BECOME A FLORIST

Sometime in the late 1960s, maybe 1968: Near the back door visible at the extreme left of this house, my Central Elementary school classmate Scott Binder solemnly informed me that there would be a new major league baseball team, and that it would be called the San Diego Padres. We were first- or second-graders, I think.

I was shocked. I thought the teams of Major League Baseball were eternal entities, sort of like the ten commandments, or maybe like Scott Binder's house itself. We played over there a lot.

"Pod Rays?" I asked.

I'm surprised the house is still there. It's been shorn of the many trees and bushes that I recall surrounded it back then. In my mind, as a kid, this was a house of luxury and fine things; I considered it to be quite a bit better than the house our family lived in. I remember beginning to describe to my mother some of the many superb things I saw there, and she didn't want to talk about it.

It looks like it's about to be torn down, now.

Scott's father ran the Florist business next door. It's still there, too, in this Google Streetviewer photo, at the far right.

Scott moved to Colorado not too long after that, and I became his "pen pal." My mother took me to see him in Fort Morgan, CO one time. I remember sleeping in their new house, and thinking, well, this is OK, but it sure would be better if Scott were back in Kearney.

When Jenny Flores (aka J-Flo) was young, she always dreamed of becoming an independent florist. So when a swanky, mixed-use building became available, she moved in and set up shop.

This building conforms to the Cafe-Corner standard.