Breaking Bow

The interstate drive from Omaha to Denver, which goes through the southern part of Nebraska, takes about eight hours.  Not that I would know that first hand, however, because I took the scenic route.

North of I-80 is a geological phenomenon known as the Sandhills.  Yes, kids, these are hills made of sand and dirt and grass.  If you've ever heard of pioneers living in soddies, this is where it happened.  You can graze the land, and if you're the kind of person who cannot acquiesce in the face of continued failure and who doesn't need a lot to eat, you can try to farm it.  And if you're driving west from Omaha with no particular agenda, you can take Highway 2 northwest out of Grand Island through the Sandhills which adds considerable interest and, as it turns out, about four hours, to the trip.

[This has nothing to do with the Sandhills but I do not remember Omaha ever having the fog that it has had this past week.  Monday morning was "Maumee River/Old Highway 24 to Toledo/Highway of Death" fog, and it lasted for probably 15 miles, not clearing until I hit the Platte River.  Very weird.]

Anywho, Highway 2 follows a rail line pretty much the entire way to Alliance - originally the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, now the BNSF.  You drive by places like Hazard (population 66) and Litchfield (population 257), and they look like this:

Just about every little town in western Nebraska has a Post Office, compliments of Virginia Smith, the longtime Congresswoman from Nebraska's 3rd District, who was notable primarily for getting a Post Office into just about every little town in western Nebraska.  Because of the responsibility I feel toward you, my dedicated reader, I did spot checks in several towns and yes, they nearly all had a Post Office although by 4:30 p.m. on a Monday some of them didn't look open.  (See also:  "Business Model Problems of the U.S. Postal Service.")

When I lived in Nebraska, back in the Dark Ages, we referred to everyplace west of Lincoln and north of Omaha as "outstate."  I never thought of this as pejorative - it was like "southpaw" or something that is a nickname but you don't mean anything bad by it.  However, two years ago when I was back visiting and used the phrase, I was quickly admonished by my family that this was not the type of language that civilized people used anymore in polite conversation, since it apparently implies (at least to the people outstate) that some Nebraskans are more "in" than others.  The preferred term is now "Greater Nebraska."  Honestly.  Look, I'm all in favor of calling people what they want to be called, so I will humor the folks from Greater Nebraska if that's the name they want.  But it's still outstate to me.

Before I forget, here's what the Sandhills look like:

Sometimes they're bumpier.  This picture really doesn't do them justice.

A woman I know in Fort Wayne lived in Broken Bow whose population of 2,500 makes it the biggest town along Highway 2, and therefore something of a destination.  She told me to have lunch at the Arrow Hotel, and I'm glad she did.  The hotel was built in 1928 "with local capital," according to their brochure, and people seem very proud of that fact (which they should be - along with the fact that it is a very nice place that is still in business and has a terrific hamburger).  If you are ever in Broken Bow, you should definitely stop in.  Then, to prove what a ridiculously small world it is, she told me to go to the Eberle Boot and Saddle shop down the street and tell Bud Eberle "hello" so I did. 

Broken Bow is the county seat of Custer County (their courthouse is celebrating its centennial this year) and home to their county museum.  There are some interesting stories here, along with volunteers who want to do nothing more than tell you about them.  For instance, the oldest white community in the county is Westock.  Problem was when the railroad came through it was run a mile away (as the crow flies, three miles by road) and on the other side of the river from Westock, so the town fathers and mothers literally picked the town up and moved it to what is now called Comstock.  They did this while the river was frozen and moved buildings by rolling them on logs.  (Where they got the logs for this little undertaking is a good question but one I forgot to ask until after I had left Broken Bow.)  Another interesting thing about the museum is that they have a great collection of photographs by Solomon Butcher, an early photographer who documented 19th century sod houses; the museum worked with the Smithsonian on a study of the types of fencing used by settlers in Greater Nebraska.

