Nebraska

A completely unpredictable set of letters.  I do not think anyone would come up with “Nebraska” nowadays.  I remember being taught in school that it meant “flat water” or “land of flat waters.”  But I can not remember which Native American language it came from.  I will guess it is Sioux.

 

No matter how I try to remember my home, it always appears first as the color of dry hay.  The color of corn stalks in Fall.  The color of wheat ready to harvest.  The color of earth baking in the sun and sand hills for as far as the eye can see—and the eye can see pretty far in Nebraska.  The horizons are distant.  I know they call Montana “big sky country”, but they are wrong.  There is nothing but sky in Nebraska.  I never knew that until I saw a painting by Carol Burkholder of a flat land farm.  The horizon was perhaps 6 inches off the bottom of the frame and the rest of the space was 36 inches of sky.  It was really the first time I saw home in a painting.

 

There is not a day in my memory where I can not see the fields.  Even living in the capital city of Lincoln my whole life, I seemed to never be more than a few blocks from a plowed field.  They are perpetually frozen in my mind as harvested stalks in endless rows.  I walked across those fields on my way to Pioneers Park, on my way in to town, or simply to the next neighbourhood to find friends.  I drove by them day and night on my way anywhere for there was no direction to go and not experience them for miles and miles and miles.  In my memory, I see them in moonlight with fresh sparkling snow.  I see them on days so hot the air shimmered.  I hear the roaring rustle of leaves in Fall.  I smell the wet thawing dirt in Spring.  All through my youth I struggled to tell people I was a city kid.  I did not grow up on a farm.  But looking back now… I did grow up on a farm, just not one that I owned.

 

Back home is where my folks live, still just outside Lincoln.  I have aunts, uncles, cousins, a niece, a sister and friends all in Nebraska.  They live in towns like Crete, Unadilla, Denton, Beatrice, Fairbury, Seward, Waverly, Grand Island and Hickman.  All of them are small towns and each of them stands out in my mind as another bay colored place with hot wind and bright sun.   

 

Driving out to see family is as much a part of life as thunderstorms in the Spring.  I suppose it should be no surprise that in a land devoted to growing food that gathering to share dinner is often what I remember most.  Between the towns are the countless fields.  Each bordered by a row of wind break trees to protect the exposed top soil.  Creeks run through rarely in winding snarls of wild bush in otherwise parallel rows.  Dirt roads cross in 1 mile blocks from East to West for 400 miles.  Not a perfect grid, as any unfamiliar wanderer will discover.  There are plenty of places where “you can’t get there from here.”  Your car rumbles on the gravel and dust chases you mile after mile.  The crunching slows as you turn in to the drive and fades to a surprising silence when you stop.  When you finally arrive, you will have a dusting of Nebraska over everything you own.  But it doesn’t matter because you are home and family is already out the front door to hug you.  Kids run around from the back.  Somewhere a train whistle blows distantly drifting to you on a warm breeze.  Sunday dinner smells good as you walk up.  Uncle Bobby and Uncle Marty wrestle stiffly on the porch even though both of them are in their 50's.  Time to go inside.  Everyone has been waiting for you!  Go in.  Sit down at the table.  Here comes the turkey and next is the ham.  No plate is big enough for it all.  But there is always time for seconds.