January, 2020
Lincoln – After talking with many people over the holidays in Nebraska, I recall some of the more memorable questions and comments.
A twenty-something: "William Jennings Bryan. I've heard that name. Who was he again?"
A forty-something, directed to a woman two decades older: "Listen, girl."
A fifty-something: "Now what was the name of that man who left the Catholic Church?" After a five minute pause: "Oh, I remember his name, Martin Luther."
A sixty-something: "Good luck back there [in Washington, DC]. It must be tough with all that corruption."
A seventy-something: "We used to hire Sioux Indians to help stack hay. We'd take them into town on a Friday night, then pick them back up from jail on Monday morning."
Another seventy-something: "Trump's just like Teddy Roosevelt, don't you think?"
And then there's what I didn't hear or see, but wanted to: a special television program on Andalusia under Muslim rule, because Direct TV in Lincoln does not carry the PBS World channel among its hundreds of offerings. Not much demand for such programming, apparently.
I love my Nebraska friends and neighbors, all of them, but....