West of Broken Bow is the Nebraska National Forest.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It is either the largest or only hand-planted national forest, depending on one's source of information.  It's not very big, but it's nice that Nebraska has its own national forest.

One thing you can say about the Sandhills:  there are a lot of them, and it takes a while to drive past them all.  My plan had been to see Carhenge, in Alliance.  (I will not tell you what Carhenge is so that you have to click on the link to see the picture.)  Around 4 p.m., when the sun was starting to wane and I was still two hours from Alliance (did I mention there are a lot of sandhills?), I realized that I was not going to make Alliance before sunset.  Still, I pressed on - partly because once I begin executing a plan very little can stop it, partly because by the time I came to that realization it looked like the best road south was out of Alliance, and partly because I really did want to see Carhenge since I was in the general vicinity.  It took me a couple of drives by the place to actually find it (thank goodness for my trusty Android and Google Maps) but I did, and luckily the parking lot was near the road and the monument was near the parking lot so I could see it in my headlights.  However, you will understand why I didn't get a picture!

It was a little discouraging to learn that I was still four hours from Denver, having already spent ten hours travelling (probably eight of that was driving).  Surprisingly, the last four hours went pretty fast, however, and I made it to my friend, Tom's, in the foothills of the Rockies safe and sound, thanks to the magic of mobile technology.

Leaving Omaha, Part I

Time moves at the strangest pace.  It seems both like only yesterday and a long, long time ago that I arrived in Omaha.  In objective terms, I have been here 20 days.  On Monday ("today" by the time I publish this little missive), the 21st day, I am driving to Denver via the Nebraska Sandhills. 

That is not the most direct route, but it's not very far out of the way, and I appreciate my brother suggesting it.  As he said, "when are you going to be driving that way again?" And I remembered my thought from the Mississippi River which probably should be the theme (or at least the subtitle) for this journey:  why wouldn't I do it?  And so I am.

While in Omaha, I have reconnected with a bunch of friends (one of whom I haven't seen since the Clinton Administration), attended a bridal shower for the first person in the next generation of cousins to be married off, enjoyed Thanksgiving with most of my nuclear family and their families [To be clear: one of my sisters and her family couldn't make it to Omaha for Thanksgiving. Thus my use of the word "most." It wasn't like I enjoyed only part of the family who was present. Just wanted to avoid any misunderstandings], and spent a lot of time with my brother and his family and my parents.  I'll be back in Omaha later in the month for Christmas (hence "Part I" of the title).

I had hoped to have a blog post entitled "Adventures in Babysitting" based on two consecutive nights of watching the kids.  They are 12, 10 and 6.  But the nights were entirely without incident and most pleasant, so there wasn't much to report.  It's fun to watch James Bond movies with 12-year-old boys (my nephew had a buddy over one night) because they are completely grossed out by the romance parts.  That really was the only item of note at all.  And that's a good thing - I leave the true babysitting adventures for my birth sister, Elisabeth Shue.

While here I also picked up a great phrase.  Sunday we went to Hot Shops, which is a very cool art facility downtown.  One of the artists (a painter named John Boro - credit where credit is due), who looked to be in his 40's or 50's, said that he had only been painting for a few years since he had "caught a second wind in my life."  I like that phrase a lot.

I do want to publish a couple of pictures.  The first is in my niece's room.  She's six, and has the best collection of tutus I've ever seen.  Plus a baseball cap.  This gives you a good, if incomplete, sense of my niece.

The second is a sign for a bar near the neighborhood I grew up.  This is a place I can never enter.

