Omaha makes history...again

It's been three weeks now since John Ewing Jr. took the oath of office as Omaha's mayor...breaking the color barrier in the process of replacing Jean Stothert, the former City Council member who, in 2013, shattered the mayoral glass ceiling here in town.

I'm glad he's in there.

And I'm excited about Ewing surrounding himself with people who have a better grasp on how to handle the city's road reconstruction projects than Stothert and her people did. (I mean, if you're going to make a street repair, why not make sure the repair lasts a long, long time?)

A little bit about him:

Ewing turned 64 on 4-18-2025; he became the Douglas County treasurer in 2007 and had that job until he became Omaha's newest mayor. Before his stint as treasurer of Nebraska's most heavily-populated county, he spent 25 years in the Omaha Police Department...eventually becoming deputy police chief.

He could've been a US representative here in this House district (known as Nebraska's Blue Dot)...but in 2012, incumbent Lee Terry Jr. (he used to be on Omaha's City Council, too) nosed Ewing out by 4,197 votes.

High school sports fans around here might remember Ewing from his days at Northwest High School, where he was on the football and boys' basketball teams.

Just before the 6-9-2025 swearing-in, JWE talked about looking forward to being able to be mayor and wanting to "tell the people about the great progress we are going to make to economic development and addressing the issues we talked about, affordable housing." He believes in building good coalitions, because, to him, that's "the best way to get things done because then you're partnering with people who do the work and you're partnering with the people who are the beneficiaries of the work as well." Can't wait to find out what's in store for the Big O and its 52nd mayor!

Sources include Wikipedia and www.ketv.com.

I'd never been in a parade before...

Until 7-13-2024, that is.

Seen parades on TV and in person in the past...but I'd never marched in one until last week.

I'm on a couple of committees at our church, and one of the things we wanted to do was take part in this year's Heartland Pride Parade.

And I'm glad I participated alongside thousands of other people.

I mean, for all the many, many things that make us unique individuals, we're still one...we're still members of the human race.

Tomorrow's the day!

This could've taken place in January 2017...except the need to replace the transmission on the car I had at the time (a 2006 Ford Taurus SEL that I bought in June 2007) came first.

Instead, it's going to happen tomorrow at 9:15 AM at the Miracle Hills Surgery Center (11819 Miracle Hills Dr., Suite 201, Omaha, NE 68154).

The mission: To remove the cataract from my left eye.

Quite a few things during the intervening six years and two months delayed the surgery...from the need to continue building a retirement fund to 2020's successful enrollment in Medicare to my having to buy a replacement car in April 2021 to retiring from my factory job in October 2022. But now, I'm ready for Dr. Matthew Brumm to come after that cataract.

A followup will ensue this coming Tuesday at 8:30 AM at Brumm Eye Center's north office (6751 N. 72nd St., Building 2, Suite 105, Omaha, NE 68122).

After all this...who knows? All I want is to see better...so that I can, among other things, drive at night again.

Now...it's your turn. Have you faced cataract surgery (or surgeries) in the past? What was it like? How'd you fare?

Thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"

The countdown is over

I needed to let you know that, due to a bunch of personal issues (most of them job-related, some related to finances, some even church-related), I've decided to stop holding the Ragtime to Riches Festival. The continuing pandemic sure hasn't helped, as it wiped out what would've been the 2020 and 2021 R to R events. Still...I'm thankful for everyone who attended the festival since its 2005 inception, and I'm thankful for every performer who did the festival. Haven't dropped music for good, because I'm still going to the Pink Poodle Steakhouse in Crescent, IA to perform on the last Sunday of the month. (Hope to see you there!)

He helped make theater organ fun!

He passed away at age eighty on 12-30-2021...and he was the very first person I saw play a theater pipe organ in person.

His name was Jack Moelmann. In November 1984, he did a concert at Nebraska's Bellevue Little Theater, a playhouse that, at the time, had a two-manual, five-rank Wurlitzer theater organ. After the concert, I was invited to what turned out to be an organizational meeting of the River City Theatre Organ Society. I've been a member of RCTOS ever since. And Jack was one of the biggest reasons I joined the club.

At the time I met Jack, he was an Air Force colonel who was stationed at Bellevue's Offutt Air Force Base. He'd been in the Air Force since 1965, the year he received his Bachelor of Science degree from Bradley University.

Chicago-born Jack got started in music in 1949, the year he turned eight years old (he not only took to the piano, he also sang in the church choir). He was hooked for the rest of his life, thanks to the many gigs he played in high school and college. Theater organ fans around here were very fortunate that Jack lived here in the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area during 1984-85, a time when RCTOS was in its infancy. This highly-accomplished (both in the Air Force and in the world's concert halls and movie palaces) man helped make those early meetings fun, due to his vast repertoire AND his trademark humor.

Jack joined the American Theatre Organ Society in 1967; in 1983, he launched a 23-year period where he served on the ATOS board of directors in one capacity or another. From 1985 to 1988, he ran ATOS...then became its secretary in 1993, keeping that gig until 2006. Two years before becoming ATOS secretary, Jack retired from the US Armed Forces. All the time he was in the USAF, Jack earned hardware such as the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Air Force Meritorious Service Medal, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and the Legion of Merit. Jack eventually left the Omaha Metro and moved to the St. Louis area...where he turned everything up a bunch of notches. He became a lifetime member of ATOS in 1994, an inductee into the organization's Hall of Fame in 2008, and ATOS Organist of the Year in 2018.

The crowning touch (well, I like to think so!) came in August 2008...when he headlined at New York City's Radio City Music Hall. (If I can find that on YouTube, well...)

