children. And it’s worth every penny of the $600 or so he sends them every month.

“They need the help,” Kevin says, simply.

They are children in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia. In India, Indonesia and Thailand. In Ghana and Kenya.

The walls of Kevin’s room in the Cedar Rapids house he shares with his parents is covered with their pictures. Souvenirs he’s collected on visits to many of them line shelves. He keeps a scrapbook on each child and a stack of two dozen letters are ready to mail.

“I write to my kids at least once a month,” Kevin says.

The adventure began 15 years ago, a decade after he earned an international trade degree from Kirkwood Community College with a dream to see the world. But, it didn’t work out that way at first as he worked at Econo Foods West and then in 1993 joined Alside Windows where he’s worked on the production line since.

Kevin’s inspiration to reach out to other children first came from his parents, Mary and Ernest, who is retired from Quaker. For more than 30 years, until 2003, they were foster parents to more than 300 children. At times they would have six babies at once. His mother also worked with kindergarten students and baby-sat.

That’s how life for Kevin shaped up in 1998 when he attended an Amy Grant concert in Cedar Rapids. During a break, the “Queen of Christian Pop” star talked about sponsoring a child through Compassion International.

Kevin checked into it, sent $24 for a monthly sponsorship fee, and received a photograph of Katherine, a 5-year girl in Peru whose family lived in extreme poverty. He wrote to her, sent her photographs and family gifts and, in 2002, joined a Compassion International tour at his own expense to visit “his” child.

As he stood with the group, a child’s voice called, “Kevin, Kevin.”

“I turned around,” he says, “and she came running into my arms. It was like we’d been together forever.”

She was 9. They jumped on a trampoline, walked to the park, ate lunch. He met her newborn brother, Willson.

“Little did I know, five years later I became his sponsor,” Kevin says.

Katherine has turned 18 and graduated from the program. In fact, 10 of Kevin’s kids are no longer with it, while 40, some of them correspondent children, remain.

Ask Kevin why he hasn’t married and he’ll joke, “I can’t find someone that’ll accept 40 kids.” But ask why he was meant to help support this many children and he’ll tell you about his dream girl.

On March 24, 2008, Kevin dreamed he was at a child’s birthday party in a foreign land, later identified as Bangladesh.

Online the next day, he selected Anita, 8, wearing the pink shirt, black skirt and with long dark hair as in his dream. Only later did he learn it was her birthday.

Kevin Dochterman of Cedar Rapids visited Katherine, his first Compassion International child in her native Peru in 2002 and held her newborn brother, Willson, whom he would later support, too. Photo was taken Tuesday, Feb 26, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

Two of three Steinway & Sons concert grand pianos played by such living legends as Harry Connick Jr., Lang Lang, Ramsey Lewis and Emanual Ax are on display at West Music in Coralville where patrons can play them through Saturday. Photo was taken Wednesday, Feb 27, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CORALVILLE — Harry Connick Jr., tickled the ivories of the shiny Steinway & Sons Model D, a 9-foot concert grand.

Lang Lang, a 30-year-old New York-based Chinese concert pianist, played that keyboard, too, as well as a similar grand with a subdued satin finish next to it.

And, behind them, on a brighter sounding 7-foot grand, the “Piano Man” himself, Billy Joel, played and sang, “Son, can you play me a memory. I’m not really sure …”

These are three pianos that reflect the past that you can play as “The Steinway & Sons Living Legends Piano Tour” takes its turn at West Music in Coralville through Saturday. (Call West Music at (319) 351-2000 to set up a half-hour appointment or just drop by during regular business hours.) After that, the pianos played by the stars go to West Music’s stores in Moline, Ill., and then Urbandale.

“There are 27 companies that make 9-foot grand pianos,” says Kirk Davis, piano division director at West Music. “Ninety-eight percent of performance artists choose Steinway.”

It’s that reputation for greatness, begun 160 years ago, that prompted Steinway & Sons to put these pianos on tour and that convinced West Music to begin selling Steinways in 1997.

Walk around the piano showroom floor and you’ll find pianos for $10,000 and $20,000. Then you come to the Steinway grands — $55,000, $60,000, $70,000. Why, not far from the touring pianos sits a new Model D, the 9-foot concert grand model that’s been made and sold since the late 1800s, with a “sold” sign on it. The University of Dubuque just bought this $142,000 piano for its performance center.

Yes, you could buy a small house for the price of this big piano or an ultra-fancy car for the $90,000 price tag of a Model B piano like Billy Joel’s. But a Steinway is a Steinway, a piano that takes about a year to build by hand, a piano that roughly doubles in value every ten years, a piano that teachers see as a huge benefit.

“They realize how great the investment is to the education of their students,” Kirk says. “Everybody wants to play a Steinway.”

One of three Steinway & Sons concert grand pianos played by such living legends as Harry Connick Jr., Lang Lang, Ramsey Lewis and Emanual Ax are on display at West Music in Coralville. Photo was taken Wednesday, Feb 27, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

Several times Kirk has visited the flagship store on West 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan, not far from Carnegie Hall, that displays 150 pianos. But it’s the basement’s 30 concert grands that draw the stars to pick out their performance pianos.

That basement, which some have called “the center of the piano universe,” has attracted the likes of Grammy-winner Emanuel Ax, pop artist Bruce Hornsby, jazz musician Ramsey Lewis and yes, the only non-classical pianist honored in Steinway’s hall of fame, Billy Joel.

“I met him once,” Kirk laughs, “for about 10 seconds coming out of Steinway Hall. All I did was say ‘hi.’”

For more than two decades, from the late 70s until 2000, Frenchman and former Coe College instructor Andre Girod bridged the gap between the United States and France with an aggressive foreign exchange education program that involved 80,000 American and French fifth-grade students.

Now Girod has documented the experience in his book, “French-American Class: It’s a long way to France.”

“The City of Cedar Rapids was the first city in America to participate in 1977 and many articles were written at the time,” Girod writes in an email.

In Cedar Rapids the program was called Campus International. He points to his blog for people to read more about it. (Most of it is in French but it does have some interesting caricatures of a Frenchman in the United States.)

Girod became a teacher of French in foreign countries after studying at the Sorbonne. He came to the United States in 1959 as a Fulbright scholar and, in 1965, joined Coe College in Cedar Rapids. By the early 70s he became discouraged by the decline of teaching foreign languages in the United States and began the exchange program.

“French-American Class” is published by Red Lead Press in Pittsburgh and can be ordered in either a 126-page soft cover book for $15 or downloaded as an e-book for $10 by clicking here.

Girod would like program participants to try to reconnect via Facebook, since many French people also use it to stay connected to friends.

If program participants wish to contact Girod, he can be reached by email at jardins.de.magali@gmail.com

The "Legacy Circle" and the donor list for the annual "Tree of Lights" campaign are among several wall displays at Virginia Gay Hospital that pay tribute to the supporters of the hospital through the decades. Photo was taken Friday, Feb 15, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

VINTON — If bricks and mortar can ever represent community cohesiveness and generosity, the building would look like Virginia Gay Hospital in Vinton. A new program — The Plaza of Heroes — cements that notion, for it pays tribute to people who have kept the hospital alive.

Small cities like Vinton, population 5,300, often struggle to keep health care local as larger city hospitals have expanded with satellite clinics and easier transportation to their main facilities.

While this hospital’s story begins in 1914 when Virginia Gay died and left $50,000, its survival and resurrection actually begin 20 years ago, coinciding with a popular program called the Tree of Lights which has raised nearly $1 million. The symbolic evergreen stood in front of the hospital until the wind storm of July, 2011, took it out along with hundreds of trees in town.

A stone fountain and brick plaza have been built in the tree’s place, in front of the new $8 million addition and upgrade to the hospital, while a new Tree of Lights has been planted south of it. For $75, a hero’s name can be engraved on one of 1,500 bricks with $50, like donations to the Tree of Lights, going to the hospital’s “tradition of healing” program.

“Our hospital was created with a gift,” says Mike Timmermans, foundation director. “If it wasn’t for the people on these boards,” he adds, walking through the lobby, “we would have been defunct in the 1980s.”

Several wall displays cite the generosity of people, businesses and companies. More than 500 donors are listed for Tree of Lights 2012 (updated each year) and close to 100 names in the Legacy Circle note contributions of at least $10,000 each.

“We talk about fund raisers and friend raisers,” Mike says. “They go hand in hand.”

The tradition began in 1926 after the hospital closed for lack of funds. The Federation of Women’s Clubs of Vinton raised $3,700 to reopen the doors in 1927.

Bricks that surround the new fountain at Virginia Gay Hospital in Vinton will be engraved with the names of "heroes" who have made it possible for the community of 5,500 people to not only keep a hospital, but to have a state-of-the-art one. Photo was taken Friday, Feb 15, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

Many times since, the community has stepped up to ensure success for the hospital, from lean times in The Great Depression to construction of the present building in the 1950s to several additions. A big step came in 1992, after the hospital had lost $2.5 million in the past decade, when the hospital board terminated a management contract with St. Luke’s Hospital in Cedar Rapids.

Under local control, the hospital thrived with pride of ownership. More than $1.2 million was raised in 1994. Expansion includes clinics and senior living. More than $2.2 million was raised for the new addition completed in 2010.

Today, Virginia Gay Hospital employs 250 full- and part-time people including four family doctors and a surgeon. It has everything from a 24-hour emergency room and imaging services to physical therapy and long-term care. The future is bright.

“We’re proud,” Mike says. “We’ve made it with the help of the community.”

Five men, apparently working in law enforcement as shown by the badges some of them wore, pose for a photo after an apparent shoot out in Cedar County. Photo was copied Tuesday, Feb 19, 2013. (Bonnie May Pauls scrapbook photo)

If old pictures could talk, we’d know what those guys with guns have been up to as they pose beside a car with a rear window shot out.

Thing is, none of them are talking. And the picture has no information.

But, after running into it in an old scrapbook, Keith Techau of Lisbon sent it my way.

“We don’t recognize anyone,” says Keith, 75. “I thought someone else might recognize the people or know what’s going on?”

Mmmm. That’s a Ford Model A (1928 to 1931). The three posse heroes on the right wear badges and have guns. The car window has been hit four or five times. The license plate prefix, 16, designates Cedar County.

Yep. The picture had been owned by Bonnie Pauls, who died Aug. 9, 2010, at age 96. She was born and died in the same house five miles southwest of Mechanicsville. Keith has the picture because his brother-in-law, Bob Conner, lived with Bonnie and her late husband, Melvin (died in 1976) for 30 years. They had no children so left the farm to Bob, 75.

“None of the people look like her husband, Melvin,” Keith says, adding that he farmed and Bonnie was a nurse.

Was this the Iowa Cow War of 1931? That happened south of Tipton when 400 farmers confronted two veterinarians and 65 law officers as they tested cows for tuberculosis. The National Guard had to quell unrest the next day.

A shootout with John Dillinger? He reportedly visited the Lighthouse in Cedar Rapids and easily could have driven along the Lincoln Highway through Cedar County before his death in 1934 in Chicago.

What do you know?

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In a tradition that began 30 years ago, customers of Winegarden Hardware in Deep River will be treated to free food — dinner from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at the community center — to celebrate the store’s 75th anniversary.

I visited the old store with its high ceilings, oiled hardwood floor and eclectic mix of merchandise, 15 years ago for the 60th. Leland Winegarden, now 89, has been involved with the store since his father, Phil, bought into in 1938. By 1998, Leland’s stepson and wife, Myron and Tina Widmer, had bought into the store.

So now it’s on to 100?

“I don’t know if I’m going to be here,” laughs Leland’s wife, Lois, “but I hope the store is.”

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“Suckers for Soldiers,” started by Tricia Weber’s fourth-grade class at Grant Wood Elementary School in Cedar Rapids, planned to raise enough money to send one World War II or Korean War veteran on an Eastern Iowa Honor Flight to Washington, D.C.

Well, inspired by history, patriotism and their teacher, the kids sold 890 suckers in the first two days. So far, fund raising translates into more than $1,200, enough to send at least two soldiers, says George Ricky, honor flight media chairman. And, with “Suckers for Soldiers” continuing through Saturday, they hope to send a third.

Myrt Bowers, Associate Executive Director, Witwer Center Healthy Lifestyle Programs, Aging Services Inc., talks to an AARP group about the future of a senior citizens center in Cedar Rapids. Photo was taken Tuesday, Feb 12, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Seniors in Cedar Rapids are getting restless.

After the Floods of 2008, they lost the Witwer Senior Center in the central business district. The replacement, at the Ecumenical Center and Green Square Meals site at 605 Second Ave. SE doesn’t compare, with 2,500 square feet of shared space to 12,000 square feet before.

“A city this size should have a something,” said a woman at a recent AARP chapter meeting in Cedar Rapids.

“I’m looking forward to having a place to go,” said a retired man. “To talk to people. To hash things out.”

“I have friends in Iowa City,” a woman said. “I know what they have down there and what we have here. It’s pathetic.”

Myrt Bowers, Associate Executive Director, Witwer Center Healthy Lifestyle Programs, Aging Services Inc., assured the nearly two-dozen seniors she’s working on it. She explained a proposal to rehabilitate the former Novak Heating & Air Conditioning building in Czech Village. OPN Architects, Inc., is drawing up plans and estimating costs. Once that’s done, information will be released at a public forum.

The seniors wait.

Witwer had temporary quarters at Washington High School and at the People’s Church (since razed) before settling into the present location. Myrt has searched tirelessly for a permanent home. A building in the New Bohemia district was too small. A plan to locate in a new Intermodal facility downtown died along with that project. Two other vacant buildings had problems — one was too big, the other too damaged in the flood.

The Novak building appears to be the best option. Its 8,000 square feet would feature room for wellness and exercise, music and dance, dining and relaxing.

The original Witwer Senior Center opened 31 years ago. Linn County provided the facility, maintenance and utilities until the flood. And, for good reason.