The Interlude Lounge has been on Pacific Street since at least 1969 (when we moved to Omaha).  It is how I learned the word ("interlude," not "lounge.")  It also gave me a permanent connotation for that word (either "interlude" or "lounge") as something both tawdry and fascinating.  I imagined red velvet booths, candles in red glass holders, and patrons with a sort of faded glamour (along the lines of Norma Desmond or Baby Jane - "Mad Men" meets Nighthawks).  The bar is about half a mile from my brother's house - in fact, I took this picture as I was walking by it to meet my mom for lunch at a liquor store (true - and not at all weird or pathetic although I will admit it sounds that way.)  A couple of years ago I thought about having a drink at the Interlude, but realized that it is highly unlikely the place would live up to my childhood expectations.  For instance, any women there would be unlikely to have big sixties hair and slightly soiled white gloves.  No one would be smoking (since Omaha has a ban).  They might not even have candles on the tables.  In fact, it is probably like any bar I've ever been in - which would bitterly disappoint.  So I will never go inside the Interlude Lounge in order to protect my one remaining childhood fantasy.

Okay, it's probably not my only remaining childhood fantasy, since I still believe in things like justice and the good guy winning.  But it's the only one still clothed in red velvet, and that's the way it is going to stay.

And now for something completely different

If you haven't ever read "Bats Left/Throws Right" (check out my blog list), you should.  Doghouse Riley, whoever he is, writes some of the funniest, most insightful political commentary around.  Sort of like a Hoosier version of my literary hero, Hunter S. Thompson, only without the psychedelic drugs.

So today as I read Stuart Stevens op-ed piece in the Washington Post I felt myself starting to channel Mr. Doghouse.  And in a fit of sheer chutzpah I thought, "Hey, let me give this a try."

The article begins with the following biography:

Stuart Stevens was the chief strategist for the Romney presidential campaign.

Once I was at a large luncheon where a guy at my table bragged about how his company had done the sound system for the program.  As we were unable to hear speaker after speaker, he stopped bragging and slunk away.  Somehow that story came to mind here.  Who knows why.

I appreciate that Mitt Romney was never a favorite of D.C.’s green-room crowd or, frankly, of many politicians. That’s why, a year ago, so few of those people thought that he would win the Republican nomination.

Or maybe he won the nomination because he was the last man standing after all the candidates that grassroots Republicans actually liked shot each other.  Look, Stu, I'm a Democrat and I remember 2004.  I'm not criticizing here - we've all been there, but self-awareness is the first step toward self-improvement.

Stu goes on to point out how Romney raised more money for the Republican Party than the party itself did.  To which I would reply:

1.  Whatever.
2.  That's his job, dude - he's the party's Presidential candidate.
3.  It helps to do this if you've spent your career working with people who have more money than God.
4.  Congratulations.  He raised a lot of money.  And honestly, I'm sure that took a lot of hard work.  Raising money in politics is the least fun part of the job.

At this point I am reminded of pearls of wisdom that I have heard over the years (to be fair and balanced - both of these came from Old White Guys - credit where credit is due).  First, being rich means having more money than you spend - and there are two sides to that equation.  Second, just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you should waste it.

Hanging out as I am in Omaha, which functions as western Iowa's media market, I saw an interesting piece in the Omaha World-Herald about how much Obama was outspent by Romney.  If my math is correct, which it may not be because I'm doing this in my head and I'm just a girl, it was something like 20 to 1.  This is in an area where Romney was going to win - western Iowa is pretty Republican and for heaven's sake there is nowhere on earth more Republican than Nebraska.  The Democrats in Iowa live in areas where they don't get their TV from Omaha.  I'll grant you that Omaha is a bit more mixed than Nebraska overall (its single Electoral College vote went for Obama in 2008, creating my favorite made-up political word EVER, Obamaha).  Still, spending over $3 million on advertising in this media market is, IMHO, the act of someone with more money than brains.

Stuart continues:

...more than any figure in recent history, [Romney] drew attention to the moral case for free enterprise and conservative economics.

I'm having trouble understanding this, Stu, or getting it to fit with my observations of the events of the past twelve months, even though I really do want to give you the argument.  Didn't people like Paul Ryan (yeah, you picked him for Veep so that should count for something - I get that), Ron Paul - even Herman Cain seem to focus more on conservative economics?  And since Romney's "moral case for free enterprise" got awfully tangled up with his work at Bain Capital (see also:  "live by the sword, die by the sword") I'd say that the jury's still out on this.  Perhaps because they've already made their decision but are waiting to get their free government-provided lunch (47% of the jury being made up of "takers" after all), but let's agree that this may not be the best thing you can say about the Romney campaign.

