Mead, Nebraska History

You may be one of many workers who daily roll in by car or bus to labor at Nebraska Ordnance Plant, but did you know there are children here, too? They do not work, to be sure; they "live".

The children belong to parents who reside on the NOP area. Their presence is mad apparent by the cautioning road signs, fences, lawns, playgrounds and a school bus - all of which have been provided by a thoughtful management concerned with providing the necessities for "living" as well as working.

Appetites Swell

In this small settlement, these young sprouts engage in various phases of the "pursuit of happiness". They don bathing suits and get into the radii of the sprinklers on the lawns. At the Rec Hall - a favorite retreat for the youngsters - they manfully check out baseball equipment or contest on another in spirited games of ping pong. They play shuffleboard with a wild enthusiasm, and feed nickels into the coke and candy machines. The sips of pop and bites of candy choke off their words momentarily, but the din of their shouts leap out after every swallow. Appetites are ravenous.

Aware of this, Mrs. Frank Foren, whose boy, John, 10, plays in the Rec Hall, which also houses the Rentals Office, commented: "I was going to send the rent over with him, but I was afraid he would change it into nickels."

Small T shirts and odd head gear are lost one day and reclaimed the next. (Fortunately, the Lost and Found Department is located in the Rec Hall, too.)

Mothers frequently call for a wayward offspring. Little girls are summoned home to have hairdos. Little boys gallop home for meals. They race back.

They Stalk Out

Occasionally the Rec Hall ballroom resounds with a piano solo, the numbers from Book II of either the Thompson or Kincella which all mothers of would be pianists must hear and praise if "Ellen Susie" is to get book III. Asked to perform, a moment latter, the child clams up and starts squirming.

When the young-young element arrive, the oldsters (ages 9 - 11) have been known to stalk out mumbling something about noise and nuisances. The natural superiority of age? More than likely, it was the feminine contingent whom they ardently avoid at their particular age which caused the exodus!

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