Thousands of folks used the center. In fact, 1,900 unduplicated people participated in Witwer Senior Center programs in 2012, despite them being at several locations. The census showed the country’s older residents increased 15.8 percent to 37,000. That’s projected to grow. And these people want not only longer lives but increased quality to those lives.

Myrt said county and city officials have verbally supported a center. Lu Barron, a county supervisor, committed $5,000 to this recent study. But, no financial commitments have been made.

“If they want to be a Blue (Zone) city, they’ve got to have a senior center,” said Bob Ackerson who acquired 300 signatures on a petition for a new senior center he circulated at a couple of area grocery stores.

Myrt is optimistic that fundraising and local government entities will make it happen.

“We’re going to have a three-star center,” she said. “No, we’re going to have a five-star. I’ve been to a number of senior centers. I know what it takes.”

Seniors are hopeful.

Myrt Bowers (center), director of the Witwer Senior Center talks with Margaret McCune (left) and Donna Burgin during the inaugural lunch of the Witwer Senior Center's senior meals program at the Ecumenical Community Center, 605 Second Ave. SE, on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2009, in southeast Cedar Rapids. (Jim Slosiarek/The Gazette)

MARION — “Happy birthday, Abe,” I say, greeting Lance Mack in the food court at the Marion Hy-Vee.

“Why, thank you,” he replies. “I feel good for a man of 204.”

Yes, today is Presidents Day, the Federal holiday that celebrates the births of George Washington (Feb. 22, 1732) and Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12, 1809), our first and 16th presidents.

And today, Mack, a Lincoln impersonator for 25 years, delivers the keynote address at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Museum and Library in Boston, Mass.

“This will probably take No. 1,” Lance says when asked about his most prestigious appearance. “I’m hoping this trip to Boston will crack the East Coast market.”

Lance has appeared as the 16th president around the country including for President Obama’s visit to Eastern Iowa last summer, at the Lincoln international school in San Jose, Costa Rica, even in Washington, D.C. on vacation.

“I have been warmly welcomed and rudely chased away at the Lincoln Memorial,” he says.

One time, a National Park Services ranger took him aside and said, in no uncertain terms, that “impostors” weren’t welcome. Another time, a ranger said, “What you’re doing is wonderful. Keep it up.”

When he’s dressed as Lincoln — Mack stands 6-5, Lincoln was 6-3, so Lance wears a 7-inch tall stovepipe hat to Lincoln’s 9-inch one — he’s always in character. The Gettysburg Address easily rolls off his tongue, as do historical facts and Lincoln’s mannerisms as best he could uncover.

“I’ve always believed that for an actor to be successful in anything, an element of the character has to speak to something inside you.”

It wasn’t always that way for this Hammond, Ind., native who has lived throughout the Midwest and first moved to Cedar Rapids a dozen years ago. He now lives in Marion with his wife, Maureen.

“He’s not the man I married,” she jokes. “I married Frank Zappa.”

That was 33 years ago.

“When we got married I had a Fu Manchu mustache, so yeah, I looked like Frank Zappa,” he laughs.

But he grew a beard, then shaved off the mustache and began portraying Lincoln. His first appearance at Crossroads Village near Flint, Mich., resulted in repeat invitations. He earns up to $1,000 for a weekend appearance but sometimes just likes to have fun.

Last year, for the premier of the movie “Lincoln” in Cedar Rapids, he dressed as Lincoln and was accompanied by a dozen Civil War re-enactors who all received free admission. (Yes, he removed his hat as he watched the movie.)

As a student of Lincoln, Lance thought the movie was well done but wishes it would have covered more than the last few months up to Lincoln’s assassination.

When Lance, 63, dies, he wants his ashes scattered among the bushes around Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield, Ill.

“Everybody has to end up somewhere,” he says.

Abraham Lincoln impersonator Lance Mack recites Lincoln's second inauguration address as David Wendell(left), dressed as Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase stands by at the Presidential Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln re-enactment at Summit Pointe in Marion on February 15, 2013. (Kaitlyn Bernauer/The Gazette-KCRG9)

Paul and Shari Glenn of Mechanicsville enjoy a fall day as they continue to face the challenges that come with fighting his kidney cancer. (Shari Glenn photo)

CEDAR RAPIDS — When I met Paul Glenn, he was prepared to celebrate his 54th birthday as if it would be his last. Diagnosed with advance renal cell carcinoma, a non-curable kidney cancer, doctors told him to go home to die. He sat in a wheelchair in his Mechanicsville home, his shoulders slouched under the weight of mortality, his dull eyes reflective of better times.

Yesterday, Paul celebrated his 60th birthday. He can walk now, occasionally using a cane to steady himself, especially on icy sidewalks. His blue eyes absolutely glow with hope, with promises of better tomorrows and everlasting love for his wife, Shari.

Together, these college sweethearts who have been married 36 years, will share a quiet Valentine’s Day tomorrow. They will celebrate six years they weren’t supposed to have.

“It takes faith, family and friends,” Paul says. “It takes it all. I couldn’t have made it without her and prayers.”

A healthy farmer, auctioneer and real estate agent who had lost his right arm in a 1977 farm accident, Paul cringed from unbelievable pain as he reeled in a 30-pound halibut on an Alaskan vacation in 2006. As the pain persisted, he saw doctors, received the diagnosis, underwent multiple surgeries, was treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“Mayo tried to get hospice set up for him,” Shari says. “I told them to go to hell.”

“She is remarkable,” Paul says, a grin spreading across his face. “If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.”

For better or worse. In sickness and health. The wedding vows were ‘till death do us part.

“She’s lived it, the worst parts,” Paul says. “I’ve reaped all of the benefits. There’s no way I could give it back.”

“Love,” Shari says. “You’ve got it. If your wife got sick, you’d do the same thing.”

If their roles were reversed, Paul would be at Shari’s side as she has been at his.

They sip coffee in a shop near Mercy Medical Center — Follow them at www.carepages.com under patient ID paulglenn53 — after he had undergone one in a series of 30 radiation treatments. This is the second attempt to eradicate a tumor between his trachea and right lung.

Shari and Paul Glenn of Mechanicsville share a lighter moment on their vacation to Ireland. (Shari Glenn photo)

Reclining on a table for quick zaps of radiation is quite painless, Paul says. As painless as taking the most advanced chemotherapy pill every day. But, more than modern medicine has kept Paul living life to the fullest.

Since he has received a second chance at life, Paul and Shari have traveled, from Seattle to Hilton Head, S.C., even to Ireland for last year’s St. Patrick’s Day. He has visited the Grand Canyon a half-dozen times, his favorite place on Earth. He looks forward to his mother, Esther, turning 90 this fall. With three children, he and Shari have welcomed three grandchildren into the world and await the birth of a fourth.

“We’ve been blessed,” Shari says, “with a lot of miracles.”

Novak™s Heating and Air Conditioning, 56 16th Ave. SW (The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS – The Witwer Senior Center, displaced by floodwaters nearly five years ago from its longtime downtown Cedar Rapids location, is exploring the option of opening a new center in Czech Village.

An architect with OPN Architects, Inc., of Cedar Rapids is drawing up plans and calculating renovation costs for the former Novak Heating & Air Conditioning building on 16^th Avenue SW, Myrt Bowers told 20 people at the AARP Chapter No. 5352 meeting Tuesday afternoon. Bowers is Associate Executive Director, Witwer Center Healthy Lifestyle Programs, Aging Services Inc.

“We need to take a good look at this,” Bowers said. “Once the drawings are back we’ll have a community forum so you can look at it.”

The Novak Heating & Air Conditioning building was purchased by the city with Community Development Block Grant funds. The company is now located in Hiawatha.

While the 8,000-square foot building on two levels would not be as large as the 12,000 square feet of space in the old senior center, Bowers said, it would be much greater than the current 2,500 square feet of shared space in the Ecumenical Center and Green Square Meals site at 605 Second Ave. SE.

Despite smaller space and holding some programs in other locations, the Witwer Senior Center served 1,900 un-duplicated participants last year, Bowers said.

Renovation of the Novak building would include an elevator and space for the senior center’s programs which range from multipurpose education to wellness and exercise, music and dance, a technology learning lab, café, lounge and office space.

“We think this site would be beautiful,” Bowers said, pointing out its proximity to the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library and the Cedar River. It also would have parking and be on a bus line, two requirements seniors say are necessary.

Annabell Weaver was about 18 when this photograph was taken in 1945. Photo was copied Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

HIAWATHA — In the old days, during The Great Depression of the 1930s, most kids loved the arrival of new mail-order catalogs so they could make up their “wish lists” for Christmas. Annabell Harger, who knew her family was so poor those wishes would never come true, instead relished the transfer of the old catalog to the outhouse out back.

“We were always happy to see the new catalogues come in the mail, as the catalogue we had been using in the outhouse was pretty well used, except the slick pages,” she writes in her a self-published memoir, “Rump Tump,” that recalls her childhood in and around Urbana with trips to Cedar Rapids.

“Every once in awhile,” she continues, “Mom would splurge, and buy something just for a treat for the family. This time it was a roll of toilet paper.”

My, how times change. Which is exactly why Annabell Harger Weaver, now 85, spent 20 years writing about her childhood, finishing in time for the Christmas past to give copies to her family.

“My life ended when I graduated high school,” Annabell jokes, referring the basic conclusion of her book, even though a short final chapter covers her marriage, birth of five children, and the next 50-plus years.

The truth is, I caught up with Annabell at the Oldorf Hospice House of Mercy in Hiawatha. Diagnosed with cancer two years ago, she’s had two cancerous growths and part of her colon removed. She was feeling better after three weeks in hospice. She can be reached by email at aweaver@ccim.net

"Rump Tump," a nickname for her grandfather, is the title of Annabell Weaver's book (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

“I’m glad it came out when it did,” she says. “You’d be surprised at the reaction I got — ‘I didn’t know you did this; I didn’t know you did that; I didn’t know you lived there.’ Now they want to go back to the country, where I grew up.”

What better tribute is there than that?

“It makes me feel good that they’re interested in it,” Annabell says.

In fact, word got out to the point Annabell received a phone call from Mildred Kalish, author of the best-selling “Little Heathens,” which took place around Garrison in the same era. The Benton County connection prompted the call.

“We had a great chat,” Annabell says. “Here she’s an English professor and knows all about writing.”

The “Rump Tump” title comes from her grandfather who would proclaim, “Rump-tump, doodle-um-adeedle-um-a-dum,” as he bounced children on his knee.

Annabell Weaver, who is now at the Oldorf Hospice House of Mercy in Hiawatha, spent 20 years writing a book about the challenges and rewards of her childhood. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

Annabell’s tales recall simpler times. One-room schools. Walking through huge snowdrifts. Her father starting a grocery store and being so poor the family of six lived in a back room. The radio connected to a car battery since they didn’t have electricity. Her mother confiding in only her about a lump on her breast. Sunday drives along gravel roads.

“I want to encourage others,” she says. “Mothers need to write these things down before they forget them.”

Librarian Joyce Deloso (left) and Roger Slade's cousin, Katherine Salinas (center), join the kids corner librarian in front of the kids corner at the new library in the village of Bungahin in the Philippines made possible with the donation of thousands of books from Eastern Iowa. (Roger Slade photo)

Bringing thousands of books — and the improved literacy that goes with it — to a small Philippine Island village wasn’t supposed to be this difficult.

It wasn’t supposed to take seven years.

But, now that it has finally happened, with about 8,000 books gathered through Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, the children in this sugar cane-rich area are devouring knowledge like candy at a handful of hut-like “Children’s Corners” in several villages.

“They were exactly what we had envisioned from the beginning,” writes overjoyed Dubuque native Roger Slade Jr., by email from his office in Hong Kong where he’s Managing Director Asia Pacific for www.wowstuff.com, a toy company.

The new library in the village of Bungahin in the Philippines, shown in December, was made possible by the donation of thousands of books from Eastern Iowa coordinated through Kirkwood Community College. (Roger Slade photo)

This is the fruition of a dream Roger and his wife, Julia, had in late 2005 on a frequent visit to her birthplace, Bungahin, a village of 200 people on Bacolod, an island in the Philippines about a 45-minute plane ride south of Manila.

Now that the library has come true, the couple is set to vacation in Dubuque beginning Friday and present a certificate of appreciation early next week to Kirkwood officials who helped make it all possible.

Roger came up with this idea when he saw the poverty of Bacolod, how it is so dependent on the harvest of sugar cane, how children had very little to do after school let out at 2 p.m.

You see, the life is one of hard work for eight months — the men sleep in the fields during the week and return home only on Saturdays — and famished poverty the other four months.

In early 2006, he told his son, Roger Slade III, about his idea for a library and asked him to collect a few books. Little did Roger know that his son, through girlfriend, Gina Gerleman, a student at Kirkwood who put out a collection box, would really get the ball rolling. Kirkwood happened to be culling its library book collection at the time — would Roger like some of those books?

“I said yes,” Roger writes. “Little did I know that two months later I would be arranging a 20-foot container load of 7,000 books from Iowa to Long Beach to Manila, and eventually to Bacolod.”

Bobby and Joselyn Salinas, the brother and sister-in-law of Roger Slade shown last December, cared for the thousands of books shipped from Cedar Rapids to the village of Bungahin in the Philippines while details were worked out to build a library. (Roger Slade photo)

That’s when Roger learned about the Philippine political process. First a mayor agreed to construct a small library, then the next mayor wanted a “donation” to start the project. Four years and three mayors later, the Slades turned to La Salle College in Bacolod City and Katherine Salinas, one of Julia’s cousins, for help. The college took donated adult books and gave an equal number of children’s books for the village libraries.

Seven years, from country to country, from college to college, Roger writes, “The long road for the books to the children is finally complete.”

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Will Rogers or Mark Twain or some lesser known wise guy first said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

I’ve come across a lot of forks. In other words, I’ve gone one way when I could have gone another. Sometimes it was my choice; sometimes it wasn’t. You know what I mean.

