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You might know Kirk Nelson if you’re an athlete, if you have kids, if you coach, if you ski, if you play softball, or baseball, or backpack, or run a sports league, or if you have done any of those things sometime during the last half a century in Casper.
If at any point you opened the door, ringing the virtual bell at Bush-Wells Sporting Goods on Center and Fifth to ask about, say, embroidering your visor, you likely met Nelson, 76, before you took 10 steps.
The striped polo he wears tucked into his belted green khaki shorts is not special. He has more than half a dozen others just like it at home, the Bush-Wells logo on the left breast. Yet, it’s the one he chose for Wednesday, his last day before retirement, advancing toward the phone after three rings, concerned that the phone might go unanswered.
That morning, a co-worker asks him how it feels.
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“Just another day,” he says. Customer service doesn’t stop. Because that can’t happen in a world where the big boxes with their online stores have the competitive advantage of convenience.
That means figuring out why there’s one catcher’s helmet instead of two in the box waiting for the Lander team, logging the day’s incoming equipment, a task that can’t be observed – concentration is required. Inevitably, he’ll walk the store a few more times, gray baseball pants arranged by size and style, gloves facing forward, soccer balls and basketballs in a row. As he does every day.
As he has done every day.
Nelson has been building to this for a while. Fifty years seemed like a good number. After all, it has been a long road from Nebraska to the Army to Casper. And for much of that time, he’s worked in sporting goods.
Kirk Nelson, 76, has been an active community member in the Casper sports scene for several decades. After finishing his last day of work, he left to umpire local games.
He wrote his own retirement announcement. It’s 14 lines on white copy paper in thick bold font. “It’s been a great ride for which I thank everyone.” Many of his customers don’t know; their accounts are still there to be serviced.
There will be no party when he walks out the door at 3 p.m. Nelson’s umpire equipment is in his trunk, his uniform at home. The games start at 6. On Thursday, he’ll sleep in — 6:30 a.m., an extra 15 minutes. He’ll eat breakfast with his wife, Robin, before checking on the deliveries at the store. He wants to make sure everything will be in order.
“When I leave today,” he says, “it’s not like I’m turning off a light switch.”
Bush-Wells is a local sporting goods shop.