And given the wastefulness of the Romney campaign, I'm not sure that I'd go too far out on the "moral case for conservative" limb here.  But that's just me.

As a Libra and the daughter of the Nicest Person on Earth, I have an often pathological compulsion to say something positive No Matter What.  So let me interject here that the Romney campaign seems to have avoided the kind of hideous back-biting that has plagued several Presidential campaigns (Clinton 08 and McCain 08 are the two that come quickest to mind).  Good work, Mitt and Stuart. 

Okay, the Pollyanna moment is over.  Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

...Romney brought the fight [about Medicare/Social Security] to the Democrats and made the rational, persuasive case for entitlement reform that conservatives have so desperately needed. The nation listened, thought about it — and on Election Day, Romney carried seniors by a wide margin. It’s safe to say that the entitlement discussion will never be the same.

Really?  Your "rational, persuasive case" included misstating your opponent's position on the issue, ignoring your running mate's position, and making sure that you told seniors that your changes weren't actually going to impact them.  Look, lying to the American people is a long and well established political tradition, so I'm not going to act like no one else has ever done that.  However, please don't insult our intelligence by then claiming that your case was "rational."  Except if by that you meant that it was rational for Romney to lie since it would help get him votes.

...Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income.

Something like 50% of Americans have annual household income below $50,000.  We know that your candidate knows that it's at least 47%, right?  Maybe if you and your buddies, Stu, were spending less time taking your huge paychecks to the bank and more time talking with some of your rank-and-file voters, you'd have a better sense of this.

The Obama organization ran a great campaign.

Stu, that's darned white of you to say.  And there were a lot of things that got in your way which certainly I would not blame you or your candidate for - not the least of which is a party platform that makes people like Alan Simpson appear moderate and the unfortunate tendency of your primary voters to select Senatorial candidates who were, um, outside of the mainstream.  No question that this rubbed off on your candidate - as well it should, but I know that you had to have gotten queasy last May when Dick Mourdock beat Richard Lugar, for example, or whenever that Akin guy in Missouri opened his mouth.  You definitely were dealt some lousy cards.

Still, Jennifer Rubin summed it up well: 

But Stevens fails in precisely the way in which the campaign failed: a refusal to acknowledge real and material incompetence by himself and others on the campaign. The piece stubbornly refuses to express regrets or apologies for a campaign that, as evidence has come forth, makes “The Perils of Pauline” look like the Rockettes.

And those who cannot learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.  Unfortunately, they take the rest of us along for the ride.

Nebraska Football

Fooled you! This isn't about the Cornhuskers, but about the REAL football game in Nebraska over the holiday weekend: the Goldner pick-up game.

(If you haven't already consulted The Rules for Thanksgiving football games, I'd advise you to do so. And thanks is due to Ken for sending them along.)

Sadly, our perennial rivals, the Kully Clan, were not in Omaha this Thanksgiving so we had to make do with just ourselves. Fortunately, my siblings have been fruitful and multiplied so we can populate two respectable teams for touch football without the need for second cousins - although they always added a lot of competitive spirit to the game.

We trekked over to Westside High School (Home of the Warriors and alma mater of Nick Nolte, if distant memory and institutional folklore may be relied upon - which according to Wikipedia, in this instance it may). (Interesting aside: Wikipedia also reports that Virginia Lamp Thomas, hyper-conservative wife of hyper-conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, is a Westside alumna. And I had forgotten that Kurt Anderson, co-founder of Spy Magazine [kids, this was published back in the 90's, when we still had to buy our humor in hard copy - yeah, times were tough], was also an alum. But enough from memory lane.)

