THE BULL
Midwest states like Nebraska can certainly attest to my thoughts this week, but I recall the former State of Nebraska slogan, “Nebraska, honestly it’s not for everyone,” can certainly ring very loud and clear. The slogan itself wasn’t for everyone, but it had some truth after going through the early spring storm that wreaked havoc on power lines and poles throughout the state. There are still some power meters in Clay County that aren’t reconnected to a power source.
I receive an email every other day from a source called “FindEnergy. com,” which as of this past Saturday stated there are 124 of 2,390 tracked power meters that are still not connected to power.
During that storm a few weeks back, I will say from my own personal experience, I’m extremely thankful for the power company workers that did a fantastic job of getting power restored as quickly as they could, considering what it was like to get around for the first two or three days following that storm.
But it got me thinking this past Sunday about an old neighbor I had in Lincoln prior to moving to Clay County. He and his wife were lifelong residents of Arizona, who had moved to Lincoln for their careers. They moved into the house next door during a major heatwave and, of course, high-humidity weather event. Being a welcoming type person, I chatted with them as they were moving in, and I remember both of them asking me if I was a Nebraska native, to which I said yes.
Their comments about the weather that day was simple, “Is it always like this?” I said no, not always. It can be very comfortable here at times, and extremely uncomfortable at other times, like today.
Then, I said to both, wait until winter. Most winters are bearable, but there are occasions when winter can be unbearable. I must have jinxed the next winter, because we had a couple of bitterly cold weather days, plus a couple of big snow events that crippled Lincoln and much of Nebraska for a day or two.
After the second winter event that winter, I could tell that they were not happy with their decision to move to Nebraska, and it wasn’t three months later that they made the decision to move back home. I guess, when you grow up with this all the time, the drastic weather changes like we had following our most recent snow event, when much of the snow was gone in three days or less, as Nebraskans, we just deal with the weather changes on a daily basis.
This spring, I’ve been to parts of two track meets, one was spot on fantastic in Sutton, the other, this past Thursday in Hebron, started out as just bearable, and honestly, even though it only got up to the low 50s that day, the wind wasn’t blowing, so it made the low 50s feel pretty darn good in the afternoon.
So, while Nebraska isn’t for everyone, or the Midwest in general for that matter, Nebraska is home, it’s what I know, and it’ll remain home for me.
In contrast to my former neighbors in Lincoln, I did just the opposite of what they did, after being a lifelong Nebraskan, I moved to the Phoenix area for just about a year and I couldn’t stand the weather down there. The heat and the “dead grass” or no grass look for a very long and a few years later, I was back in Nebraska.
So, weather is seriously relative to what we’re all used to while growing up. Nebraska IS for me, but I’ll admit, there are some days that I could easily take a break from Nebraska’s weather, both in the summer, and certainly in the winter.
Enjoy this week’s weather in Clay County. It’s supposed to be true spring.
