Reno icon now victim of floods

RENO -- Ed Carlson, who became a Reno institution for waving at passing motorists for more than 20 years, is a victim of flooding in his native Iowa.

Carlson, 71, who was better known by the nickname "The Waver," said the flood inundated his Cedar Rapids, Iowa, home earlier this week. The flood came about a week after he learned his wife has terminal lung cancer, he added.

"All the houses (in the neighborhood), they're just all gone," Carlson told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Carlson became known for waving while smiling on daily walks between Carson City and Reno after moving to Nevada around 1973.

But after triple-bypass surgery in 1998, he only walked around Reno and spent winters walking and waving in Sedona, Ariz.

Within the past two years, he moved back to Iowa and remarried his former wife, Bonnie. He first married her out of high school in 1955, and they had four daughters before they split nearly 20 years later, he said.

While his wife faces an uphill struggle, "I'm hoping for a miracle. I've seen miracles," Carlson said.

Now, they find themselves broke and without any possessions, while his wife needs constant care for cancer.

"It's sure been a big test," he said. "Over the years my life wasn't to make money, but now we need money."