Right there, under the big white tent on the corner of 48th and Nebraska 2, like always, surrounded by stacks of melons and mounds of sweet corn and rows of tomatoes, ready for slicing.
She’s wearing her hair in a ponytail, aviator sunglasses, dirt mixed with the sweat on her neck.
Deb is my watermelon dealer. Has been for almost as long as I can remember.
It’s been more than 30 years, she says Wednesday morning, a few days after the start of the selling season.
She started out a mile to the north in the parking lot of Colby Ridge on Pioneers Boulevard.
She remembers driving a pickup load of sweet corn up to Lincoln. She had her youngest Kevin in the seat beside her.
She’s here with her helper, Darian Coffey. Darian used to babysit Kevin and his older brother and sister. She’s a teacher now and she loves working for Deb every summer.
“She's just fun,†she says. “She makes work fun.â€
Deb’s up before dawn. Flatbed loaded by 7:30 and then the 50-mile drive from the family farm near Yutan.
She figures they sell 100 pounds of tomatoes a day; 100 watermelons -- striped or Black Diamond? -- nearly 1,000 ears of corn.
For these first few weeks, the melons and corn come from someplace warmer, but soon the Heldt family fields will be ready for picking. Already, they are harvesting cucumbers and zucchini, bell peppers and sweet potatoes and onions from the 75-acre garden on their 2,000 acres.
The roadside business began with her father-in-law long ago, Deb says.
“He started during hard times on the farm, just to make a go of it.â€
Deb’s own dad was a plumber. Her mom was a homemaker. She grew up in Omaha and met Mike Heldt on a blind date. They married in 1979, when she was just 20.
“She had no idea how to drive a tractor, back a trailer in, drive a stick,†says her oldest daughter, Kelly Heldt-Abbott. “Now she does it all.â€
One of the hardest workers she knows, says the daughter who runs Kelly’s Produce across town on North 48th Street. (Her brothers Justin and Kevin both run produce stands in Omaha.)
And always with a smile on her face.
Deb makes lunches for the farm crew -- Mike and her sons and Kelly's husband and the hired man -- and not just sandwiches, Kelly says. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, corn.
She fills the slow cookers and leaves a note -- pasta salad in the fridge! -- and usually does the dishes when she gets home from Lincoln after a long day.
Oh, and she can’t spend a day without seeing her eight grandkids -- the oldest Kelly’s 11-year-old twins.
The best grandma, Kelly says.
“She just wakes up ready to take on the day.â€
On Wednesday, the day is cloudy with a cool breeze.
Deb and Darian shuck corn and refill the stand when business slows -- which isn’t often.
Deb knows most of her regulars, not by name but by their faces. Who always buys a dozen ears of corn; who wants the biggest watermelons, maybe two of them. (Guilty)