The Original Cool

Happy Birthday to Gene Ely, the Coolest!

January 8, 2011 would have been the 96th Birthday of our dear Daddy/Dad//Grandpa/Great-Grandpa, Gene Ely, who was the original Mr. Cool, long before the term was invented.  He had swagger with deep love for his family.  I'll give you a couple of examples from my more recent digs into the family boxes.  Also you might look at his 94th Birthday, and You with Your Grandpa.   We all can celebrate January 8th in our own special way, feeling his love that endures.

Since most of you call him Grandpa, that's the term I'll use mostly.  

In January 1931 when Grandpa would have been in 10th Grade and had just turned 16, his coolness was documented in the Nemaha County Herald.    He was still at St. Joseph's School because he went to Auburn High School for his last two years.  

40 Years Ago  (meaning Jan 1931)

Gene Ely, Lanning Andrews, Cyril Thorburg, James Wheeler and Miss Lotta Oliver started for Beatrice Tuesday night to see the basketball game.  They went in the Ely Chrysler sedan with Gene Ely driving.  When at the Rohrs railroad crossing, the brakes failed to work and the car plunged through a fence and turned over twice.  But Gene, with his usual good judgment, picked a soft place to land, which in this case was a big pile of pumpkins made nice and soft by alternate thawing and freezing.

   
In addition to being cool, he also did very cool things.  Here is one example:

 On Easter week-end 1967, I went home from KU having just completed a major hurdle in the Ph.D. program.  I was driving an old Falcon station wagon that Grandpa has "forgotten" to trade in when he bought a new pick-up about the time I graduated from Marquette in 1965.  Usually when I went home he took my car to Deb Falk for repairs and to the Schneiders for a tire check, and usually he paid for it too.  But this time, he came home with a light blue Mustang!  Of course, I cried.  I just couldn't believe that this was for me!  Grandpa had been talking to his friend Floyd Pohlman who happened to have a "used" Mustang that he daughter didn't like after a mere 400 miles.  He worked out a deal so that the payments were well within the graduate stipend I had at the time.   So when he got home with the car, he muttered something about the Falcon being unreliable with a huge smile.  Now I ask you.... how cool is that???

I'm planning to share more with you in the next few weeks, as I'm on a roll for scanning and writing stuff now.   So for starters on the new EFB, what examples do YOU have of this birthday boy being cool?