Happy Birthday, Nebraska!

March 1, 2012.  It's Nebraska's Birthday--Happy 145th!  And it will undoubtedly go by with little mention anywhere.  But just wait five more years for a real celebration...

I remember Nebraska's one-hundredth birthday quite well.  All of the men in town, and perhaps in the whole state, had grown beards and mustaches; the men in Fairbury wore their facial hair well into the next year, too, when Fairbury celebrated its own centennial.  Mom and Dad spent March 1st, 1967, in Lincoln, where Dad rode his horse, Ginger, with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Posse, in the official Nebraska Centennial Parade.  Afterwards, Mom told me that Ginger was more than a little skittish because she had never before been acquainted with marching bands.

Dan went to school as usual that day, at Eastward, where he was a fourth grader.  I'm sure that his class celebrated the centennial in some special way that day, too.  Laura, who had just turned five, wasn't quite old enough for kindergarten; she was at home with a babysitter, recuperating from a tonsillectomy. 

I was a sixth grader at Central School.  On that eventful day, everyone wore semi-authentic clothes like the pioneers used to wear in the 1860s.  Mom had sewn my ankle-length dress, which matched my little sister's.  Both dresses were made of white fabric with purple flowers all over it.  I think we each had matching sunbonnets, too.  (Surely, there must be some pictures somewhere.)

At school, everyone was nearly bursting with excitement.  We were ready to present our afternoon program.  We had prepared some skits and square dances, and lots of old pioneer songs, like Sweet Betsy from Pike and Git Along, Little Dogies. We had learned the old Nebraska state song:
  
     Ah, Nebraska Land, Sweet Nebraska Land!
     Upon thy burning soil I stand.
     And I look away, across the plains,
     And I wonder why it never rains. 

A newer, more controversial state song had been adopted just in time for the centennial celebration.  We liked it much better than the old one:

     Beautiful Nebraska, peaceful prairie land, 
     Laced with many rivers, and the hills of sand;
     Dark green valleys cradled in the earth; 
     Rain and sunshine bring abundant birth.
     Beautiful Nebraska, as you look around, 
     You will find a rainbow reaching to the ground;
     All these wonders, by the Master's hand, 
     Beautiful Nebraska land.

We hadn't been in school for more than an hour or two that morning, when the teachers noticed an odor of gas permeating the building.  Pretty soon, everyone could smell it.  We headed outdoors without coats, and onto the playground, just as if we were having a fire drill.  It was a gorgeous day, sunny and 70 degrees, with just a light breeze blowing.  If we were to enjoy such a balmy day in early March this year, everyone would blame global warming; but then, there was no hint of anything except early spring.  We were ecstatic to spend such an unseasonably warm morning outdoors, with an extended recess.  To add to the excitement, the fire department sent fire trucks, with flashing lights and blaring sirens, and the police were on the scene, too, to check out the situation.  Ultimately, no gas leak was found, and the old man who had driven by the school, with an open gas can in the back of his pickup, was issued a ticket.  As far as we were concerned, he should have been given a medal, because his oversight had made our already exciting day nearly perfect.

We went back indoors just in time to eat lunch.  The program went off without a hitch.  Mom and Dad couldn't be there, of course, but I didn't mind, because I knew that they were participating in an equally momentous occasion.  That evening, we all watched the channel 10 news on TV to see if we could spot them in the big parade.

Now, forty-five years later, I live clear across the state in Gering, just twenty miles from Wyoming.  Out here, the news media likes to call the western Nebraska panhandle, along with eastern Wyoming,  "Wyobraska."  And indeed, sometimes it seems like this forgotten end of the state resembles Wyoming more than it does eastern Nebraska.  Still, many of my friends and neighbors bleed Husker red, and most of us are pleased to call Nebraska our home.

     We are so proud of this state where we live.
     There is no place that has so much to give.
      
     Beautiful Nebraska, as you look around, 
     You will find a rainbow reaching to the ground; 
     All these wonders, by the Master's hand, 
     Beautiful Nebraska land.

Mom and Dad, with Dan and Laura, and Bob pulling the buggy for Fairbury's Nebraska Centennial
parade. I'm there, too, seated in the back, where I can't be seen.