By GORDON D. FIEDLER JR.

Salina Journal

Were civilization to collapse tomorrow, one could not do better than having Flo Nelson as a neighbor.

The octogenarian Salina resident is among those individuals who don't take no for an answer, who wouldn't think of letting a few impediments block their way, who roll up their sleeves and get to work solving problems.

"If there was anything I wanted to do, I learned it, figured it out how to do it myself," Nelson said.

Her DIY attitude is mostly finance driven. The cost of permanents and other beauty-parlor services, for instance, was enough to curl her hair -- well, almost -- so she decided to take up comb and clippers herself.

"I cut my own hair, I give myself permanents. I cut my kids hair until they got a little older," she said.

She also works on other people's coifs and has a few loyal clients let Nelson do their 'do.

The New Frugality movement is nothing new to Nelson. She's been practicing the frugal arts for years.

"I made my own kids' clothes, until the proportions got bigger."

She and her husband for years owned and operated the Texaco Station that was on the Broadway/Crawford intersection where Walgreens is now located but sold the business in the late 1960s and moved to California, where they operated another service station.

Among there regular customers was the U.S. Postal Service.

One day, a postal vehicle in need of some welding rolled in.

Nelson's first impulse was to send the part to a place that specialized in welding.

"Good grief, the price was out of sight," Nelson remembered. "I said, 'I'm gong to learn how to weld.' "

And she did, becoming proficient enough to perform other jobs.

They sold the business in 1983, retired, and hit the open road, spending the next 13 years touring the country in a fifth-wheel camping trailer.

Driving long distances tired her husband, so Nelson took the wheel most of the time.

"I did all of the parking," she added.

They holed up for three years at a campground south of Flagstaff, Ariz., where Nelson worked in the office and her husband handled some of the maintenance chores.

"We really liked it," Nelson said.

When the park was sold, they bought some land, moved in a mobile home and stayed another six years.

Her husband's knees began giving him fits, and during the two surgeries, he suffered strokes. The first was light.

"The second one was not so light," she said.

The knee operations were followed by heart surgery, after which they decided to move back to Salina to be near family.

His health continued to deteriorate, and he died in 2004.

"When he was in the nursing home, the doctor told me I needed to do all the things I had given up in order to take care of him," Nelson said.

One of those pursuits was painting, a talent that rubbed off from an aunt, who was an accomplished artist.

"If she could do it, so could I," was Nelson's belief.

"When I was in high school, I asked my dad for colored chalk," she said.

Besides art, Nelson was also musical. She took piano lessons as a youngster and in high school in Ada, she played trumpet in the famed Black and Gold Band led by the venerable Bennington band director Bobby Dale, who formed a band from the high schools of Ada, Beverly, Tescott, Bennington and Culver.

"He was good," Nelson said of Dale. "He could play anything."

She no longer plays the trumpet but has an organ in her living room and sings in the choir of University Methodist Church.

Besides painting, she "dog-sits" for friends and neighbors, either at her south Salina home or at the home of the pet owners. She makes jewelry, knits, crochets, "and I read a lot."

Painting is her main distraction. She teaches painting at Hobby Lobby and has seven students.

"I don't want too many," she said of her student load. "I can't spend time with them they should have."

She said she enjoys painting, but not for its calming effects.

"It's not relaxing," she said. "I'm very intense. I can get up and fix a cup of coffee and the next thing I know, hours have gone by and the coffee's cold."

nGordon D. Fiedler Jr. can be reached at 822-1407 or by e-mail at gfiedler@salina.com.

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