Bridal dress a 'real' antique next year
By MARCELLA BRUCE
Contributing writer
I'm almost over my pouting about not getting to attend the Luciano Pavarotti concert and ball in Wichita last Saturday
All I lacked was a $600 dollar ticket and a "knock-out-gorgeous" ball gown. What I did have was a set of ears ready and willing to listen and eyes to see him live and on stage!
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Last month, Herington editor and longtime friend, Larry Byers, sent me a clipping from the Topeka Capital-Journal written by Pete Goering, who spent his "growing-up" years in Lehigh. Pete is a journalist-columnist with the Capital-Journal and also does sports commentary with WIBW.
He had been asked to speak at the Overbrook Rotary Club at their annual farmers guest event by longtime friend and retired Overbrook banker, Max Friesen with whom he had grown up in Lehigh. Friesen set the tone of the morning with his directions.
"Just stop when you see a flock of pickup trucks near a café. Each pickup will have a bale of hay, whip, fuel barrel, dog and/or lots of junk." Goering felt a real kinship with farmers because he grew up around them, worked around them and became one of them when he inherited 80 acres outside another nearby town, Moundridge.
"For that hour in Shirley's Café, I thought I had stepped back into 1961. It was like going home."
The smell emanating from the café he recognized, "Rosie Ollek used to whip up meals like that at the Lehigh Café."
The independent grocer make him think of Thiessen's IGA and "Dr. James Ruble even looked a little like our family doctor, the late Dr. A.D. Ratzlaff," and the man who had succeeded his friend Mac, as the bank president, "could have been Elmer Flaming, only younger."
Goering's nostalgic journey to Overbrook, as it brought back memories of his youth in Lehigh, left no doubt as to how much he enjoyed the visit, when "for a little while Overbrook was a pretty good substitute for the Lehigh" he remembers as home.
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The Antiques Road Show on KPTS is a favorite of mine, but I'm getting a little paranoid about the increasing number of items from the 20s, 30s and even 40s appearing on the show. I thought antiques had to be 100 years old
The United Methodist Church is having a mother-daughter supper on April 18. It will feature bridal gowns as well as other attendant attire. And my mother-in-law, Cora Mae Baird Bruce, will be represented by her wedding dress worn on Aug. 15, 1903. Another year and it will be a real antique, and that's hard for me to believe.
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Another advantage of aging: "Your secrets are now safe with friends. They can't remember them either."
