Some things will be greatly missed

As our departure for Texas looms closer, there are a few contacts we have had in Boulder City that I particularly want to mention with my thanks. In many of those cases, we’ll be leaving an empty chair and just perhaps one of you out there would like to look into joining the team.

I have talked about the Sons of Norway a number of times. I joined the local lodge shortly after moving here in 2003 and gradually accrued more responsibility, serving as vice president and editor. I know for sure they would love to welcome a few good Norskies. They have monthly potluck social meetings with an interesting speaker and put on a great lutefisk dinner and a May 17 celebration, both here in Boulder City.

If you have any reminiscences about Norwegian culture at all, you would probably enjoy membership. Give it a free try.

Another group I joined early on was Ben Wilkinson’s weekly poker home game. I have played once or twice a week in this two-bit game with lots of wild cards and rules I can’t even remember half the time. This is a bunch of really old dudes, but the food is good, as is the conversation. They could definitely use another player to fill my seat so get in touch with me for an introduction.

When the editor of the Boulder City Review recruited me to become a columnist about a year and a half ago, I realized that I should perhaps get a bit more plugged in to what was going on in my home town of 15 years.

As a first step I started attending a prestigious 40-year-old breakfast club called Romeo that I had heard about from a Boulder City Review article. That’s Really Old Men Eating Out; the name pretty much describes the game. These community-spirited men meet every Tuesday morning, about 6:30ish at the Boulder Dam Hotel and eat some fine food while they listen to a community leader speak about whatever they want to speak about.

Recent speakers include Randy Hees, head Nevada State Railroad Museum; Andy Schaper, head of both golf courses; Victoria Mason, head of Senior Center of Boulder City; Eric Estes, head of the Boulder Dam Credit Union and Hali Bernstein Saylor, head of this newspaper.

Attendees number from 10 (in the summer) to 20 (during cold months with a great speaker). I think chairman Brad Appleby would be happy to pick up one or two new attendees.

Bold Boulder is Boulder City’s one and only Facebook talk show. Organized by Alan Goya and Travis Robinson, they go live from the World Famous Coffee Cup at 7 a.m. every Monday. They recently completed their 82nd weekly episode and all can be seen on their Facebook feed; you don’t have to view it live at 7 a.m.

A similarly impressive group of our leading citizens have occupied stool No. 2. For some time I have sidled up to them on stool No. 4 or No. #5, mostly because I love the Coffee Cup’s Hangover breakfast. A couple of times I was drafted to appear on camera as a last-minute fill in, once as “Ernie,” Goya’s nickname, with Councilman Warren Harhay playing “Bert.”

I got more involved when I volunteered to fill in for Goya after he had surgery some weeks ago. As of this writing he says he is recovering nicely and planned to be back on his stool this week. Jill Rowland-Lagan, CEO of Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, volunteered to take over stool No. 1 until Alan is fully back in the saddle. I plan to be on stool No. 4 or No. 5 until the moving van people pry me off and haul me to Austin.

If you have an interest in more info about any of these enterprises, contact me at odnelson2@gmail.com.

Dave Nelson retired to Boulder City in 2003 after a career with the FICO score company. He is vice president for the local Sons of Norway.