The official football field was occupied by two games, already in progress, so Uncle Dave (who maintained that he had not had any donuts - and if you haven't read The Rules referenced above, you're not going to get why that's a joke) scooted us over to the field field. No, not a typo - given the shot-put facilities, this is where the school holds field events (as in track and field). Either that or they've started a torture yard at Westside and while I agree with the proposition that today's teenagers can't get away with the stuff their elders used to get away with, I think we'd have heard about outdoor torture. Or at least the neighbors would have heard it, and surely SOMEONE would have called Nancy Grace by now.

So we picked teams and commenced to play.
I was the first injury.

A legitimate football injury, a jammed finger. I felt somewhat like an NFL player, really - sort of like Santonio Holmes or most of the Cleveland Browns. In order to curse outside of the earshot of the children, I sat out a few plays but my team needed me, lacking as they were someone who takes the concept of incomplete passes to the next level. I can miss the ball, drop it, or have it go right through my arms - and that was uninjured. But while recovering on the sidelines, I snapped a picture of the game - something that I don't think Santonio does, if I might brag a little.

We had one other injury: Nate the Great Who is Eight hurt his ankle. He recovered nicely and after an injury time-out, was able to return to his positions of starting center and replacement quarterback - he had the Andrew Luck jersey, after all.

And a confession:  we broke one of The Rules (still haven't read them?  For crying out loud, son, just click on the link!) by switching sports to kickball once we had reached the required level of crying.  And Uncle Matt was on both winning teams, which fact he generously shared with everyone the rest of the day.

It was so much fun that we might just try it again tomorrow.

Nah, the Huskers play at 11.
 

Giving Thanks

It has become something of a tradition - to the extent that one can classify Facebook behavior as "traditional" - for many of my friends to post each day in November about something they are grateful for. Last year you could even use the alphabet as your guide, although with Thanksgiving on November 22, that would have been tougher this year. (I guess you could take out a few letters, such as X - x-rays, x-rated movies and xylophones being stipulated as Good Things without the need for their own special day.)

In my own rather jumbled up theology (Unitarian Universalism meets Al-Anon), gratitude is the most important spiritual practice. (I believe that prayers should always be either those of gratitude or asking for understanding and strength to handle difficult situations. To me, anything more specific is treating God like Santa Claus. But I digress.)

This year I wasn't mentally and emotionally organized enough to participate in the daily Facebook exercise, although I think it is a wonderful activity. But on this day of Thanksgiving, I do have many, many things (and people) to be thankful for - and recognize even more of them now then I did a few weeks ago.

First off, there are the people and things that are easily taken for granted, and shouldn't be: health, enough to eat (and drink), a warm and hospitable place to live, fabulous friends and a wonderful, wonderful family: great parents, siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins and amazing nieces and nephews and great-nieces and great-nephews. These are the things that (thankfully!) don't change from year to year.

For me this year, however, there are a couple of these that need to be - as they say - drilled down. I am thankful for a brother and sister-in-law with a nice home and welcoming spirit, who are letting me stay with them for a couple of months. I am thankful for the health and resources to be able to go on this little adventure. And I am thankful for friends and family who are so incredibly supportive.

In the last few days, I have become thankful for something else. I'd been thinking of this trip as necessary to figure out who I am, having felt that I had lost my identity. Thanks to some really wonderful friends, I've realized that I do know who I am. Perhaps a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I had to leave home to find that out. (Fortunately, I've avoided the flying monkeys so far.) So I am thankful for that, and for my friends (you know who you are) who have patiently guided me to that realization.

This journey is an adventure, a break from the mundane, and figuring out what I want to DO - but it's reassuring beyond words to realize that the trip is not about learning who I am.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. May your day be filled with whatever combination of family, friends, food and football you wish, and may your team win. If you are working, thank you for allowing the rest of society to function while some of us sloth around. I hope we can return the favor some day.

Home is where the heart is

Last night I washed my face for the first time in several days.