Jack, I'm glad to have been a part of your life.

I'm glad you were a part of mine.

To John

One day late last month, I looked in the obituaries section of the Omaha World Herald. And I was shocked to find John F. McIntyre's name in there.

When wife Laura Vranes and parents Dan and Barbara McIntyre were listed among John's survivors, it hit me: I met John and Laura on Labor Day 2013 (9-2-2013) at Omaha's Tree of Life Sculpture. The occasion was the Omaha/Council Bluffs/Bellevue area's "Play Me, I'm Yours" street piano art project. By contributing Barbara's old Richardson upright piano to the local exhibit (and enabling Bill Hoover to paint the piano), and with Barb's okay to the contribution in the first place, Laura and John helped make the Omaha Metro's stop on Luke Jerram's "PMIY" tour a tremendous success. The "Boston's Blog" post about the Tree of Life experience ("Monday, September 2, 2013: M-A-G-I-C!") is still up. (Check it out!) John, you, Laura, and Barb enabled so many of us in the Omaha area to have so much fun during "Play Me's" time in the local spotlight. Thank you so much for all the great things you've contributed.

The protests MUST continue

Last week, two encounters with coworkers at the plastics factory that employs me made it personally crystal clear why the worldwide protests against the brutality shown by America's police forces MUST continue.

Last Sunday, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert issued a 72-hour curfew in light of the Big O being one of the many American cities holding demonstrations not only against police brutality, but also against the militarization of this country's police forces...and against vigilante brutality. In the curfew, people couldn't go out between 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM...unless they had vital jobs. (The company I work at makes, among other things, personal protective equipment...no, not coronavirus masks, but the masks worn by assembly-line employees at dairy factories and by soldiers.)

So...on 6-1-2020, as I got off my second-shift job at 11:00 PM and was heading for my car to drive home, a supervisor from another plant within the same building headed for his own car to go to his own home.

I held the door for him (just trying to be polite, that's all)...and he started talking about the local curfew.

And then he praised this country's chief White House occupant, talking about how "honest" this occupant is...and how this one-time reality-TV show host "says what's on his mind."

Guess what? 

Just because the former host of NBC's The Apprentice says what's on his mind doesn't make what's on his mind cool...especially when he declares war on the nation's own citizens by vowing to sic the military on protesters if governors don't do his bidding and "dominate the streets."

That's dictatorial talk...no ifs, no maybes, no buts.

Sorry, folks. The way I see it, we started having a dictator here the afternoon of 1-20-2017.

A couple of nights ago, a fellow second-shift employee of mine at the same plant I work at weighed in on the continuing protests.

She wondered when the demonstrators would get off the streets "so that people can get on with their lives." What's more, she wondered what good the protests are doing.

So I told her.

Not only did I tell this fellow machine operator that the demonstrations have, at long last, gotten the attention of some corporate leaders (one of the leaders took to the electronic billboard at 72nd and Pacific Sts. here in O and loaded a message: "We Need Each Other")...I told her I'm glad the protests continue to take place.

The sign on the east facade of Omaha's Do Space (at 72nd and Dodge Sts., in a building that previously housed a Borders book store) proclaimed: "BLACK LIVES MATTER."

By the way...some of the protests here in Omaha happened at 72nd and Dodge.

Hours before second shift began that day (6-5-2020), NFL commissioner Roger Goodell released a statement admitting that the league was wrong in the way it's been handling player protest ever since San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick went to one knee in 2016.

Eleven days after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis cop named Derek Chauvin (with an assist from four other members of Minneapolis' Supposedly Finest), Goodell finally gave the okay for the NFL's players to speak out and peacefully protest.

What's more, he stated: "We, the National Football League, believe Black lives matter. I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much-needed change in this country."

Goodell also admitted that "Without Black players, there would be no National Football League." 

Now, Roger...if you and the league's 32 team owners get rid of that kneeling ban, I'll be glad to get back to spending Sunday afternoons and evenings (and any Monday night or Thursday night I can get off during the season) watching NFL action.

And what about US Sen. Willard Mitt Romney (R-UT), the most recent Republican to lose a presidential election, marching with protesters in the nation's capital?

We'll see what happens in the days/weeks/months/years to come...but Romney's and Goodell's actions are a start. So are those taken by corporate bigwigs everywhere.

So if you're still upset because the protests, as this fellow machine operator of mine put it, prevent people from going "on with their lives," let me tell you something:

Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and too damned many others weren't allowed to get on with their own lives.

Vigilantes took it upon themselves to snuff Martin's and Arbery's lives out.

FOR NOTHING.

And I'd like to ask you something:

Do you REALLY believe in freedom for all to live their lives peacefully...to go about their everyday business just as you do?

Do you REALLY believe people have a right to petition this country's government...especially this current garbage fire of a government, one built on hatred and bigotry?

 

Lookbook #1- "Really Old School"

Things have gotten to the point in the movie-and-TV industry where writers trying to break in (and those who've already established themselves) need to put together a collection of photos serving as an expression of the writers' vision of how a movie or TV series is supposed to look. (Directors have been using this tool for quite some time.)

This collection of pictures is called a lookbook. 

Well, anyway...here's my very first attempt at a lookbook, and it's connected to my very first attempt at a screenplay since 1994, "Really Old School."

The screenplay's logline: 

Inspired by a piece of 1910s sheet music, a modern-day Omaha, NE teenager wants to honor and emulate the tune's author: Her newly-deceased great-grandmother, a ragtime-era composer-musician-bandleader-arranger.

Hope you like this lookbook...and wishing you all the very best!