Feast your eyes. This is the view of the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, taken from the balcony during the service today. There were two beautiful things. First, the quilts. These are the quilts completed by the ladies of the church in the last year, ready to be given to the homeless, the needy, the refugee.
The other beautiful thing was the roll call of saints, members of the community who had died in the last year. Among those names was a familiar one: Ardith Woolson, probably my mother's best friend in North Platte. She and her husband Walt were frequent guests in our home; I have photos of them sharing Christmas dinner with us. We saw them when we came through NP back in 1993. I missed seeing her by just a few months; she died in August. But I was able to show her photo to her friends and share my memories of her, and Walt, and their son Alfred. This was my fourth visit to First Lutheran, and my second service. I have been thinking quite a bit about whether this would still be my church home if we had not moved. I left the Lutheran church fifty years ago, unable to reconcile my own beliefs with church doctrine. I have been a Unitarian Universalist for 34 years. I remember our minister, Paul Johnson, staying that he left the Lutheran seminary when he realized that everything he believed about Jesus was reduced to just a comma in the Apostles' Creed. That comma between "born of the Virgin Mary" and "suffered under Pontius Pilate", which is all the reference there is to his core teachings: love God, and love your neighbor. have probably been a universalist since I was ten or eleven. I gave up on the Trinity a bit later, along with the divinity of Jesus. But I have also been a member of the same UU congregation for that entire time, through good times and bad. Community matters to me, and this community still feels like home. There aren't any more theologically liberal options here; I suspect I would not be the only person in North Platte choosing community despite differences in belief. I just don't imagine I'd be teaching Sunday School! It's been a week, and I have been soldiering on, but this cold has finally won. I am feeling better in most ways, except for this: my hearing has gone wonky. Imagine you are hearing everything in stereo, but with a slight delay on one speaker, and the two audio streams are tuned a half step apart. Annoying, right? Especially if you are in a coffee shop trying to write a pretty boring report and there's background music.
Fortunately, it turns out that Saturday morning is the gathering time for the Stalwart Democrats of Lincoln County at this very coffee shop. I crashed their party last week, then dropped in at their monthly meeting on Thursday, so there were some familiar faces by now. It's a trip to Oppositeland for me. After all, I live in a very blue county in a blue state when Dems bother to vote -- (cough) Larry Hogan (cough) -- and my GOP friends and acquaintances worry about their yard signs and whether they should "come out" at work. Here, registered Dems are less than 20% of the electorate. I share their social paranoia (sorry Sara, the "Pantsuits for President" button is still on the desk in my motel room) but am also trying to share whatever shreds of optimism I can muster. I am not pessimistic about the election; I believe that Hillary Clinton will win. But I have no illusions about our ability as a nation to put the incivility and venom of the last twenty-five years behind us. At the very least, it will be nice to have company on Election night. So I wrapped up my work for the day and headed back to the Husker Inn to take more medicine, drink lots more water, and catch a nap. No sunsets for me tonight, just more writing and an early bedtime. Also no music until my Eustachian tubes settle down. It was laundry day today. I originally planned to got to the movies and see Dr. Strange (in 3-D!) but the weather was just too fine, so I headed to the river instead. Later, I headed to one of the two places in town (so far) that carries microbrews and had dinner. A woman who had been at my talk stopped by and we had a nice chat about being liberal in North Platte. Much to digest. Here is that poem, in case you'd prefer to read it than listen to my cold-ravaged voice. How far has the river of time carried me?
How do I map the distance, the depth, the eddies of life? Here I am, an old woman (or nearly old) standing on the bank of the same river I knew as a child. As if I never left. Yet nothing is the same. This water, 60 years ago, was in a cloud, or a jelly glass, or an antelope’s eye. The swings in the park behind me are new. Safer, and smaller.Or maybe I am just bigger. I’ve met a few old friends and driven by many more, in the graveyard. What hasn’t changed? The sky. The smell of the river bank. The reddish brown squirrels.The yellow autumn. The flow of the river, always south and east. And somehow, in ways I cannot see or say, but only feel — me. No scenic pictures today; I was too busy. I made some last-minute changes to my presentation slides, then headed to the library fro my brown bag talk. It was very well attended -- twenty or so people, including a local reporter covering the event. It pays to be a big fish in a small pond. The after talk discussion was pretty amazing; I learned all kinds of things about high school dress codes in this part of country, including that girls were first permitted to wear pants to North Platte High School in 1971. That will save me lots of microfilm time. I crawled back to my motel -- this cold is still whipping my butt -- and took a short nap, then medicated myself up and headed to the harvest dinner at the Lutheran Church. Jackpot! The dinner was great, and I ended up sitting with a "connector". She's one of those people who could scan a room and pick out the two or three people who could identify the kids in my choir picture. One of those kids, Jimmy Nisley, was also there, and was able to name half a dozen of them. From the Lutheran dinner, I headed to Wild Bill's Wings and Bowling for the monthly meeting of the Lincoln County Democrats. What a stalwart group! They live surrounded by friends, family, and neighbors who abuse them and steal their Hillary/Kaine signs. (One elderly woman has lost seven in the last few weeks.) They spent a good part of the meeting hearing from a woman who was explaining the Affordable Care Act issues, providing solid information and talking points to counter the hair-on-fire "reporting" going on. They are determined to "go high when they go low", and they have to fight an ongoing battle for equal time in the local media. The chair agreed to attend a political forum at a local church and found himself alone in a very hostile crowd, but he delivered his message and hoped he opened a few minds, at least to the possibility of political differences without hate. Like I said, a stalwart group. I'll be spending election night with them at Wild Bill's.