That isn’t as unhygienic as it sounds – I have been taking showers and all – but last night was the first time in most of a week that I did my previously normal “take off the eye make-up, put on the face cream” ritual. It is the sort of thing that I almost always did at home, and almost never did when travelling. Certainly delaying face cream for a week while on vacay will have no long-lasting effects on one’s beauty. But for those of us of, uh-hum, a certain age, we might not want to end washing and face cream altogether. And last night was the night I made myself return to the “at home” ritual even though I am not at home since I don’t have a home.

There are a lot of things that one does at home but not when away. It’s weird how conscious I’ve become of these things, focusing on the most unimportant. For instance, my bathroom cup and toothbrush caddy ended up in my car rather than in Jessica’s basement. These are not family heirlooms – I’ve owned neither for more than six months – but I needed them with me. Such items are what you use in a home, and I guess no matter how much my lifestyle rejects the concept of home, there is something in my psyche that craves creating one.

It is not normal to be homeless.

Before anyone thinks I am complaining, I am not using the word “homeless” in the traditional sense of the word where a person lives on the street with no resources and with generally no protection from the hostile elements. People in such situations deserve sympathy and help. I don’t. My voluntary homelessness is, as they say, a First World Problem and I would add that it really isn’t a problem at all. But it’s not a normal condition and as a result there are some odd questions that it begs.

To start with, the world wants you to have an address. You must have a place to forward your mail. And I must have an address for my bank and my insurance, even though I really don’t live there. The mail problem is much less of an issue than it would have been a decade ago, thanks to that marvelous invention, online bill-pay. I’m not sure whether Al Gore saw that one coming when he invented the Internet but my hats off to him and anyone else involved with its development.

It’s a little disconcerting to have only one key on one’s keychain.

Then there is the matter of separating your stuff into what you keep with you (in your Saturn Vue, which is a vehicle pretty well designed for this purpose) and what you put in your friend Jessica’s basement. I have trouble imagining a 49-year-old middle-class American woman with less stuff than I have, and it’s still a lot. Over the past three days I have already started to discover a few miscalculations. But hey, it’s the first time I’ve ever done this so I’m going to give myself a break. That is a new concept I am grappling with: giving myself a break. I'll let you know how that works out.

And in the meantime, it’s the best kind of fall day in Omaha: mid-50’s and beautiful sunshine. Life is good, even away from home.

Baseline

This morning was D-Day. After a beautiful weekend which was spent saying goodbye to friends, separating stuff into Take, Keep, Give Away, and Throw Away, packing and moving the Keep stuff to Jessica's, and having too much to eat at Casa's, this morning I loaded up the Vue in between raindrops and snowdrops (they weren't really flakes) and got ready to hit the road.

 

But the journey of a thousand miles begins at the Firefly, so Mitch and I first had some sustenance. I had the last Sugar-Free Vanilla Chai, Skinny, which I am likely to have for a while. Mitch and I talked about everything but my impending departure (see also, "Denial"). The precipitation subsided. A quick hug because otherwise we'd both have become blubbering fools, and I was off.

Donna, with whom I was on the Omaha Westside Debate Team before Al Gore invented the Internet (kids, we had index cards and used pens to hand write facts on them that we had found in books...crazy!) posted this on Facebook for me. It sums up the experience completely.

 

The drive away from Fort Wayne was in a way very normal - I've driven Highway 30 dozens of times, maybe more - and in a way very weird. I will admit that I shrieked a little between Sweetwater and Columbia City, and a little bit more west of Warsaw (Orthopedic Capital of the World). I don't know that I really am fully processing what's happening. I'll keep you posted about how that works out.

First stop, Chicago, to see Beth. We got caught up, had an early dinner, and I fell asleep during Monday Night Football. In my own defense, so did the Chiefs, and I woke up in time to watch the Steelers win. Still, it was not exactly a late evening because perhaps this is all starting to catch up with me.

More later, of course, but I felt obligated to issue a report on Day One.  Yes, I said obligated - this is a Character Flaw the cure of which is one of the things I hope to accomplish on this little journey.  I'll keep you posted about how that works out, too.