I was 15 when dad moved our family from Marshalltown to Spencer for his career. I didn’t want to go. It turned out to be the best for me at that point in my life.

After I’d been sports editor at The Spencer Daily Reporter for a couple of years, I mistakenly told my boss I was looking for another job. He hired my replacement before I’d found anything. It worked out for the best when I became city editor at the Cedar Valley Daily Times in Vinton.

After my first seven-and-a-half years at The Gazette, I resigned in 1986 to try other pursuits, among them writing “The Great American Novel.” I wound up in California, where I learned perfect weather isn’t everything. I was laid off from a great job in public relations (eight of nine people in the department were let go), I hated earthquakes and I longed for Iowa.

I also missed the newspaper business. So, I jumped at the chance to return to The Gazette, to work my way into writing Ramblin’ three times a week. I loved it.

You see, there’s a saying in newspapers: Once the ink gets in your blood, it’s there to stay. But, sadly, the ink isn’t what it used to be.

As computers hit the market some 40 years ago, experts predicted the impending death of newspapers. For a long time that seemed to have been greatly exaggerated.

Today, you can read on your computer how newspapers have died, how they’ve cut back on staffing, how they must refocus.

In Cedar Rapids, that has eerily coincided with the Floods of 2008. Necessary changes in newsroom philosophies and management at The Gazette have emphasized online delivery of news, more community-contributed stories and photographs, news delivered on a 24-hour cycle rather than once each morning. The newspaper is referred to as a Legacy Product.

To me, legacy means old and outdated. I love history, but this saddens me. I am worried because newspaper journalists have traditionally been the ones to dig deeper, to explain the “why,” to give you local news you weren’t always sure you needed but were glad to receive. Who will carry that torch now?

As I’ve rambled around Eastern Iowa, I’ve introduced you to thousands of people you may not have otherwise met.

We’ve cried with some, laughed with others. Always, though, I have found their stories fascinating and loved being able to put my twist on them.

Gazette Ramblin’ columnist Dave Rasdal waved from his company news vehicle before leaving The Gazette in August, 1986. He returned to The Gazette four years later. (Gazette photo taken August 23, 1986.)

These are your friends and relatives, the people who make Eastern Iowa the best place on Earth.

In the past few years, some of my friends and co-workers have left for other pursuits, retired or had their jobs eliminated. Nine of them were let go last month.

I too am leaving The Gazette, the newspaper business, behind. Sometime in March I will write my final Ramblin’ column. So, I will be here a while longer.

For now, I have come to another fork in the road. I know not where it leads.

Click here to read more entries from Dave’s column, “Ramblin with Rasdal” or to buy his book, “Ramblin’ Reflections of Hidden Iowa.”

Father Ivan Nienhaus of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids has led the resurgence of the parish since being assigned to it in July, 2010. Photo was taken Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — As the Cedar River left its banks, rising floodwaters threatened St. Patrick’s Catholic Church four blocks away. The Rev. Steven Rosonke lit a votive candle at the altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Nine days later, after hundreds of homes and businesses had been destroyed, after electric lights in all of them had been extinguished, the candle’s flame continued to flicker.

The little candle was supposed to burn only five days. It should have gone dark long before anyone was allowed back into the church.

This story — “The Beacon of Hope” — and others are told on the church’s new history wall, which was unveiled Jan. 27.

The wall hearkens back to the founding of St. Patrick’s in 1886 while also focusing on the church’s recovery from the Floods of 2008.

“The flood did us a favor,” says Cindy Koczo, pastoral minister and office manager. “It’s been a wonderful ride.”

Nobody but a true believer would have called the flood a blessing in June 2008. More than 100 church families lost their homes; many their businesses, too. The 1891 church, the 2005 parish center, the 1924 rectory, were all filled with floodwaters that left a muddy mess. While church members prayed for the best, many of them — some out loud and others under their breaths — feared this would be the end of St. Patrick’s.

But, it seems, that the candle had continued to burn for a reason.

Today, Koczo says, “We have more members now than when the flood hit.”

More than 900 families belong to St. Patrick’s. With three weekend masses — 4 p.m. Saturdays and 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Sundays — it’s often tough to find a seat.

“We’re talking about adding a third Sunday mass,” Koczo says. “People are excited we’re back. People are interested and involved. We are a closer parish.”

With a rich history, especially among Irish settlers, St. Patrick’s had grown to 2,000 families by 1950 and was the largest parish in Iowa. A remodel of the church at that time included removal of the roof and extensive enhancements to an interior already decorated with beautiful marble, mosaics and stained glass windows.

Then, a decade later, the Archdiocese of Dubuque formed a new parish — St. Jude’s. About half of St. Patrick’s families transferred there. LaSalle High School was built, and, in 1963, St. Patrick’s High School closed.

For nearly 40 years, the remaining St. Patrick’s school continued to operate until the area’s Catholic schools reorganized again. LaSalle consolidated with Regis High School on the east side of Cedar Rapids to become Xavier High School.

Through change, St. Patrick’s persevered.

In 2008, Koczo says, as church members held mass at Roosevelt Middle School, the Archdiocese responded to their plea to keep the parish open. But they require $1.1 million be raised to prove it was still viable. The money would pay off debt, help with rebuilding and prove the parish was sound.

“After they let us rebuild the church, word got around,” Koczo says. “We had money donated by people from around the country.”

The priority, of course, was to help church members get back on their feet first, then to enlist a huge volunteer force to clean up and rebuild the church. On Easter 2009, with 400 cushioned straight back chairs replacing the damaged pews, Father Philip Thompson welcomed the congregation home. That fall he kicked off the $1.1 million campaign.

The following summer, after Thompson transferred to St. Pius, Father Ivan Nienhaus came to St. Patrick’s. A Fort Atkinson native, he was prepared to transfer from Ames. He wasn’t prepared for St. Patrick’s.

“I prayed for every possible assignment I could imagine,” he says. “This was the only parish I didn’t pray about.”

He knew why his first mass in July 2010.

“We could have fit all three masses into one,” he says. “I knew it was bad. I didn’t think it was that bad.”

A photograph of flood waters around St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids is mounted above a T-shirt proclaiming the church's resurgence from the flood in the church's new history wall. Photo was taken Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

Nienhaus, 52, also learned the capitol campaign was $300,000 short. He addressed that his second Sunday.

“Guard your purses and your wallets,” he warned church members. “I’m going to visit each one of you.”

He did. By October, the money had been raised. Soon, he’d raised another $80,000 for pews, $50,000 for a new chapel in the parish center and, so far, $170,000 of the $200,000 needed to restore the rectory.

“Not only have people been generous, but the people of the parish have rebuilt this place,” he says. “Some people could not give financially,” he adds, “but they worked and they prayed.”

The Eucharistic Adoration at the chapel, open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, has more than 500 people pass through it each week to pray, meditate and reflect on where they’ve been and where they’re going.

“It’s been huge for this parish,” Koczo says. “Father Ivan has been fantastic.”

“There’s a new vibrancy here. There’s a new energy to this church,” Nienhaus says. “These are wonderful people.”

Bob Campagna, freelance photographer/graphic artist and former member of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids, prepares to install a photograph in the church's new history wall. Photo was taken Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Although the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church parish was founded in 1891, its rebirth after the Flood of 2008 leads off the four large display cases of its new history wall unveiled Sunday. Among photos of the flood is a T-shirt proclaiming “St. Patrick’s is back!”

You’ll also find other interesting memorabilia, from a 75th anniversary plate, to a photograph when the roof had been removed for updating in the late 1940s (the rededication was in 1951) to old catechism books to a bright green jacket with a Celtic cross representing the St. Patrick’s High School that closed in 1963.

“There’s a lot of history in this parish,” says Cindy Koczo, office manager and pastoral minister who came up with the idea for the history wall. “After we lost everything, people kept bringing stuff in, pictures. plates, old pictorial (membership) directories, cookbooks …

“Obviously,” she adds, “the history of this parish is important to people.”

That history is particularly meaningful to Bob Campagna, a Loveland, Colo., freelance photographer/graphic artist who grew up in Cedar Rapids and finished eighth grade at St. Patrick’s. He graduated from LaSalle High School in 1967.

“I am a son of St. Patrick’s Church,” Bob says as he assembles the wall. “There’s incredible excitement as people come through and see it going up.”

Yes, Bob’s family came to church every Sunday and sat in the same place — “Fourth pew, left side as you face the altar,” he says. “My mom just turned 96. She still sits there.”

That connection prompted Cindy to contact Bob, who began working on the wall a year ago. With his local knowledge, photographs he’d taken in years past (including nine years ago before the school was torn down) and information from Cindy, he would assemble proposals on his computer. By sending them to Cindy via email, they had the history wall planned out when Bob arrived early last week.

A photograph of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Cedar Rapids without its roof will become part of the church's new history wall. The replacement roof and new interior ceiling were dedicated in 1951. Photo was taken Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

“We’re trying to tell a story without it just being an artifacts collection,” Bob says. “We had a pretty good idea before I got here, but we’re improvising a little as we go along.”

As a man eager to share the credit, Bob quickly points to the church members who helped, from Cindy to Marv Hoffman who built the display cases, Jim Kruger who stained them and Mike Jasiewicz who did the electrical work. A lot of volunteer help came from Jim Bell, Jean Bell and Sam Krumbholz with significant photography contributions by David Byrnes and swift photo reproductions by Photo Pro and mounting by Modern Gallery.

“As an art piece, this church is phenomenal,” Bob says. “We wanted to do it right.”

Shown is a page from The Gazette's company newsletter, "The Gazette Set" showing Abigail Van Buren "Dear Abby" touring the company's building Wednesday. September 13, 1978.

When longtime advice columnist Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips) died on Jan. 16 at age 94, Bruce Eichacker of Amana recalled her visit to Cedar Rapids in 1978. For there, sitting in his family room, is the framed thank-you letter he received from her after he sent his classic Rolls-Royce with uniformed chauffeur to pick her up at the airport. Abby came to Cedar Rapids to visit The Gazette where her column, now penned by daughter Jeanne Phillips, still runs daily.

“I thought it was a hoot,” says Bruce, an insurance agent in Amana who no longer owns the Rolls. “Of course, she would be like Miss Manners. In that era, it was the thing to do.”

Dated Sept. 15, 1978, the letter addresses Bruce as “Mr. Eichacker.” When he posted it on Facebook, friends responded that it must be a fake because nobody calls him Mr. Eichacker.

“Talk about a classy reception!” Abby wrote. “I certainly received one in Cedar Rapids when I arrived to be met by a beautiful Rolls-Royce and a uniformed chauffeur. Thank you for your gracious gesture, Mr. Eichacker. You really know how to spoil a poor working girl. Warm personal regards.”

It ended with her looping, lavish signature, Abigail VanBuren.

(Bruce Eichacker photo)

Bruce didn’t actually meet Abby. His chauffeur-driven 1960 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II was a business venture at the time. (I wrote about it in 1980). But her letter is a treasured memento.

“People write letters to Dear Abby,” Bruce jokes to this day. “She writes letters to me.”

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As another flood damaged building comes down, folks are asking about the Arrow Inn, a name revealed as siding was removed from the “New ‘E’ Avenue” tavern at 505 E Avenue NW.

"Arrow Inn," the former name of the E Avenue Tap, has been revealed on the side of the building at E Avenue and Fifth Street NW in preparation for its demolition. Photo was taken Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

City directory research shows Walter Haddy had a tavern with his name on it there in 1947 and that Wencil F. Douda, who earlier had a place at 208 E Ave. NW, took over by 1950 and called it the Arrow Inn.

By 1960, Hannah Teply had it as the E Avenue Tavern; by 1970, Marian K. Sommers, a widow and nurse at St. Luke’s Hospital, owned it with the name E Avenue Tavern and Sporting Goods.

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A print of Buddy Holly hangs above a stainless steel guitar, Jan. 27, 2005, at Elly's Lakefront Tap in Clear Lake, Iowa. The guitar that once was stood at the Buddy Holly crash site as a monument, now is displayed at the local tavern. The guitar was designed by two men from Wisconsin and set in concrete at the crash site in 1990, more than 30 years after the crash. It was auctioned off on eBay last year to raise money for Winter Dance Party Scholarships. Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. ``The Big Bopper'' Richardson died Feb. 3, 1959, when their small plane crashed in a cornfield about five miles north of Clear Lake. (AP Photo/The Globe Gazette, Sarah Schutt)

In November, 2010, I conveyed a plea from Montreal, Canada, film producer Sven Garabedian for information and photos readers might have about the Winter Dance Party’s stop at Danceland in Cedar Rapids on Feb. 6, 1959.

That was three days after Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens, died in a plane crash after performing at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. But the tour, which began Jan. 23, continued through Feb. 15.

“The response from your first article was amazing,” Sven wrote in an email, adding that his two-hour documentary should be released later this year.

Now, he wants to give people one last chance to provide anything more. He can be reached by email at sevan1@sympatico.ca or by phone at (514) 931-6959.

The Sabreliner 50 is towed out of the hanger as current and former Rockwell Collins employees say goodbye to their test aircraft at the Eastern Iowa Airport. (Stephen Mally/The Gazette)

The old gal sat stoically in the Rockwell Collins hangar as several dozen of her dearest friends ate a buffet lunch nearby.

The white bulbous nosecone of the 1964 North American Sabreliner 50 test aircraft showed some wear, but the front edge of her wings still shined shiver. In a matter of minutes she’d be winging her way to McMinnville, Ore., and a permanent home at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, never to fly again.

“That’s a little sobering,” admits Ivan McBride, director of flight operations for Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids who has 1,500 hours of flight time in the plane. “It’s a delight to fly. It’s a very forgiving aircraft.”

Good thing, because this jet has been through some rugged testing in its 49-year life, flying through storms to test weather radar and mimicking impending head on crashes, since it was acquired by Rockwell International for testing in California.

It came to Cedar Rapids a dozen years later, in 1976, and has served the Collins division well.

