We have a park here in Omaha Nebraska called freedom park.It was opened in the late 60's or early 70's by a group of private citizens. They bought an old surplus mine sweeper ( the USS Hazzard) brought it up the river and docked it. They would charge a couple of dollars and let you have the run of the ship. At first the guns all elevated and traversed. Next they bought a WWII training sub, and would let you go through it. Then they got ahold of 3 old navy jets and a Coast Gaurd helichopter. Lastly they found a LSM landing craft. They also have several inert bombs rockets, and mines on display along with several old Army vehicles. It was never the nicest display, nowhere near as nice as Pattriots point, but it was a good place to take young kids and teach them.
Well today I took my cousin Beckey's 2 youngest boys ( ages 7 and 9) there to see it. they were all worked up about going and of course I had built it up to them. When we got there around noon there was only an older couple with thier son and grandson there flying a kite. all of the displays had been locked up and signs posted that the ships were for display only and noone was allowed on them, because they were goverment property. I found out that the city had bought out the owners and took over the park. The LSM was gone along with a couple of the planes, The Submarine and the Mine Sweeper were in severe distress from rust and need of a paint job, in general the whole place looked neglected and run down. YEt the city just built a pedistrean walking bridge across the Missiouri river at a price tag of some 10 million dollars and has approved a new baseball stadium to be built for creighton universty and the local farm team that wants to move, after spending 15 million renovating Rosenblatt stadium less than 10 years ago. But they can not afford a few buckets of paint, cut the grass, or fix the holes in the chain link fence at the place in our city that is suppose to honor the area veterans. I was heart broken when I saw the condition of the park.
Mickey
