Nebraska retrospective part 2 (Lincoln)

The capital of Nebraska is Lincoln. Here is the capitol building in Lincoln. And neither capital or capitol is capitalized. How fun! English is only slightly infuriating.

Lincoln, Nebraska. It's the state's capital. It's the home of Cornhusker sports teams. Nebraska has no professional sports teams, so the Cornhuskers are it. It's safe to say Nebraska is sports-obsessed. If you care about sports, it's a great place to live. To me, growing up a three-hour drive away, Lincoln was a great place to visit. 

My dad was in the National Guards, starting in South Dakota (Hot Springs and Rapid City) and ending in Nebraska (Lincoln). National Guard duty entails a few weeks' commitment in the summer as well as every other weekend during the year. I often went with my father on the weekends and spent that time tooling around Lincoln, often by myself. It was more exciting than time spent in a town of about 4,000 (Broken Bow), needless to say. Sometimes too exciting. Imagine an inexperienced driver of 16 years old driving a relatively fast Buick around unfamiliar streets. I went down a few one-way streets. I had some hard braking, and, thanks to some attentive drivers around me, never had an accident. There were some close calls, now that I think about it. 

I didn't get into too much trouble. I went to thrift stores and the mall, mostly just looking. I went to Eggroll King, often buying a sack of eggrolls for the road. They were $1 apiece, I think. I also went rollerblading once at one of Lincoln's parks. An old guy on rollerblades laughed at me, so I figured that was enough of that. Nebraska is one of those states where you can buy pornography over the counter, so I did some of that, too. I remember feeling convicted one time after buying a magazine (I think it was Playboy). In the car in front of me was a mess of kids in the backseat, one of which was a little girl's sad little face. I instantly imagined the series of choices (or, perhaps not so much choices, as it is decisions made for them, I've come to realize) that would take a girl like that into the world of pornography. (A funny thing is, I don't recall doing anything but looking at the magazines. And I always trashed them soon after because my conscience wouldn't let me keep them.)

At that moment, I realized God was telling me it was unacceptable what I was doing. Women are God's children, and they are to be respected. Sadly, I did not listen to the voice of God that day. Even sadder was the fact that in my hotel were some girls who were crazy about talking to me, yet I decided I'd rather step out to get some porno mags instead, choosing a fantasy over the real thing, — a decision I would repeat many times in the years to come. Instead of getting to know some actual females, I decided I wanted to know a contrived (though safer, I thought) version of femininity, one created by men who just wanted to make money. How many years did I go on with that distorted version of females? Did that influence my thinking about girls? Most certainly, yes. Did those distortions prevent me from being with the girl I wanted to be with? I grit my teeth at that question because I know the answer. The answer is most certainly yes.

Like many Nebraska cities, Lincoln is pretty leafy.

Lincoln is a nice place to visit. I've often thought about living there, but, really, it's too big for me. Although easy to navigate, like so many of Nebraska's cities, it's simply too populated for my tastes. 

The time I spent in Lincoln was fun time. It was unstructured for the most part. My dad got me up in the morning to drive him to his office and gave me a time to pick him up. What did I do with all that time? How did I feed myself? Haha, I have no recollection of what I ate except for Eggroll King. My family liked to go to Tico's (Mexican). Sometimes I went to a park. Sometimes I went to shops. Sometimes I ate at a Chinese place (Forbidden something, where I was asked if I didn't like bok choy which I had apparently snubbed). Sometimes I went to the mall, which had an art supply store. But I almost always went to the Asian market. I'm sure there were many of them, but I only remember one. I loved going there, though it was dimly-lit, full of exotic, sometimes frightening smells, and I couldn't read much of the packaging. It was always an adventure. One time I got some shrimp I was going to cook up when I got back home. The guys in the store asked me where I was going fishing, so I quickly changed my mind. I used the shrimp for bait after that.

Bookstores and movie theaters were other places I frequented. It was a great city to tool around, I thought. Looking back, I can see that a lot of trust was placed in me, especially at a time when cellphones were not common (though my dad did have one of earliest car phones available, a horrible, horrible thing by any standard). How I stayed out of trouble and didn't get in any accidents is still a big question mark. 

A sea of red.

Nebraska football games were a special experience. My dad frequently got castoff tickets. Sometimes I could take a friend. Those were the good years at Nebraska's Memorial Stadium, the Osborne years. I also went to basketball tournaments with friends. It's safe to say Nebraska is all about sports, perhaps more than other states. Everyone is in sports or follows sports or has an opinion of the state's sports teams. It's kind of exhausting, really. Don't you guys have any other hobbies? Oh yeah, growing corn. And watching Larry the Cable Guy. I honestly don't know much about sports, though I like to watch college football. It's a safe, family-friendly subject, though, and it's a good outlet and opportunity to grow for kids.

When my parents moved to Missouri, my thoughts of living in one of Nebraska's fair towns faded. The time I lived in Nebraska would be forever relegated to "was" status, as in what was, not what could be or would be. It's just another repository for memories, and I should mention I have no bad memories of time spent in this city, except maybe my parents' preference for dining at Perkins.

I've been to Lincoln maybe twice (now thrice) in the past 20+ years, once to a football game and once on my way back from an ill-fated attempt to visit my parents in South Dakota (and bought beer I couldn't get back in Ohio). The city of Lincoln has always appealed to me because it is fairly clean, modern, and well-laid-out. If a dumb 16-year-old kid can navigate the city without much help, then it's fairly straightforward. I've found this to be true of most Nebraska towns. I'd much rather drive around cities like Lincoln, especially when contrasted with places like Ann Arbor, Michigan, which is a nightmare for me. I would always make my ex drive in Ann Arbor since she seemed to understand its weird-ass logic and knew how to get around the ridiculous number of narrow one-way streets and other Michigan weirdness. 

I recall a family trip to Lincoln, but on this trip, a sportswriter who worked for the newspaper my dad managed came along. My mom insisted she was gaga over me. I guess our age gap wasn't that big, but I was still in high school. I thought my mom was crazy, but looking back, I was an attractive young man and she did ask a lot of personal questions and joked around a lot. Come to think of it, I was hit on a lot by older women as well as girls closer to my age. At some point, I became immune to it. It would be a novelty to be hit on at my age now. I'm not sure what I'd do. Probably what I did back then — be oblivious. Now it's just another reminder of how I missed out on the real thing. That seems to be the theme of this post. Joshua had his head up his ass.

On this retrospective visit, I was too tired to drive around and take pictures or explore anywhere. I did drive by the Havelock area, where my oldest brother lived for a year. It's a small suburb of Lincoln, but it feels like a small town. There is a steakhouse there (Misty's?) where we ate many times, and it was very good.

A theme of my Nebraska retrospective is my relationships with women. I seemed to have such a hard time with actual relationships that I chose unreality over reality. I guess a lack of guidance didn't help. My heart was in the right place. I knew I wanted a healthy relationship with a girl who would be my best friend. Unfortunately, I took too long getting there. But, the girl I had in mind back then is the same girl I have in mind now. While I've had a great awakening, and while I have grown tremendously over the last few years, some things never change. Even now, only one girl feels like home.