That’s why Rockwell Collins, knowing it was time to retire N50CR — its tail number — contacted several museums and chose Evergreen for its retirement. The plane will join other historic aircraft including the Spruce Goose, the giant transport plane built by Howard Hughes and flown only once, in 1947.

Putting some numbers to N50CR, it has flown 8,000 hours with more than 5,000 landings. The equipment tested on it includes Rockwell Collins’ Multi-Scan Threat Detection System that’s on 5,000 aircraft around the world.

Its continued service to test upgraded equipment has led to delivery of about 40,000 similar systems for air transport, business and military aircraft.

In addition, this plane was used to test the Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TACS II) developed by Rockwell Collins which alerts pilots to potential mid-air collisions.

The nose of the Sabreliner 50 in the hanger as current and former Rockwell Collins employees say goodbye to their test aircraft.(Stephen Mally/The Gazette)

“A good airplane will communicate with you through the controls,” said Barry Brown, senior captain with about 5,000 hours in N50CR. “This is such a plane.”

Brown, who first flew the Sabreliner 50 in 1980, fondly remembers the drills testing the mid-air collision technology. N50CR would be in the air with one or two other planes, the pilots monitoring the equipment as they’d intentionally fly directly at each other.

“It’s the only time,” he said, “I’ve ever heard the engines of another plane over the ambient sound of my aircraft.”

The testing took place using highways as a ground-reference grid, whether that be Interstate 80, I-380 or Highway 20 near Manchester.

“In those days we’d get a few calls relayed by the Delaware County Sheriff’s Office,” he laughed. “They’d say, ‘It appears there are airplanes out here trying to run into each other.’”

As pilots, engineers and support staff signed one of N50CR’s interior panels, Brown prepared to climb into the cockpit with John Kelchen for its final flight.

“We won’t do anything crazy,” Brown said. “It’s been my favorite airplane for a long, long time.”

He paused momentarily and smiled. “I’m going to miss it. I’ll probably give it a kiss before I go.”

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NEWHALL — In his small workshop off the garage, Don Kerker slips a piece of wood over the saw blade, tightens the blade and scrolls away. He turns the wood this way and that, around the oscillating blade, to create a small intricate cutout that in the scope of a project helps to tell a story.

It could be a cross, whether it depicts religious symbols or the windmills, animals and activities of a farm blessed by good fortune.

It could be a United State military logo for a veteran of the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine Corps.

It could be actual words in script form, such as those for “Footprints,” a famous poem that was the favorite of a daughter who died of cancer at age 25.

Don, 82, first ran across a scroll saw while growing up in Davenport. His father took him to see a friend, a co-owner of the Coliseum Ballroom, who had one and let him have a go at it.

“I really enjoyed scroll sawing,” Don says. “I needed something to do in retirement.”

That came in 1988 after a lifetime of work that took him around Iowa as a teacher and coach (Newhall, Titonka, Brooklyn) and around the United States and world as a civilian in training and development for the Army.

“I went out and bought the cheapest scroll saw I could find at Sears,” Don says, adding that it’s long been worn out. He’s gone through a handful of saws leading to his present machine, a Hegner, one of the better German-made scroll saws.

At first, Don used mostly walnut wood. “Over the years,” he says, “it seems like people’s interests have gravitated to oak.”

That means Don uses thinner wood because of the increased hardness. While he had walnut cut 3/4-inch thick by the private supplier of his wood, he went to 5/8th-inch oak and quarter-inch cherry.

Although Don and his wife, Darlene, first retired to Bettendorf, they moved to Newhall, her hometown, in 2001. For, it was here in 1955 that Don coached Darlene in girls’ basketball his rookie season, although they didn’t date until after her graduation.

As Don’s scroll sawing hobby took off, the work became an additional partnership. Darlene would help with the underside finish work, the sanding, staining, mounting. For years they sold their works through craft shows and Creative Colony in Amana where he’d demonstrate the scroll saw.

Women would say, “Oh, I could never do that,” to which he’d reply, “Can you run a sewing machine? Then you can do this.”

They skipped crafts shows last year, but may hit the circuit again this summer.

“We’ve got so much inventory and you can’t give it all away,” Don jokes. “You get tired of seeing things on the walls.”

Erick Dickinson, a lieutenant with the Vinton Police Department, advocates police officer safety in articles he's had published as well as in state-wide training sessions he leads in Vinton. Photo was taken Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

VINTON — As the oldest son growing up in south central Iowa, Eric Dickinson was expected to follow in the family’s construction business, started by his grandfather. He wanted to become a cop instead.

“I knew my dad was OK with it one day,” recalls Eric, 38, a 15-year member of the Vinton Police Department. “We were at a job site in Newton. He had to have a meeting with an official. When he introduced me, there was pride in his voice. ‘This is my son, Eric. He’s going to school for law enforcement.’”

That didn’t stop his parents from worrying about his well-being. Maybe that’s why Eric is so gung-ho about promoting officer safety, whether he’s writing articles for national publications or applying his dozen years of experience as an Emergency Medical Technician to in-person training.

But Eric likes to remain low key, working behind the scenes. That’s why he was apprehensive to sit down and chat.

“It’s a combination of being humble and not wanting some people out there to know more about me than they need to know about me.”

But, he adds, “I’ve gotten emails from guys at LAPD and NYPD thanking me for what I’ve been able to give them. To think that a guy on an eight-man department in a town of 5,500 can do that makes you feel good.”

Last summer, with help from Chief Jeff Tilson and the department, Eric coordinated an all-day statewide safety program that filled the 640-seat auditorium at the Vinton-Shellsburg High School. More than two-dozen of his articles have been published in the likes of Law Officer magazine and JEMS, for emergency management services personnel.

Eric’s first article, in 2007, concerned self-applied medical aide for law officers. His latest centers around lessons learned from the killing of four California Highway Patrol officers by heavily-armed parolees.

One of Eric’s more universal articles, republished in the book “American Blue” in 2011, shows that cops think about consequences, too. One morning, he’d given a woman a ticket for driving with only a tiny patch of frost cleared from her windshield. Her husband stopped in the office that afternoon. Anticipating the worst, Eric was taken aback when the man thanked him for his concern about his wife’s safety.

It’s all common sense, really. But everyone can use a reminder.

“Some of it is refresher,” Eric says. “A lot of it is applying new issues, new equipment, new methodologies.”

Writing became a passion while Eric was in junior high school. Even in college he could procrastinate, then earn an A or B on his papers.

“I never thought at that time I’d be writing as much as I have,” he says.

His current project is a medical tactics textbook for law enforcement.

“It’s a specialized audience,” Eric says with a laugh. “I don’t expect to see it on anybody’s coffee table.”

Anders Bergstrom passes a photograph to Tessa Surbeck and George Rickey of Iowa City talks about Eastern Iowa Honor Flight to their fourth-grade class at Grant Wood Elementary School in Cedar Rapids. The class wants to raise $550 to send a World War II veteran on an honor flight to Washington D.C., in April. Photo was taken Friday, Jan. 11, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — As Tricia Weber reads aloud the certificate of appreciation given to her fourth-grade class, she tears up and stumbles over the words.

Muted laughs in the back of the classroom are followed by a student’s admonishment that “It’s not funny.”

Indeed, the certificate is from Eastern Iowa Honor Flight, thanking the Grant Wood Elementary students for writing thank-you letters to veterans of World War II.

“It gets real quiet as they open them,” says George Rickey of Iowa City, media chairman of the Eastern Iowa Honor Flight. “They say, ‘Wow. I don’t even know this person and they’re saying thank you.’”

These veterans, too, men and women hardened by war, can get tears in their eyes.

The honor flight has been an emotional experience since it began. In Eastern Iowa that was 2009, which means 700 veterans and counting have visited Washington D.C. war memorials on, as George calls it, “One last mission.”

George, who is not a veteran, was overcome by emotion as he waited for a flight from the Quad Cities airport. The crowd rose and applauded veterans leaving on an honor flight. He signed up to help.

Tricia was overcome as she watched flag-waving citizens welcome an honor flight back to The Eastern Iowa Airport. So much so, in fact, that she took 26 students to the next reception.

“You guys all know that, when we went to the airport and welcomed the veterans home, I was crying,” Tricia tells her class. “I was the biggest baby.”

These children, 9 and 10 years old, have a lifetime ahead of them. They are thanking veterans 85 and older who don’t know how many more chances they’ll have for “One last mission.”

So, Tricia and her class have embarked on a mission of their own. They want to raise $550 to send a World War II veteran on the April 30 honor flight.

“I hope, even as you leave my class, that you continue to think about the guys who gave their lives for us,” she says.

“The future,” George adds, “owes a great debt to the past.”

“What does that mean?” one girl asks.

“It means,” he replies, “as you grow up, you can be who you want to be.”

The students, who have studied WW II — they knew all about the switching of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier — became interested in the honor flight when Anders Bergstrom told classmates about his late grandfather’s service. Tricia took it from there, inviting George and others to inspire her class.

“When a veteran came home from World War II,” George says. “most of the time he’d just get off the bus, go home, go to work. He didn’t get a big parade or anything like that.”

Not until now.

Jim Hayes of Solon, second from left, reads to the Witwer Creative Writing Class at its temporary meeting place, Panara Bread in southwest Cedar Rapids. The group is looking for a permanent home. Some members, from left to right, are Janet Harding of Marion, Hayes, Donna Barnes of Hiawatha, Helen Christophersen of Cedar Rapids, Edina Larson of Cedar Rapids and Carol Wild of Robins. Photo was taken Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — They write about love and loss. About happiness and sorrow. About procrastination and staying connected.

And, now, the Witwer Creative Writing Class could write about being homeless.

For 10 members – from their 50s well into their 80s – hold the weekly meeting in a small, crowded room at the back of Panara Bread in Southwest Cedar Rapids. They lament the loss of a meeting space at the Carl and Mary Koehler History Center.

“They politely asked us to leave,” says Donna Barnes of Hiawatha, facilitator of the group. Or, she adds, if the group wanted to stay, it could pay $35 per meeting.

“We couldn’t afford that,” Donna says. “We meet weekly and we want to continue to meet weekly to keep the creative process going.”

Loosely formed in the 1960s, the group took shape a decade later at the Witwer Senior Center in downtown Cedar Rapids. After that facility was damaged in the Flood of 2008 (it has since been sold into private hands), the history center freely opened its doors to the group.

“It was such a nice place to go,” says Helen Christophersen of Cedar Rapids. “It was a nice room, there was parking and they had handicapped accessibility.”

The policy at the history center had to change, though, as other groups wanted free use of space, says interim executive director Caitlin Treece. “We decided we couldn’t offer free rent to some and not others.”

The Witwer Creative Writing Class doesn’t collect dues, so it has no money. It has met from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. every Wednesday since folks can remember. It has had 30-plus members at one time but now hovers around a dozen and would welcome more.

“We’re always open to new members,” says Jim Hayes of Solon, the only man at last week’s gathering. “Especially male members.”

Anyone wanting to join can contact Donna by email at nimblen@msn.com. If someone has a suggested (and free) meeting place, please do the same or contact me.

“We need something that’s centrally located,” says Donna, since members come from the entire metro area.

They’d like to be in a room where they wouldn’t bother anybody else. Free parking. Handicapped accessibility.

“And a place to plug in a coffee pot,” Donna adds.

“We write stories every week and read them out loud,” Helen says. “If there’s laughter involved, we laugh.”

If there are tears, they shed them, too. For the emphasis is on writing about their experiences for future generations.

Panara Bread’s offer is wonderful, they say, but with 10 people, the room is too small. Ironically, that seemed on topic for the week’s exercise — “So many …, so little …”

They’ll meet at Panara Wednesday from 10 a.m. to noon, but hope a new place can be found soon.

“Really,” says Carol Wild of Robins, “we need a good senior center in Cedar Rapids.”

Workers repair the Fourth Street tracks railroad crossing at First Avenue in November, 1981, while vehicular traffic was reduced to one lane in each direction. Photo originally ran on November 3, 1981. (The Gazette)

CEDAR RAPIDS — “The trains are tying up traffic on Fourth street in Cedar Rapids again. It’s nothing new.”

So wrote Gazette reporter Jack Ferring — in 1947.

That’s how he started a three-part article on the “Fourth Street Problem.” It had been studied for at least 22 years, since 1925, although it was undoubtedly discussed earlier than that since the tracks and vehicular traffic run perpendicular to each other.

In all fairness, Cedar Rapids owes its existence as an Eastern Iowa metropolitan area to the railroads. When trains arrived a century and a half ago, commerce came with them. That’s why trains are still important.

A fire truck in route to a fire in January, 1977, was forced to wait for several minutes on Eighth Avenue SE for a train on the Fourth Street tracks in Cedar Rapids, Photo originally ran January 6, 1977. (The Gazette)

But, they’re also inconvenient. Especially soon after 5 p.m. when you leave work and a long train blocks your way as it’s switching back and forth in the yards north of downtown. That’s when motorists flood the A Avenue NE viaduct, the only way to drive above the tracks other than I-380.

In the 1947 stories, a plan to construct elevated railroad tracks above streets on the west side of town had garnered considerable support in the early 1930s. That plan, after seven years of study and consultation with a St. Louis planning firm, called for the tracks entering town from the east along Otis Road to be elevated beginning at 11th Avenue SE and to cross the Cedar River and Riverside Park to Beverly Yards near Rockford Road SW. Access to Quaker Oats was to continue on the F Avenue railroad bridge over the Cedar.

Then, discussions with railroad officials revealed this plan would add $50,000 per month to their operating costs. This in the early ‘30s during The Great Depression when gasoline was 19 cents a gallon, national unemployment hit 23 percent and the hungry waited in soup lines. Scrap that idea.

The Fourth Street tracks run near old Washington High School in this Gazette archive photo from about 1930. (The Gazette)

Next up, why not bury the tracks, from D Avenue NE to about 10th Avenue SE? Couldn’t do that because a creek bed ran under the tracks. Pumping stations would have been needed to keep the tracks dry. Snow removal along the buried tracks would have been virtually impossible.