What a day! I wrote for nearly three hours, fueled by twice as much coffee as usual, made another new acquaintance, and viewed another reel of old microfilm. But that wasn't the best part. The best part was sitting with Sharon, my classmate from second and third grade, and just talking and listening. She's still working part time at an elementary school, a job she loves. She actually left North Platte for a few years after community college, working in Denver before returning to get married. Her husband never wanted to leave, but she misses Denver. She's had her challenges; an aneurysm several years ago, a daughter with MS. But when we talked about school memories, her blue eyes sparkled, and we laughed together. She filled in some holes in my memory, and I tried to return the favor. Best set of all, she remembered me, and told a story I had forgotten. She said she always remembered when I came to school with new shoes and said, "Look how fast I can run in these Buster Brown shoes!" and proceeded to run around the playground at top speed, and then do it again. Apparently it was the talk of my McKinley Elementary classmates long after I moved away. I can't put into words what it is like to catch a glimpse of long ago yourself through someone else's memory. I returned to the motel, and paid for my next week, and the sweet manger, Linda, loaded me up with food, as she does every on their day. After enjoying her offering (I skipped lunch -- bad idea), I decided it was the right day to drive north toward the Sand Hills and catch the sunset. The actual Sand Hills are much farther away; maybe I'll get closer on a weekend. Picture rolling prairie dunes covering a quarter of this immense state. For now, be content with this, taken about 20 miles north on Route 83. Today I tried (and failed) to learn more about dress codes in North Platte in the 60s. It turns out that the schools keep copies of yearbooks, but not student handbooks. Le sigh. So I am hoping that Sharon remembers something about her experiences! Instead, I plunged into the local history materials at the library, beginning with the months leading up to our departure in 1957. Yay, microfilm. Bigger hooray for a fancy new microfilm reader that can same images to a flash drive. How else could I share with you this gem? Yes, kiddies, these are the radio and TV offerings available to me on a Tuesday night 59 years ago. You can bet I would be watching Phil Silvers and Spike Jones! Sure beats the election news, doesn't it? And remember: without Spike Jones, there's no Frank Zappa, no PDQ Bach, no Weird Al. Here's a bonus Spike Jones hit, from my birth year: I'll say this for North Platte; it's easy even for a deep-down introvert like me to make new acquaintances. All you have to do is stand there watching a steam engine back down a siding, or sit in a coffee shop, and the next thing you know you are talking to a friendly stranger. They have mastered the art of storytelling without slipping into dangerous territory -- most notably politics. My first experience was with a fellow who was also watching the early-morning departure of Engine 844 (yes, I made it, and it was fantastic!). In the half an hour so we stood together in the chilly dawn, I learned about how engine-building had changed in 35 years and what it was like for a boy from a Nevada dairy farm to decide to study mechanical engineering. I told him about my journey east as a child, and how university teaching has changed with technology. After the train chugged off to the west, I headed to the Espresso Shop for my ritual latte and email session. My new friend Alan the haberdasher stopped by to ask how my research was going, and to give me a lead on someone who could tell me about the women's clothing business in North Platte. Then a fellow came by and introduced himself as Mel; he is a regular customer and noticed that I was becoming one, so thought he should say hi. He told me a couple of jokes (clean) and recommended a movie (Always, with John Goodman) and told his story of traveling to 39 states before arriving in North Platte 11 years ago. Just the right size, he said, and a couple of hours away from his daughter, which is also just about right. He said I just make sure to come to open mic night on Friday the 11th, and I am thinking of doing some storytelling myself. This cold is still wearing me down, and I took another satisfying nap before heading to the grocery store for provisions. Then I tested my voice and decided I could manage a phone conversation, and called up Sharon Johnson Kleckner, my classmate. We are meeting this Wednesday in the library to look at photos and talk clothing and stuff. Even more exciting, she is friends with our second grade teacher, now retired and in declining health. She was a pretty young Miss Taylor in 1956, probably in her very first year of teaching, and she moved away and got married at the end of the year, breaking all of our young hearts. Sharon tells me that one boy was so crushed that he convinced his mother to drive him to Hastings for the wedding. But the former Miss Taylor, now in her 80s, is back in North Platte and I hope I can see her soon!
