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It's nicer in Nebraska
by Froma Harrop
I recently returned from a two-week vacation in Nebraska. When I tell that to friends on the East Coast, they ask, "Why there?" This is their shorthand for a longer question, which is "What's in Nebraska, if anything?"
To many Americans living outside that cubist collection of Great Plains states, Nebraska is a total blank. It is the heart of flyover country. Drivers who race across it on Interstate 80 think it's flat and boring. As one friend who traveled that 450-mile stretch put it, "Nebraska never ends."
Actually, this was my third trip to Nebraska in five years. I go there to do some reporting and see friends -- but mostly for pleasure. Nebraska for me is the land of decompression. It's zero traffic, polite young people, adults in no big hurry and lunch bills in the single digits. It's days spent driving scenic back roads through farm and ranch country, much of it rolling hills. (No, Nebraska isn't all flat.) It's coming across tiny towns that time and the new economy seem to have forgotten.
This is one of the least Americanized places in America. These are probably fighting words in a state that sees itself as the most American of all. But I'm not talking about patriotism or work ethic or other traits that Nebraska has plenty of. I refer, rather, to Nebraska's escape from most of the depersonalization, mindless sprawl, congestion and ugly strip development that plague America's population corridors.
Yes, there is modern ugliness at the edges of the bigger cities, notably Omaha and Lincoln. But one can drive through entire counties in Nebraska and not see a single big-box store. They're too thinly populated to support a Wal-Mart (otherwise, there would be one). Cherry County, for example, is bigger than Connecticut but has only 6,098
people; Connecticut has 3.4 million.
You roll into pretty little towns, unspoiled by prosperity. They post populations of 42 or 98 or, big time, 450. You wonder what goes on in hamlets with only a gasoline pump and tiny grocery for commerce. What's it like going to a regional high school with fewer than 100 kids?
I'm well aware that these pastoral settings suffer their share of addictions, violence and other social dysfunction. Many are hurting economically and losing population. Those thoughts add sadness to a trip through a beautiful, depopulating region like the Republican River Valley: It's hard to fathom that people are actually leaving these pretty towns.
Because Nebraska isn't all built up, you can stand where history happened and feel the emotions -- especially out West (buttes here, not cornfields). Up on Scotts Bluff, you look down at the endless Platte Valley and imagine the Mormon pioneers pulling their handcarts over 1,000 miles to Salt Lake City. At historic Fort Robinson, you can reconstruct some of the Indian tragedies -- the Cheyenne Outbreak, the death of Crazy Horse, the Ghost Dance -- on a landscape little changed from the late 1800s.
Even at obvious tourist attractions I didn't spot many "foreign" plates from states like California, New York or Texas. Nebraska scenery lacks the glamour quotient of the Rocky Mountains or Grand Canyon, which draw visitors by their own power.
Nebraska's premier natural wonder is awesome in a more subtle way. The Sand Hills are the largest dune formation in North America and a sight unlike any other. Let's just say that a drive through this eerie dunescape on an empty two-lane -- Nebraska Public Radio in your ear -- will put you at unity with the jazz universe.
These are the things that I tell friends who've been to Europe 12 times and fly to the other coast for long weekends -- but have never touched down in Nebraska. That's why I like to go there, and why I'll go again.
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