How about relocating the tracks east, to about Ninth Street? Viaducts on the avenues, from A to Fifth, would have carried vehicles over the tracks. It was the most expensive option of all.

The planning commission, in 1929, approved partially elevated tracks along Fourth Street with some avenues routed below them. Union Station, which was to be relocated in the other plans, would remain between Third and Fifth avenues. (Of course, it’s gone, now). But the cost for this plan, about $4.5 million by 1931 ($68 million today.) was too great.

Oh, and there was another problem. Raising the tracks also meant lowering the avenues, no lower than the high water level of the river.

Oops. Today, we know that the Flood of 2008 proved that impossible.

And so, that’s why people still talk about the Fourth Street Tracks.

The brick and concrete walkway around the Fourth Street tracks in downtown Cedar Rapids took shape in May, 1989. The $300,000 beautification project was in conjunction with construction of the new Cedar Rapids Museum of Art. Photo originally ran May 9, 1989. (The Gazette)

Bessie Hall, Ron Hall's grandmother, hangs laundry in front of the boxcar that became the family's home in Iowa City in this undated photo after their wood-frame house was destroyed by fire in 1947. Photo was copied Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

IOWA CITY — Ron Hall grew up dirt poor in a railroad boxcar in Iowa City with an extended family that numbered 13 at one time, but he wants to know more.

“I’d like to get any photos of that time,” says Ron, 62, executive chef at Mercy of Iowa City. “Any information about everyone involved, obviously, if there were three fires.”

That’s how this story begins, with a fire on March 22, 1947, that destroyed the family’s home on Riverside Drive in Iowa City across from the city dump. His grandfather built the house from salvaged lumber. A Gazette story said it was the third fire to chase the family from its home.

“Wow, the third time,” Ron says, hearing that for the first time.

Ron hadn’t been born. His grandparents, Ira and Bessie Hall, along with six children — Eunice, 14, Dick, 11, Margaret, 9, twins Dan and Dale, 8, and Ruby, 3 — lived in the home. Their son Ira Hall Jr., who would become Ron’s father, was in the Army for the occupation of Japan.

The fire began when Eunice was stirring coals in the stove and embers fell to the floor.

Community support gave the Halls more clothes than they could use. They received about $700, including $125 from Hillcrest Dormitory. And Travis Kramer of Cedar Rapids sold Ira and Bessie a railroad boxcar for $250, which was $50 less than the going rate,

Within a week, the boxcar was moved over the old foundation. It was divided into a kitchen, living room and bedroom. Windows were cut in its sides. An addition was built to hold the expanding family. For, after Ira Jr. married Virginia Young and they had three children, including Ron on Jan. 24, 1950, they remained in the home that at one time had 13 residents.

“It was what it was,” Ron says today as he puts together a family history. He and his wife, Pat, who live in large farmhouse a couple miles north of Washington, Iowa, have four children and 11 grandchildren.

“When we went to school,” Ron adds, “we were treated different.”

Ira Hall scraped together a living as a yard man for Home Fuel Co., and by reselling scrap from area dumps, visiting up to five in a day. For Christmas, they’d drag home a discarded tree. The boxcar house always seemed to be full of dogs, cats and cockroaches. Ron’s mother left before he was old enough to remember her. But his father shoveled coal at Mercy Hospital.

Ron Hall of Washington, Iowa, holds a photocopy of a 1947 newspaper article about the railroad boxcar that became his family's home in Iowa City after their house was destroyed by fire. Photo was taken Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

“I have memories of going to the hospital here, the coal room and the boilers,” Ron says. “I’ve come full circle.”

Ron only finished 8th grade, but in 1966 went to Pleasanton, Calif., learning to cook in the Job Corps. With a GED and other education, he cooked for years at the Lark Supper Club in Tiffin and the Red Garter in North Liberty. He’s been with Mercy for 20 years.

Most of Ron’s family is gone. He knows a fire in 1950 destroyed the family’s greenhouse. But, whatever happened to the boxcar house?

“That,” Ron says, “I don’t know.”

Norah Hammond, executive director of the Science Center, packs up a moving cart as she begins relocating exhibits from the main level at Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids to the lower level classroom space. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette)

The Cedar Rapids Science Center is on the move again – a common occurrence since the Flood of 2008, but not quite the last time.

“It’s not our choice, but it does add some efficiency into what we do,” said Norah Hammond, executive director, as she loaded up a moving cart Monday morning.

Exhibits in the center’s activity gallery on the main level at Lindale Mall are being moved to the lower level education center at the request of the mall.

The Science Center, then known as the Science Station, had opened Oct. 1, 2008, in the lower level of the mall after flood waters destroyed its downtown location that included the city’s old fire station and an IMAX theater. The main level gallery opened in April of 2009.

“It’s been good,” Hammond said about the higher visibility of being near a mall entrance across from Holley’s Shop for Men. “But it’s been somewhat confusing to have two locations in Lindale.”

The move means the loss of about 2,700 square feet of space, consolidating the exhibits into the 5,700 square feet of classrooms, storage and office space on the lower level, Hammond said. As a result, classes will be held at Trinity Lutheran Schools, 1361 Seventh Ave. SW, for the time being. But, this also provides additional impetus to find a permanent location.

“We hope 2013 is when we announce our new site and begin a fund raising campaign,” Hammond said.

Center officials have held focus groups, conducted surveys and talked to a lot of people about its future, she said.

“We have looked downtown and at New Bo,” she added. “That’s not to say that’s the only place we’ve looked. We have visions to be about the same size we were before the flood.”

The Science Center began as a project of the Junior League of Cedar Rapids more than 25 years ago. Located in the city’s former central fire station and adjacent building, it grew to more than 15,000 square feet and gained statewide exposure in 2001 when it added and opened a 175-seat domed IMAX theater. Its future was temporarily in doubt when floodwaters from the adjacent Cedar River filled the first level in June, 2008.

The legs of Steve DeForest, facilities manager at the Science Center, stick out from the center's Lego racecar track as he takes it apart in preparation for relocating exhibits from the main level at Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids to the lower level classroom space. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette)

“This is just a sliver of what we had,” said Leroy Willey, longtime volunteer at the center who helped rebuild many of the exhibits after the flood and pitched in to help with Monday’s preparation for the move.

“Some of it is in storage,” he added. “A lot of it went to the junk yard.”

This move will be a challenge, added Steve DeForest, facilities manager, who compared relocating the exhibits to the lower level as “putting 10 pounds in a five-pound bag.”

But, as he wedged himself into the scale model ramp used to race Lego built cars to take it apart for the move, he smiled.

“You get the tough stuff first,” DeForest said. “The easy stuff later, when you’re tired.”

The Science Center at Lindale Mall is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $3.

Mindy Burke of Vinton gathers with her three youngest daughters around her childhood baby grand piano that has been repaired after it was heavily damaged in a high wind storm in 2011. From left to right are daughters Sadie, 5, Kalie, 7, and Libbie, 18 months. Photo was taken Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

VINTON — The Wurlitzer baby grand piano, its sound board covered in shattered glass from a nearby window, its wooden hammers warped by water, its strings strung out, brought tears to Mindy Burke’s eyes. Especially when her parents planned to get rid of it.

“I didn’t want them to throw it out,” says Mindy. “I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. But it was my piano …”

It had been earned 25 years ago when Mindy, then 10, went a full year without watching television. She’d practiced on it through high school. It was supposed to go into a new home when she got one, to be played by her daughters, Tia, 11, Kalie, 7, Sadie, 5, and Libbie, 18 months, as they followed in her footsteps.

But high winds that blew through Vinton on July 11, 2011, knocked out a window in Larry and Linda Druschel’s home, damaging the piano beyond reasonable repair. Even Dan Malloy, longtime Cedar Rapids piano repairman, said buying another piano would be less expensive.

But, Mindy wouldn’t give up. Neither would her mom, who made numerous phone calls to the insurance company.

This story began March 5, 1987. A teacher told a New Jersey boy to give up TV for a year, to win a bet.

“Mine was for $500,” Mindy says. “I’m guessing that’s what his was. I wouldn’t have come up with that on my own.”

She smiles. “I did it as a bet. I didn’t think about what I was going to do with the money.”

Two days later, “No TV” began. It would last until March 7, 1988.

“I used to back into the living room to ask my parents a question,” she recalls, wanting to avoid even a glance at the TV. “The Winter Olympics were on in February of ‘88. My brothers (Desi and Dusty) and my parents watched them. That’s what I remember about the end of it.”

She also remembers finally watching “Parent Trap,” a movie her parents recorded for her.

Mindy had kept plenty busy. She read 1,000 pages a month. She played outside in the summer. And, she played piano.

“My mom made me practice 10 minutes a day,” she recalls. “I practiced more than that.”

The restoration of Mindy Burke's childhood piano, after it had been heavily damaged in a high wind storm in 2011 in Vinton, includes a refurbished sound board and new strings. Photo was taken Friday, Dec. 28, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

So mom suggested Mindy take her winnings — $633 because others had chipped in — to buy a piano. That paid for half the cost of the used 1930s Wurlitzer.

As Mindy went through life — she’s been a social worker with the Iowa Department of Human Services for a dozen years, married Tom Burke in 2003, adopted Tia and had three daughters — the piano remained at her parents’ home. Some day it was to be in her home.

In August, that finally happened after she and her family moved to rural Vinton and Dan completed the piano’s rebuild.

The cost: About $10,000. Preserving piano memories for the next generation: Priceless.

Craig Wander works on the electric railway at his Marion home in 1997. Wander, whose train layout encompassed his entire yard, died Aug. 17 at age 59. (The Gazette)

MARION — The designer, builder and conductor of a model railway in Marion may have died Aug. 17, but the trains still run on schedule. And his wife, Lauralea Wander, plans to keep that tradition moving full steam ahead.

“We ran the Halloween Train in tribute to Craig,” she says. “We’re going to try to do that every year.”

Craig “Motorcat” Wander was 59 when renal cancer took him away from the G-gauge garden train layout that winds past a waterfall and rivers in his Marion yard, beneath his front porch and over a symbolic trestle.

Trains fascinated Wander as he grew up near Castalia where a Milwaukee line trestle crossed Highway 52. His family slept with flashlights to signal engineers with a friendly “hello” from a bedroom window. One Christmas, while the rest of his family was concerned about helping at an actual train wreck, he opened his brother’s present and began playing with the model train.

As an adult he became a manager at Radio Shack in Cedar Rapids, where he worked 35 years and pursued his two passions — snowmobiles and model railroads.

“When he was younger and through college, he was an avid snowmobiler,” says Lauralea Wander, a middle school and high school math teacher at Alburnett who married Craig in 1978 after they’d met while students at Upper Iowa University in Fayette. “Arctic Cat was his favorite brand.”

Wander wore hats and coats with the Artic Cat logo, acquiring Motorcat as a nickname that fit equally well with his model trains.

He began with HO-gauge trains, switched to smaller N-gauge for a while and then to the larger garden size with 18-inch long locomotives.

For Christmas, he’d set up an N-gauge to run around the top of the tree and a G-gauge to circle its base. But his claim to fame became the layout that encompassed his entire yard, front and back.

Craig Wander

“He could build that sort of thing in no time at all,” says Joe Hall, a fellow garden model railroad aficionado when they became acquainted a couple of decades ago.

“I decided to make the power supply from scratch,” Hall recalls. “They were expensive. I started talking to the manager at Radio Shack …”

That manager was Wander, who helped Hall out. And he became the first official member of the Cedar Valley Garden Railroad Train Club when Hall formed it soon thereafter.

“He had a very, very friendly manner,” Hall says. “He never had a harsh word to say about anyone. Whenever there was anything that needed to be done in the club, he pitched right in.”

Wander’s own layout constantly garnered attention from the neighborhood as well as the model train community. People loved to watch the trains run, sometimes three at once, and especially as Wander changed their appearance and landscape for the seasons.

“He was really looking forward to retiring so he could work with his trains,” Hall says. “It was really heartbreaking when he got the diagnosis of cancer.”

That came in February, says Lauralea Wander. By then, he had semiretired, trading in his 60-hour per week job at Radio Shack for a 40-hour per week job as a Sprint technician at Lindale Mall. He had surgery in March.

“We thought we had it,” she says. “Up until three weeks before he died, we thought he was going to be one of those people who’d beat it.”

Just before he died in August, a new mural had been painted on a wall of his basement workshop. The mural, and the trains, constantly remind Lauralea Wander of her husband’s love for model trains that soon became her passion, too.

“We tend to have a lot of fun,” she says. “We hope to get the winter train out. We’ll probably be thinking about that in January.”