Today was the day my cold finally got the better of me. I managed to get out of my room twice, once for breakfast and church, and later, after a three-hour nap, for a literal blast from the past Today was Reformation Sunday at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church; it has been 499 years since Martin Luther posted his “Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences,” also known as “The 95 Theses,” on the door of the Wittenburg Castle church. This is celebrated in Lutheran Churches worldwide; this year it was celebrated in Lund Cathedral in Sweden with a special visit by Pope Francis, beginning a year of observation of the events 500 years ago that resulted in the Protestant Reformation. Instead of the usual 8:15 and 10:30 services, this Sunday featured a single service followed by a potluck -- I thought I would do both, but was so whipped by the end of the service, I just headed back to bed. But I did get a familiar dose of religion. The hymns were played fast. When we moved east and could only find Missouri Synod and Episcopalian churches that suited my parents, my mother's one complaint was that the music dragged. Here's a sample of the "praise band" playing "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" to give you a taste: The chatter you hear is because they reprised it at the end of the service while people were leaving the sanctuary and greeting the minister. They've adopted a version of the passing of the peace, but instead of the responsive "peace be with you" "and also with you", it was a lengthy round of "good mornings with people leaving their seats and walking all over the sanctuary. For the first time, this introvert was feeling overwhelmed! One part of the sermon really impressed me. The pastor noted that the theological differences between Lutherans and Roman Catholics have not been resolved, and never will be, but that there is growing desire for reconciliation from a contentious and sometimes violent past. The goal is not agreement, but mutual respect. I went back to room and crashed for a few hours, and was having a cup of tea when I heard this unmistakable sound: A steam engine was making its way back to Cheyenne and stopping in North Platte overnight. The news article about it has given the ETA as about 4:30, but it arrived early. So I didn't get to see it in motion, but I did join the swarm of North Platters that converged on Front Street to look and listen and take pictures. It was the biggest crowd I had seen anywhere this week! Tomorrow, if my voice is working, I will give Sharon a call, and start to plan my library talk for this Thursday.
Despite a lingering cold, today felt like a breakthrough day. I headed to the Espresso Shop for my morning coffee and work session (email and some work on an unrelated project). Within a few minutes, I caught snippets of a political conversation at a neighboring table -- "Bernie...pipeline...Hillary...Jill Stein..." -- that suggested that I had found some of the local liberals. Once voice in particular dominated the conversation, in an accent that was clearly Not From These Parts. When I hit a good stopping point, I introduced myself and joined the group for what turned into a long, interesting conversation. The alpha male was Bob from Brooklyn (he used to come to Nebraska in the summer to visit his grandparents, and now he lives here). My admission of being a church-going agnostic created quite a stir, and I was also clearly surrounded by Bernie supporters with varying levels of support for Hillary Clinton, from "no way" to "no problem". We made a date to meet at the Democratic Party gathering next Thursday night at the local wings and bowling place, and I have found my election night buddies. When the group broke up, I went back to my laptop, only to sit up and look around when I heard someone mention the Holocaust Memorial Museum. It turned out there was a group of teachers from a nearby town planning a trip to Washington, D.C. for a conference, so I introduced myself and offered to help. We had a great time talking about the Metro, the Zoo, the Smithsonian Museums and where to eat downtown. By the time they left , I had an invitation to visit a local farm this week, and maybe even ride a combine. On my way back to the motel, I lingered long enough to watch kids and parents in costume collecting candy from the local merchants as part of a downtown trick or trick event. The best news of the day is that I got a Facebook message from my classmate Sharon; I am going to give her a call as soon as this cold improves and I get my voice back!
Tomorrow: Church, and a visit with a steam engine!
Brown/Harano was the camera/photo shop where my dad took all of our film to be developed. Our only formal family portrait was taken there. So it is a pretty evocative name! And then I saw this in the window: This was my first reminder that North Platte is a very red town in a very red state. A recent straw poll by the local weekly newspaper reported that about 78% of those voting prefered Donald Trump to Hillary Clinton. (Hillary got 18%, followed by Gary Johnson with 12%, with Jill Stein, Jesus, Pedro, and Bill Murray all polling in single digits.) At the library, I talked to one of the staff members, who taught at the high school in the 60s and 70s and remembered the dress code battles of the time. Then I spent some time looking at the 1967 yearbook from North Platte High School, looking for former classmates. I found ten (!!!!) names that I recognized, four of whom still lived in town in 1999, when the last alumni directory was published. (Thank heaven for alumni directories, indexing female students by their former names and their married names!). Two of the women I found were also in my Bluebird troop. Also also found a photo of North Platte from 1875 with a label showing the location of several landmarks, including the Unitarian Church, which no longer exists. The closest UU congregation today is in Kearney, about 100 miles east of North Platte. Oh, well. I headed back to the Espresso Shop for lunch and some unrelated computer work, and overheard two patrons talking about meditation and theology. Deciding it was time to step outside my introvert bubble, I struck up a conversation and made two new acquaintances. Sherry is originally from Omaha, has lived in NP for about 30 years, and is a liberal, questioning Roman Catholic. Alan is the 3rd generation owner of the local clothing store, and promises to be a great resource on the shopping habits of local women!
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