NOTABLE IOWA DEATHS IN 2012

• Lumir Dostal, 76, of Marion, died Dec. 26. He was a Linn County supervisor from 1995 through 2002, and was the first Republican voted to the county board in 22 years when he won election in November 1994.
• Larry Lawrence, 63, of Galveston, Texas, died Dec. 4, of swelling of the brain. Lawrence, one of the greatest athletes in Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School history, was the starting quarterback for Iowa in 1968 and 1969 before transferring to Miami. He played with the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League as well as the Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before ending his professional career with Montreal of the CFL in 1978.
• Robert “Bob” Carpenter, 70, of Coralville, died Dec. 2. He amassed nearly 40 years of service to Johnson County through the Sheriff’s Office, including 15 years at the helm.
• Andrew Douglas Wall, 16, of Cedar Rapids, died Nov. 26, of cancer. After being diagnosed at age 11, he had his leg amputated. He was a member of the Cedar Rapids Kennedy Golf team.
• Allie Dane, 85, of Iowa City, died Nov. 19. She was known as “Mrs. Dairy,” because for 56 years she led children on tours of Haldane Farm, and gave them ice cream cones from Dane’s Dairy.
• Sgt. Joseph Richardson, 23, formerly of Algona, died Nov. 16, during a patrol in the Paktika province of Afghanistan. The Iowa National Guard said enemy insurgents attacked his unit with small-arms fire and an roadside bomb.
• Louis Blair, 103, of Iowa City, died Nov. 15. He became CEO at St. Luke’s Hospital in 1948, and worked there until 1975.
• Pfc. Brandon Buttry, 19, of Shenandoah died Nov. 5 while serving in Kandahar province, Afghanistan. He was the nephew of Steve Buttry, former editor of The Gazette.
• Samuel Becker, 89, of Iowa City, died Nov. 8. Becker, a longtime University of Iowa faculty member, earned three UI degrees and the Communications Studies Building is named for him.
• Ted Rogers, 65, of Center Point, died Nov. 4, of cancer. Rogers coached 31 seasons on the Center Point-Urbana football field that now bears his name.
• James Douglas Gibbs, 64, of Cedar Rapids, died Oct. 27, at Mercy Medical Center. He taught physics at Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School from 1972 to 2006, when he retired.
• Msgr. Alexander Nicholas George, 75, of Cedar Rapids, died Oct. 23. He served St. John’s Eastern Orthodox Church in Cedar Rapids for more than 25 years.
• Ron Farber, 76, of Iowa City, died Sept. 27. He served as president and board member of both the Iowa City/Coralville Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Iowa City Public Library Board of Directors.
• Perry Walton, 69, of Marion, died Sept. 29. After purchasing the Marion Airport, he and his wife developed it to the only full service, privately owned, public use airport with asphalt runways in the state.
• Allen Koepke, 73, of Cedar Rapids, died Sept. 23. More than 70 of Koepke’s musical compositions have been published, and his music is consistently chosen for high school All-State music contests and performed in colleges across the nation.
• Joshua Casteel, 23, of New York, died Aug. 25 of lung cancer his family believes was caused by toxins from the burn pit at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, where Casteel served as an interrogator in 2004. Casteel later enrolled in the Iowa Playwrights Workshop, where he wrote an award-winning play about his experience as an interrogator. He also was part of the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program.
• John Robertson, 86, of Cedar Rapids died Aug. 18. He retired as executive editor of The Gazette in 1991 after 41 years at the newspaper.
• Clarence “Buzz” D. Zieser, 82, of Cedar Rapids, died July 28. He was a major league baseball player from 1947 until 1956 and pitched for the Cincinnati Reds in 1952 and 1953.
• Army Sgt. Michael Ristau, 25, of Cascade, died July 13 in Afghanistan’s Qalat Zabul province when a roadside bomb blasted the vehicle in which he was riding.
• Alfred “Al” Smith, 80, of Cedar Rapids, died July 5. He signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians out of high school, and after he retired from professional baseball in 1957, he moved to Cedar Rapids and took a job as sports director with the Cedar Rapids Recreation Commission.
• George Wine, 81, of Iowa City, died July 5. He was the University of Iowa’s sports information director from 1968 to 1993.
• Doris Peick, 78, of Cedar Rapids, died July 4. “Mother” Peick, as she commonly referred to herself, managed numerous campaigns, served in the Iowa House and was active in the Democratic Party.
• Tom Wegman, 81, of Iowa City, died June 8. He owned Things & Things & Things, and was known for his beaded masterpieces.
• Katie Beckett, 34, of Cedar Rapids, died May 18. Her case inspired then-Rep. Tom Tauke to sponsor legislation creating what became known as the “Katie Beckett waiver.” The law made it possible for people to live at home while receiving treatment under Medicaid.
• Dr. Earl Rose, 85, of Iowa City, died May 1. He was the county medical examiner in Dallas when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963. Rose conducted the autopsies of Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of killing Kennedy, and Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald. He later became a respected professor at the University of Iowa.
• Robert Worley, 78, of Cedar Rapids died April 22. He and his wife founded Worley Warehousing Inc. in 1977.
• Dr. Alfred Healy, 77, of Grand Marais, Minn., died April 19. He was the director of the Division of Developmental Disabilities at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and a clinic there was named after him.
• Bob Aldridge, 71, of Cedar Rapids, died Jan. 27. He was on the Arts and Humanities faculty at Kirkwood Community College from 1973 to 2001 and is remembered by many as the driving force behind Ballantyne Auditorium.
• Frank Bosh, 88, of Prescott, Ariz., died Jan. 22. He served as Cedar Rapids mayor in 1968 and part of 1969.
• Sgt. John F. Baker Jr., 66, of Columbia, S.C., died Jan. 20 from a heart attack. A native Iowan, he received the Medal of Honor in 1968, for saving several soldiers while taking enemy fire on Nov. 5, 1966.
• Al Streb, 79, of Iowa City, died Jan. 13. He developed numerous commercial properties and residential subdivisions including Scott Six Industrial Park and Coral Industrial Park. With his brother, Thomas, he developed Golfview Mobile Home Park.
• Kevin Olish, 53, of Iowa City, died Jan. 8. He spent 16 years behind register No. 1 in the New Pioneer Food Co-op’s downtown Iowa City store, making local shoppers feel special by memorizing their member numbers, names and preferences for paper or plastic.
• Richard “Dick” Hoppin, 90, of Iowa City, died Jan. 6. students. He served as chairman of the University of Iowa Geology Department from 1974-1983 and taught in the department from 1952 until his retirement in 1991.

Workmen guide the large globe from the Cedar Rapids Municipal Airport into place at its new home in the Ground Transportation Center downtown in 1983. It remained there until the Floods of 2008, and it will be reinstalled next year at the refurbished Linn Hall at Kirkwood Community College.

CEDAR RAPIDS — The “world” that floated away during the Floods of 2008 is slated to find a new home in 2013, 60 years after its original installation and five years after the flood.

The 6-foot aluminum globe was originally installed in 1953 at the new Cedar Rapids Airport terminal as an anonymous gift. (Local philanthropist Howard Hall was later identified as the donor.)

It was eventually removed during remodeling, and in 1983 it found a new home on the main level of the Ground Transportation Center — where it sat until floodwaters upended it.

“It did float,” said Jim Kern, chairman of the city’s Visual Arts Commission. “Apparently, it was out of its base and was bobbing along in the waters.”

Rescued after the flood, the 200-pound globe has been stored with its base at the Ground Transportation Center, awaiting its fate. It will reappear next year at the remodeled Linn Hall on the Kirkwood Community College campus in southwest Cedar Rapids.

“We wanted it to be in a highly visible place,” Kern said. “After seeing the plans and doing a site visit, the commission, with informal input from City Council members, chose Linn Hall for its visibility.”

The remodeling of Linn Hall will include new windows around the entryway, so the globe will be visible from both the sidewalk and the parking lot in front of the building, he added.

As it was originally installed, the globe turned slowly on its axis above a 5-foot mirror and a base marked with clocks for each of the world’s 24 time zones. The base was surrounded by a bronze railing that displayed the 12 signs of the zodiac.

The time zone section representing Cedar Rapids specified the original placement of the globe — 868.08 feet above sea level; longitude 91 degrees, 42 minutes and 40 seconds west; and latitude 41 degrees, 53 minutes and 26 seconds north.

From the early 1980s until the Floods of 2008, a 6-foot globe — shown in 2005 — was displayed in the bus terminal at the Ground Transportation Center in downtown Cedar Rapids. It had originally been installed in 1953 at the old Cedar Rapids Airport as a gift from philanthropist Howard Hall.

According to a 2005 Gazette story, the globe was displayed at the airport until 1974, when three “Earth movers” (workmen) struggled with the heavy sphere to remove it for updating. One source said the globe was updated again in 1978, while another said it remained in storage until being installed at the Ground Transportation Center in 1983. At that time, a conscious decision was made not to update the globe again because it was viewed as a historical artifact.

Kern said refurbishment of the globe, with the aid of Federal Emergency Management Agency funds, will probably cost several thousand dollars. It will be moved to the former Midland Forge building now owned by Kirkwood, and bids will be sought for a general contractor to oversee work on it, including removing a significant dent, repainting the surface, and rebuilding or replacing the motors and electronics.

Kern said Linn Hall, which is a center for international students, should be ready for the globe early this summer, so he hopes work on it can be completed by then.

“It’s considered a part of the city’s art collection,” Kern said, “but really it’s a historical artifact.”

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We started 2012 with Laughing Laura in Lansing and continued smiling through last week’s visit with Lu Happel at Ced-Rel Supper Club where she’s kept bar patrons happy for 50 years.

Yep, 2012 was a fun year for Ramblin’ Eastern Iowa. And now, as I’ve done for years, it’s time to reflect and prepare for a new year. I’m looking forward to 2013 – that’ll be the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Lincoln Highway Association, a perfect excuse to travel Iowa’s old Highway 30, part of our nation’s first transcontinental route.

I’ve already done plenty of that in the past. My 30th anniversary book, “Ramblin’ Reflections of Hidden Iowa,” (available at The Gazette for $30) has several Lincoln Highway stories including Lowden’s Lincoln Hotel, the Youngville Cafe west of Cedar Rapids and the old Indian Head neon sign at King Tower Cafe in Tama.

Among my stops in 2012 was the Trojan Inn cafe in Toledo where Mary Ann Gardner, whose family opened it 50 years ago, still dishes up words of wisdom as well as good food.

In 2012, we ate a breaded pork tenderloin at Joensy’s in Center Point, talked to Marjorie Lewis in Strawberry Point who’d made 400,000 pounds of potato salad in 13 years, and visited the Churches of Marion Food Pantry in Marion.

In Cascade we met Gordon, the yellow lab “Dog Father” who sired 396 pups, in Swisher the Dance Mor ballroom celebrated 80 years, and in Cedar Rapids, Dana Sindelar relaxed in her hammock stretched between Catalpa trees.

In Robins, Ray Sullivan, 82, built his own casket from a walnut tree of the same age. After that story, he says, that fact appeared in a Ripley’s Believe It or Not newspaper column. Ray adds he’s not planning to use it any time soon.

Unfortunately, people I’ve talked to passed on in 2012. Most recently that includes Dr. Alfred Brendel, Owen Jones and Chet Ehrenberger.

Doc Brendel was one of the last Linn County doctors to make house calls. The Central City man had been county deputy medical examiner for 36 years and attending physician at the county home. He was 96 when he died on Nov. 20.

I met Owen Jones in 2004 when he made sure I knew about Williamsburg’s Eugene Ely, the first man to land an airplane on a ship and take off from one. Owen became a regular caller, sometimes just to chat. In 2007, at 85, he had compiled a history book about Williamsburg that sold more than 500 copies. In 2011 he wrote about Iowa County’s one-room schools. He died Dec. 2 at the age of 90.

Chet Ehrenberger of Cedar Rapids was a firecracker (he was born July 4, 1926) when I visited him in 2001 to talk about the rope tail he put on his wife’s (Vicki) minivan to complete its Holstein cow look and in 2006 about his life as a euphonium player with 60 years in the municipal band. He was 86 when he died on Dec. 10.

With that, so long 2012. hello 2013.

Lu Happel, 72, has been a hostess and bartender at Ced-Rel Supper Club along Highway 30 southwest of Cedar Rapids for 50 years. Photo was taken Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Luanna Happel only meant to help out friends Bob and Pat Snyder at their Ced-Rel Supper Club during the holiday season. It was 1962, the restaurant along Highway 30 west of Cedar Rapids was always hopping and there was a shortage of workers.

“I said, ‘I’ll just come out and help you for Christmas,’” Lu laughs. “I never left.”

Those were the days before liquor by the drink, when she sold setups at the bar for a quarter to customers who brought their own bottles of booze.

Those were the days when customers sat at the bar drinking, playing cards and smoking.

Those were the days soon after Lu’s late husband, Bob, (he died in 2005), as they dined at Ced-Rel, told her they were going to a Cubs baseball game in Chicago with the Snyders.

“I don’t want to go with her, I don’t even know her,” Lu said.

In the other room, Pat Snyder told her husband, “I don’t want to go with her. I don’t know her.”

Lu laughs. “A half-mile down the road we were the best of friends.”

So, it only made sense that Lu stuck around, leaving jobs at Collins Radio and Armstrong’s Department Store, both in Cedar Rapids.

A Benton County girl all her life (Atkins now), she was born north of Keystone and graduated from Van Horne High School in 1958. She never knew a time when Ced-Rel wasn’t around.

“It started in 1926, we think,” she says, pointing to a newspaper clipping on the wall. “It was a little gas station if you read that. A lot of illegal stuff went on there, alcohol, gambling.”

It was purchased by Isabelle and Verlin Sedrel in 1935 and renamed Ced-Rel. It became known for great steaks, a huge relish tray with every dinner and a homemade bean pot.

The Sedrels ran it 23 years until selling to the Snyders in 1958, who sold it to Ken and Mary Selzer in 2002, with their son, Jeff, assuming ownership in 2010.

When the Snyders left, Lu, now 72, wondered if they’d want a bartender/hostess in her 60s.

“You’re the foundation of the place,” Jeff says. “People expect to see you here.”

All right, Lu says. She’ll probably work until she dies.

“I don’t want to quit,” Lu says about hitting the 50-year milestone. “I love to be around people. It’s a lot of laughs.”

While the kitchen is open from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, the bar stays open longer which is when the fun begins. Jeff tells about Lu slamming her hand down hard on the bar when customers become a little loud.

“This is my bar,” she’ll announce. “We don’t talk about politics. We don’t talk about religion. We talk about sex.”

Everybody laughs. Everything is fine.

“There’s only one Lu,” Jeff says.

Star cookies are ready for baking after following the recipe for Maxine Menster's Christmas cookies which is engraved on the back of her grave marker in Cascade. (Jane Menster photo)

If there’s a recipe that carries on the warm, sweet love of a mother who is gone, it probably begins with a cup of sugar and half a cup of oleo. It certainly must include eggs and vanilla, flour and salt. It is baked in the oven at 350 degrees, allowed to cool before frosting and eaten with appreciation for generations to come.

Yes, this recipe is for “Mom’s Christmas Cookies.” It is to be remembered, shared and revered. It is engraved in stone at Cascade Cemetery in Cascade on the back of the grave marker for Maxine Menster.

Jack and Maxine Menster of Cascade pose in front of their fireplace. (Jane Menster photo)

“My dad and I, when she died (Sept. 26, 1994, at age 68), were thinking of something specific to her,” says daughter Jane Menster of rural Bernard. “It was her cookies.”

Handed down through generations, this recipe was never a secret, never something Maxine would only share “over my dead body,” as some people who come across the grave marker might think.

“Absolutely not,” Jane says. “Mom was a very generous person. This was a sentimental thing between my father and I.”

“What a neat thing to put on a stone,” agrees Charlie Becker, a friend and executive director of Camp Courageous in nearby rural Monticello. “She was a super sweet lady. She raised a great family. She was as good as they come.”

In fact, a photo of Maxine and John “Jack” Menster hangs in Becker’s office.

In 1994 the couple donated a 240-acre farm with a 28-acre lake in south-central Iowa to the year-round recreational and respite care facility, which serves individuals with disabilities. The camp, which operates on donations, sold raffle tickets at $100 each for the farm, then valued at $200,000. The raffle raised about $900,000, with some of that used to build the Menster Cabin residence hall.

The dough has been rolled and the cookies cut following the recipe for Maxine Menster's Christmas cookies which is engraved on the back of her grave marker in Cascade. (Jane Menster photo)

“She looks over me every day,” Becker says with affection about Maxine’s picture, “to make sure I’m doing my job well.”

As a friend, Becker remembers visiting the Menster home when it had been prepared for the holidays, how it was filled with the aroma of evergreen, burning candles and freshly baked cookies.

“Over every surface — the counters, the tables, the chairs — there were cookies everywhere,” he says. “She loved to bake.”

These sugar cookies are a Christmas tradition passed down through time, says Jane, one of five Menster children (one is deceased). In fact, a decades-old photograph shows a family Christmas tree decorated with the cookies.

“I make them every year,” Jane says. “Last year it wasn’t until the day before Christmas. I can’t go a year without making them.”

Now, anyone who sees Maxine Menster’s recipe on her gravestone (or in the accompanying photograph) can join in this family tradition. They can make “Mom’s Christmas Cookies” with sugar and oleo, eggs and vanilla, and, of course, that everlasting pinch of love.

The recipe for Maxine Menster's Christmas cookies, passed through the family for generations, is engraved on her grave marker. (Jane Menster photo)

“Mom’s Christmas Cookies”

Cream:

— 1 cup sugar

— 1/2 cup oleo

Add:

— 2 beaten eggs

— 1 tsp. vanilla

Add:

— 3 cups flour

— 3 tsp. baking powder

— 1 tsp. salt

Add alternately with 1 cup cream. Chill and roll out with flour. Bake in a 350-degree oven, and frost.

Source: Menster family

Carol Van Dee, manager of the Colony Point BP convenience store near Tanger Outlet Center north of Williamsburg, holds grandson, Adam Bos-Rauch, 14 months, of What Cheer after he received one of her stuffed animals. Photo was taken Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

WILLIAMSBURG — Everybody loves a surprise gift, especially children. That’s why Carol Van Dee, manager of Colony Point BP convenience store near Tanger Outlet Center, collected nearly 1,000 stuffed animals last year to give away to customers’ children.

It’s why she’s been at it again this year.

“A lot of ‘em are in just to get gas,” Carol says about the children and their parents. “They don’t know anything is going on.”

But Carol or one of the clerks will hand each child a stuffed bear, dog, cat, reindeer …

“Merry Christmas,” they will say.

“We gave the last bear away on Christmas Eve,” says Carol, 69. “That was perfect.”

Loralei Trimpe, 4, of Williamsburg sits on Santa's lap after receiving her free stuffed animal at the Colony Point BP convenience store near Tanger Outlet Center north of Williamsburg. Photo was taken Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

It could be the same today, too. Plenty of stuffed animals remained after Santa paid his visit Dec. 15, handing out a couple hundred toys.

“Christmas is about giving,” Carol says. “It’s not about anything else. The kids have come in and have been all giggles.”

Seven young girls stopped on their way to a birthday party to sit on Santa’s knee.

A family traveling to Davenport was overjoyed — the animals would keep the children occupied the rest of the trip.

“How come we don’t have any snow?” asked another little boy.

“Grandma,” pleaded Santa (actually Kegan Cameron, 19, of Marengo, sitting in for him). “I need some help.”

In his red suit with a white beard, Santa relied on help from his siblings — Skylar, 16, who handed out chocolate “Kisses from Santa” and Boston, 15, who opened and closed the door.

“It’s all right,” Kegan says. “The kids have fun.”

“One little girl asked for math books because she loves to study,” says Skylar.

Carol, who has worked at the station for 20 years and managed it for 13, began this tradition two years ago. Christmas has always been a big deal for the family — she and her husband, David, who live in Deep River, have nine children, 19 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. Carol thought, why not help out other families.

A Christmas Tree made from white stuffed Teddy Bears decorates the lobby at the Colony Point BP convenience store near Tanger Outlet Center north of Williamsburg. Photo was taken Saturday, Dec. 15, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

She began buying stuffed animals in good condition or better at garage sales, flea markets and auctions. Other family members pitched in. They all help repair, clean and sanitize them throughout the year. And soon others, from area stores to women’s clubs to friends, jumped on the bandwagon to donate more stuffed animals.

“We didn’t count them this year,” Carol says. But she looks around the store jam packed with stuffed animals, from crowded shelves to the faux roof over the checkout counter to the Christmas tree made with white teddy bears.

“It’s good,” she says, simply, “to give to the kids.”

The Little Free Library at 2127 O Ave. NW is always kept stocked by Jane and Gene Walter of Cedar Rapids. Photo was taken Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Little Free Libraries are popping up around the world like tulips in spring. So, it was probably only a matter of time before one was illegally picked and carried away.

“I was sick, I couldn’t believe it,” says Nancy Easley, assistant librarian at the Marion Public Library and steward of the Little Free Library at Thomas Park. “This is the only one in the United States that’s ever been stolen.”

The Little Free Library installed at Lowe Park north of Marion is identical to the one stolen from Thomas Park earlier this month. (Marion Public Library photo)

But, like a book with a happy ending, the red dollhouse-sized library has been found. It was to be reinstalled this week.

That’s good news says Jane Walter who, with husband, Gene, installed the first registered Little Free Library in Cedar Rapids in front of their home at 2127 O Ave. NW.

“If we’d have any vandalism, we’d rebuild it and put it right back up,” Jane says.

Little Free Libraries, the brainchild of a Wisconsin man who put one up in 2010 in memory of his mother, offer free books. The stewards stock them with contemporary books. Each library holds a dozen or more books, includes the sign “Take a book, Return a book,” and is registered on the website, www.littlefreelibrary.org. The proposal to get 2,510 of them installed around the world to outnumber Carnegie libraries has easily been exceeded — the Walters’ little library, put up this fall, is No. 4,163.

“I’ve always read,” says Jane, 64, who grew up near Parnell. “We lived on a farm. On Saturday we went to town, I’d go to the library and take six books home.”

“I want a magazine to hold,” adds Gene, 65.

Gene, a carpenter and handyman all his life, collects reusable materials, much of it from Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore. He spent the summer building the library for his wife of 45 years.

The Little Free Library built by Gene Walter of Cedar Rapids included a lot of recycled parts including the wood and siding. Photo was taken Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

“I got my Little Free Library,” says Jane with a big smile.

Standing along a sidewalk a few steps from the front door, the library has become more popular than they imagined. People of all ages take books, chat, leave bags of books at the door, even write thank-you notes.

In Marion, Nancy knew the Little Free Library at Thomas Park was popular as she restocked it periodically. She’d just done so a few days before Dec. 5 when a caller said it was missing. Information on Facebook brought another call Dec. 8 — “I know where your library is.”

Jo Pearson, assistant director, went with police to recover it from a home where the owner said he found it discarded in a ditch.

In surprisingly good shape, except for missing parts including decorative owls which builder Richard Hill has replaced, the Little Free Library will soon be home.

And, as these libraries continue, Nancy and the Walters are always looking for more children’s books. You know, stories with happy endings.

Gene and Jane Walter of Cedar Rapids became the first people in Cedar Rapids to put up a Little Free Library in their front yard at 2127 O Ave. NW. Photo was taken Thursday, Dec. 13, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

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SIGOURNEY — The saying goes that the couple who plays together, stays together. But does that including scaling Mount Everest and Mount Kilimanjaro?

For Cyrena and Phil Buschmann of Sigourney it does.

In 2011, they spent 10 days climbing to the Mount Everest base camp 17,500 feet above sea level and another four days to come down.

This year, an eight-day journey took them to the 19,341-foot peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.

“Did you ever think we’d do something like this?” Cyrena says.

Phil shakes his head. “No way.”

But, fueled by common desire, determination and a love for each other in a second marriage for both, fun and adventure followed the exchange of vows 30 years ago (Feb. 10, 1982).

“I saw you walking down the street,” Phil teases about how they met, even though it was actually through a mutual friend.

“The first gift you bought me was a bike,” he says.

“A 10-speed,” Cyrena replies. “I don’t think you were thrilled.”

He laughs. “You were my soul mate.”

One RAGBRAI across Iowa led to another, led to being among 300 bicycle riders in 1995 to ride 5,000 miles in the “Iowa 150 Bike Ride/A Sesquicentennial Expedition” from Long Beach, Calif., to Washington, D.C.

In all, they’ve done 27 RAGBRAIs and today own 18 bicycles, including several tandems and a vintage 1941 Schwinn.

Cyrena, 62, a Fairfield native and longtime kindergarten, elementary and middle schoolteacher (often of science), still substitutes in Sigourney.

Phil, 60, who grew up near Klemme in northwest Iowa, had a long retail career that included shoe repair and owning the dry cleaning operation in Sigourney. He now repairs shoes part-time in his shop at the edge of Wagler Ford’s used car lot.

When world adventurer Charlie Wittmack, who became their friend on the cross-country bike ride, wanted folks to join him on another trip to Everest (in 2003 he became the first Iowan to summit) at the end of his around-the-world triathlon, they did it.

They flew to Lukla at the base of Everest, then began the ascent in a group of 11 Iowans.

“The terrain is mostly rock and steps,” Cyrena says.

“Big steps,” Phil says.

“We all suffered altitude issues, except Phil,” she adds.

But, they made it, not showering for 10 days. And, despite Cyrena being ill for a couple weeks afterward, they jumped on this summer’s chance to climb Kilimanjaro.

That adventure, with an African safari afterward, was just as grueling because Wittmack set up an adventurous route.

Even though each climb cost the couple about $12,000, the worthwhile adventures have only whetted their appetite for more.

“I don’t want to do Everest again,” Cyrena says. “Or Kilimanjaro again. I want to experience something different.”

As she comes upon her mother, Faye Birky, 81, seated in the waiting area, she smiles. “I passed.”

Yes, Anthony was relieved. Even though arthritis and fibromyalgia force her to use a cane, she figured she’d fill out paperwork, have her picture taken, pass her eye test and pay $20 to renew her Iowa license for another five years. She didn’t expect an official to require that she prove she could still drive.

Jan Anthony of Marion (left) brought her mother Faye Birky of Cedar Rapids along when Anthony renewed her license at the driver's license office on Friday, Dec. 7, 2012, in Cedar Rapids. Birky, 81, started driving in the 1960s and stopped in March 2011 when her children asked her to. Anthony walks with a cane, and had to take a road test to renew her license. (Liz Martin/The Gazette)

“It was a big surprise,” she says. “Your initial thought is, ‘I’ve got to take the driving test,’ not that I didn’t think I could take it. It was OK. I passed. No problem.”

But, if Anthony had lost her license, she wouldn’t be able to drive her mother around on errands. Her mother wouldn’t have been able to drive, either, having given up her license nearly two years ago at the request of her children.

“I have a memory problem,” Birky says. “Alzheimer’s.”

This Cedar Rapids daughter and mother, baby boomer and senior citizen, symbolize what’s happening on the nation’s roadways. Today, about 34 million drivers are 65 years old or older. By 2030, the federal government projects, 57 million drivers will reach this standard retirement age. That’s about one-fourth of all drivers.

SAFETY CONCERNS

The concerns of this aging driving public are wide-ranging, not the least of which is the safety of all motorists. So, earlier this year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration initiated some solutions. Among them would be requiring that each state have a program to improve older driver safety, protecting doctors from lawsuits if they report medical conditions that prohibit a senior citizen from driving and the requirement that driver’s licenses be renewed in person.

While some states are more lax than others, Iowa does require drivers 70 and older to renew their licenses every two years, instead of the standard five years. And license issuers are always on the lookout for potential problems.

“When an older driver comes in and we see some need for assistance, we may ask for a driving test,” says Lisa Hennessey, supervisor of the Iowa Department of Transportation driver’s license station in Cedar Rapids. “We’ll check their medical reports, recommendations from doctors …”

The result, she says, is that the IDOT does its best to accommodate older drivers, even sending testers for on-site road tests in small towns where they live if they’re not used to driving in a city such as Cedar Rapids. The IDOT also can implement restrictions, such as limiting a driver to certain hours of the day or specific neighborhoods.

“We know that some older people will take the back roads,” Hennessey says. “They do a good job of restricting themselves.”

Patricia Jones of Marion, who turned 87 on Dec. 6, knows that she’ll reduce her driving even as she renewed her license.

Last May, she drove the 120 miles to Des Moines to visit her daughter, Susan Grant, but for Thanksgiving had her daughter come to Marion to pick her up and take her back to Des Moines.

“I get a little nervous out there on the freeway,” admits Jones, who drives a 2004 Dodge Neon. “There’s a lot of trucks out.”

AARP driver safety classes, for drivers over 50, can help allay some of those fears, says Larry Neppl of Marion, former coordinator of the Iowa driver safety programs and an instructor the last decade.

The four-hour AARP course, held periodically throughout the year in a variety of locations, covers all of the basics, from being a good defensive driver to avoiding distractions while driving (cellphones, texting, navigation systems, etc.) to the use of updated safety technology.

“All these things are important in good defensive driving,” Neppl says, adding his mantra, “You need to expect the unexpected.”

Overall, he says, older drivers have become better drivers, citing a study that shows they’re only about 16 percent more likely to cause a crash than drivers ages 25 to 64. He attributes that to better overall health, improved safety devices in vehicles such as backup cameras and lane change warning beepers, and the education of older drivers, many of whom may not have been required to take driver’s education when they learned to drive.

As an example, he says his mother-in-law simply paid a quarter for her driver’s license when she was 16 and never had to take a driving test into her 80s.

So, should older drivers be required to take a driving test when they reach a certain age? Or, after they’ve been involved in an accident?

“I’m not sure it should be only older drivers,” Neppl says.

Jones, who won’t be driving to Des Moines so often, agrees. “I’ve seen some people out there I don’t really think should be behind the wheel,” she says. “I’d hope I’d know when I’d get that way.”

For Birky, who accompanied her daughter to the driver’s license station, the decision to give up her license resided in the back of her mind until March, 2011, when her children paid her a visit.

“You still would be driving if we hadn’t said something,” says Anthony, her daughter, who recalls that night. First, her brother and then her sister couldn’t get the words out, so she had to speak. “We don’t think you should be driving, Mom,” she finally said.

Birky thought about it for a minute, then agreed.

“I never had an accident,” she says. “I was never picked up for anything. Why not quit while I’m ahead? I realized how fortunate I’ve been.”

Not everyone so easily gives up the car keys, which is why AARP has an online program free of charge called “We Need to Talk.” It explains in three parts how to determine if an older person should give up driving and how to break the news.

But, as Neppl says, age alone isn’t the determining factor. Health, experience and self-confidence also play a role.

“From my experience,” laughs Bob Schillig, 83, of Robins, “I think I could tell them what to do.”

Even though he wears no-line bifocals, he tried the eye exam without them. He still maintains his pilot’s license, which is has more stringent physical requirements than a driver’s license, and flies his Fairchild PT-19 trainer airplane. He owns a fleet of old cars and three years ago drove a Ford Model A to Texas.

“There are some older drivers who shouldn’t be driving,” Schillig says with a smile. “They aren’t as quick on the draw as I am.”

CEDAR RAPIDS — ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” may be hot on television now, but members of The Congenial Hundred Dance Club in Cedar Rapids have known that dancing was cool for the past 80 years.

Founded in 1932, the Congenial Hundred celebrates eight decades of dancing with a Moonlight & Music Holiday Ball Saturday night at the Ponderosa Ballroom in Walford. The Larry Busch Orchestra will provide music for this special dance, which is co-hosted by the Cedar Valley Dance Club, a chapter of USA Dance. That means, unlike most Congenial Hundred events, the public is welcome.

“We are always looking for new members,” says Bill Klein, president of the Congenial Hundred, which actually numbers about 40 couples — only couples are allowed to join. That’s why cooperative dances with people outside the club like this can be beneficial, although that wasn’t the club’s original purpose.

“In 1932 they wanted to keep the group small to promote a social atmosphere, so the couples would know each other pretty well,” Klein says. “The number varies with the health of the members and the economy.”

So the name refers to the membership number cap, not the age of the group, although it is possible that in another 20 years, it could mean both. Members are fairly confident that their claim of being the oldest dance club in the country is accurate.

A member who recently researched dance clubs across the country found that the next oldest one was formed in Wisconsin in 1933 and another in Indiana in 1948.

Look back to the ’30s and the sour economy was causing the Great Depression, yet in Cedar Rapids, a group of folks smiled through it to form the dance and bridge club that, by its very bylaws, “must have as its fundamental ideal the congeniality of all members.”

The first dance, Dec. 16, 1932, attracted 35 couples to the Roosevelt Room of the Hotel Roosevelt. The first anniversary drew 51 couples. At one point, 75 couples belonged.

Even though the number was later limited to 100 people, more or less, the loyalty of members is amazing, Klein says. While he and his wife, Linda, of Robins have belonged for 10 years, others have been with the club more than 40. At 56, Klein falls in the middle. Some members are in their 20s and one couple with both spouses at age 87.

“We don’t discriminate,” says Klein, who adds that members come from all walks of life. “All we care about is that people are a couple and that they love to dance.”

The details

• What: Moonlight and Music Holiday Ball
• When: 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. Saturday
• Where: Ponderosa Ballroom, Walford
• Cost: $20 per person at the door. (Limited tickets for buffet dinner, beginning at 6 p.m., and the dance will be available at the door for $35 per person.)
• Dance lessons: $10 per person. Rumba at 3:30 p.m.; Quickstep at 4:45 p.m.
• More information: Cedar Valley Dance Club at Wheedance.home.mchsi.com

Early dues at $7 per couple were soon increased to $9. They’re now $70 per couple and go up to $85 next year with the money used exclusively for dance hall rent and live music. At one time, the club had an Internet website but couldn’t afford it. Most communication among members is by email.

From the Roosevelt and later the Crystal Ballroom at Hotel Montrose, the “home” venue for the Congenial Hundred has changed often. It has even been in North Liberty as the club encompasses the I-380 corridor. “Home” is now Gage Memorial Union at Coe College where the Corn Ball was held last month.

While dress for the eight regular annual functions is business casual — men wear shirts and ties and maybe a suit or sport coat, women wear dresses or nice pantsuits — Saturday’s dance is formal.

“I have to wear a tux,” Klein says with a laugh. “I own my own, one I bought for myself when I got interested in ballroom dancing 10 years ago.”

That tradition, along with others, keeps the group tight and congenial, Klein says.

Bylaws, for instance, don’t allow smoking or alcohol at any regular events. Guest couples must attend two dances before becoming eligible to join. No one is allowed to give the membership list to anyone outside the club. At each event, members are seated randomly at different tables to promote interaction. Yet you dance with only your spouse rather than switching partners.

“Over the years we’ve had people say they feel uncomfortable with switching,” Klein says. “It goes back and forth.

“Me?” he adds. “All I know is, I want to dance with my wife.”

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Area kids lounge on couches in Lindale Mall in Cedar Rapids on Saturday December 14, 2002. (The Gazette)

Cedar Rapids historian Mark Stoffer Hunter discusses the old World Theater on Third Avenue SE as a teen hangout before it closed in the early 1980s during a presentation at the Carl & Mary Koehler History Center. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — Using an old-fashioned slideshow rather than a computerized PowerPoint presentation, Cedar Rapids historian Mark Stoffer Hunter recently led more than a dozen folks down memory lane to places teenagers hung out, from 1900s Greene Square Park to 1980s Westdale Mall.

“I think you’ll find it fascinating to see the similarities of teenagers through the decades.”

Always, it seems, parents feared their teens would find trouble.

Take early silent movies houses. Ten had opened in the city of 35,000.

“Many times,” Mark laughs, “the principal at Washington High School had to return students from the balcony of a theater.”

That’s when Washington was Cedar Rapids’ only high school, located adjacent to Greene Square Park where kids began to hang out in the late 1800s. The high school was similar to college today, in that it had fraternities and sororities and prepared students for a working life.

Wanda Anderson

But, with the 1915 opening of Grant High School, the coming of “talking” movies and the proliferation of the automobile, the teen landscape changed dramatically. Segregated hangouts at the YMCA and YWCA gave way to new swimming pools, soda fountain counters at drugstores, ice cream shops, dance halls, drive-in diners and movies and yes, the malls.

Wanda Anderson, 84, of Cedar Rapids, in the audience for the presentation at the Carl & Mary Koehler History Center, was 16 when she worked at Krebs Dutch Girl Ice Cream at First Avenue SE and 29th Street Drive.

“It was a social center,” she says. “I really enjoyed it.”

A poster advertises the 36th anniversary of Danceland. Photo was taken Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

She also hung out at the YMCA’s “Keen Teen” and Club 19, beside the Paramount Theatre, to play pingpong, pool and dance to records.

Real dancing came of age at Danceland. Of particular note was “Ma” Dougherty, a sheriff’s matron who worked as a bouncer.

“If you were out of line,” Mark says, “she’d pick you up and throw you down the stairs.”

Dorothy Ramsey, 88, laughs at the recollection. “I was told, ‘Slow it down. That’s when the jitterbug started. But, she was a dear one, too.”

Lindale Plaza became a hangout in the ‘60s, too, but was usurped, at least temporarily, when the enclosed (and now nearly vacant) Westdale Mall opened in 1979.

“It was actually Westdale which killed downtown, not Lindale,” Mark says, “which is quite ironic.”

Dorothy Ramsey

From walking in a park to skating on ice to swimming in the Ellis Park pool that opened in 1941 to bowling and yes, even underage sneaking into bars, Mark shows that Cedar Rapids has had plenty of places for young people to gather.

“Hanging out with friends was always the teenage thing to do.”

Tom Potter turns the walnut barrel of a custom writing pen on the lathe in his Cedar Rapids basement workshop. Photo was taken Monday, Nov. 27, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

CEDAR RAPIDS — A walnut vanity in the main bathroom remains unfinished, as does a wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-ceiling entertainment center in the living room.

The "Pink Pen," made of pink ivory wood from Africa, is one of Tom Potter's best sellers at $75 each. The fancier walnut Statesman Pen (foreground) with 23k gold trim sells for $200. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

But, order a wooden-barrel writing pen from Tom Potter of Cedar Rapids and he’s quick to the lathe in his basement workshop to turn out another work of art.

“My wife (Patty) tells me she’d like it finished some day,” Tom says with a laugh about the entertainment center. He knows it will be completed sooner rather than later.

But, three years ago, when he began making pens, he became addicted.

There’s something about making an object people cherish, that they hold dearly in their hands, that they want to keep for a lifetime. Something about getting a second chance at life, too.

Yes, Tom, 57, had open heart surgery Nov. 5, 2011, after waiting several years as an aneurysm continued to grow larger until doctors were ready to operate.

“Every day you think about it,” Tom says. “But I did RAGBRAI (bicycle ride across Iowa) last year. I’m on top of the world.”

A Cedar Rapids native and ‘73 graduate of Washington High School, he was 16 when he became a carryout boy at Hy-Vee on Oakland Road NE. He’s been with the company since, from Austin, Minn., to Storm Lake (produce manager) to Marion where he’s a full-time cashier.

Tom Potter

Tom’s woodworking began with a bowl in high school, progressed to making complete bedroom sets for his children and furniture for his wife.

“It’s funny,” he says. “Most of the things I make are for someone else.”

But that’s what he loved as a member of the defunct Fine Woodworkers Store where he met other enthusiasts.

“Some of the guys who came in to bring things to turn (on the lathe) made pens,” Tom says. “It seems that everybody who does a lot of turning, turns to pens.”

A variety of wood from around the world has been cut into pen barrel blanks by Tom Potter of Cedar Rapids. Photo was taken Monday, Nov. 27, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

Now Tom produces up to 30 pens a month, each requiring two to four hours. His dozen styles sell for $50 to $250 each, depending on wood type, trim (chrome, 10k gold, titanium) and writing point (ballpoint, rollerball fountain pen). All include free refills for life.

“Any wood in the world, I can get and work with,” Tom says, pointing to a list that includes ebony and pink ivory, cocobola and leopardwood, mango and palm.

Of course, he often uses the standards — walnut, cherry and Birdseye maple — which you can see and order at www.woodenpen.biz

Or, you could catch him when he sets up a booth, such as this Saturday at the NewBo City Market where he’s been the last couple of weekends. That’s how Tom prefers to make a sale.

“A pen is so personal,” he says. “A person has to feel it to know what works best.”

The Statesman Pen ($200) with a wanut barrel, 23k gold trim and a gold and iridium fountain pen tip, was part of Tom Potter's best of show award at the New Bo Art Festival in 2011. Photo was taken Monday, Nov. 27, 2012. (Dave Rasdal/The Gazette-KCRG)

Growing up in 1930s Germany, Anneliese Heider took a bath once a week with water heated by burning wood, helped her mother in an extensive garden, snuggled under a feather-stuffed tick in a cold bedroom and was overjoyed when her father took the family to a circus.

All-in-all, her youth in Munich wasn’t much different than that of an Iowa girl growing up through The Great Depression.

Then along came Adolph Hitler. By the time Anneliese turned 10, in 1938, she was forced to wear a uniform for Hitler’s Young Girls League meetings. She had to proclaim “Heil Hitler” at the start of her school day. She worried that uttering her thoughts aloud could get her or her family killed.

So began nearly a decade of fear and uncertainty, war and destruction, life and death as told in “Christmas Trees Lit the Sky,” Anneliese Heider Tisdale’s memoir of growing up smack dab in the middle of World War II.

The Cedar Rapids woman, who came to Iowa in 1947 to marry an American GI, begins her story with the impending liberation of Germany, then flashes back to follow her life in chronological order. As a result, the early pace may seem slow for readers expecting the drama of war, but it rewards those who are patient with details of Depression-era Germany and then explodes with the first Allied bombing runs over Munich.

That’s where the title derives – red and green flares used to illuminate the sky for the bombers remind Anneliese of the candle-lit Christmas Trees of the time.

“Christmas Trees Lit the Sky” (Authorhouse, $27.99 in hardback, $16.95 in soft cover, $3.99 e-book), which is flavored with plenty of old German recipes, provides an enlightening, and sometimes enchanting, window into a world most Americans have never experienced.

BOOK READING

• What: Anneliese Heider Tisdale reads from “Christmas Trees Lit the Sky”
• Where: New Bo Books, 1105 Third Street SE, Cedar Rapids
• When: 3:30 p.m. Saturday
• Admission: Free
• Click “play” to listen to Heider read a two-minute except from her book, “Christmas Trees Lit the Sky”