CHAPTER ONE
IN WHICH I TELL A STORY THAT MAY HAVE LITTLE OR NOTHINGTO DO WITH THE REST OF MY TALE.
In covered wagon days, a young couple were leaving Iowa to begin their new life together in Nebraska Territory. It didn’t take too keen an eye to note that the young wife was very pregnant. In those days - when there were no interstate highways to make travel quick and smooth, and no Weather Channel to predict what problems and dangers might prevail along the way - one might have considered it foolhardy to undertake such a trip with a birth so imminent. That would be because you don't know about the agreement worked out between the local administrators, the medical community, and the storks.
Yes, you heard right - storks. You probably thought that the stork:baby delivery story was one that your parents had come up with to keep from explaining to you the facts of human reproduction. Perhaps it did become a convenient diversion later, but in the sparsely settled areas of Middle America, the service provided by the storks was very important, even vital at times.
Now, everybody knows that birds - all species of birds - have an uncanny sense of location and direction. Nobody has yet explained how a young bird can fly - in the dead of night! - thousands of miles over land and sea - unaccompanied by any bird that has made the trip previously - and arrive exactly where its parents had landed the first time they took their solo flight. Well, if birds in general are good at that kind of thing, storks combine both Art and Science to make location and orientation fantastically precise and accurate. In those days, when a stork took on a client (a pregnant human couple), there was never a mistake or misstep. The stork knew at every minute exactly where it was, and where its clients were. Deliveries were always exactly on time, and exactly at the location agreed on.
Exactly right, I should say, every time except this one.
Just as the couple was approaching the ferry that would transport them across the Missouri River into Nebraska, a dust devil formed right in front of them. Dust devils - mini whirlwinds that develop over hot, open land - usually are short-lived, and don't do any real damage, but they can be quite strong and quite startling. This one came up very quickly, right in front of the stork. It was caught completely off guard, was flipped upside down for a moment, and in that moment dropped its precious cargo. Thankfully, the bundle dropped in exactly the right place - in the woman's lap. No harm done... Well, no harm, but it speeded up the delivery schedule significantly, and a new life - a baby boy - soon graced the wagon at the ferry landing. Mother and child (and the stork) were all just fine, and within a half-hour, the family was on the ferry, crossing into Nebraska.
The young couple loved their new home, and quickly settled into life in rural Nebraska Territory. There seemed to be no repercussions from the near-disaster at the ferry - at least, there were none until the young lad enrolled in school. On that first day - and for every starting day through the rest of his elementary and high school years - teachers seemed to have a compulsion to tell, and remind, the community, that he was not a Nebraskan - he was a native of Iowa. Since he had lived in Iowa less than an hour, and everybody in the area had known him his entire life, it was hard to see how his birthplace could make a difference, but it did. Almost every adult in Nebraska Territory was an immigrant from somewhere else, but he was the only "foreign" child. Even his best friends treated him a little differently, and he was never fully accepted into their youthful community.
The first inklings of more than a general standoffishness came when he started to play intermural sports. If his team lost, there was no problem, but if the won, the question often came up as to whether it was ethical - or even legal - to have someone from another state playing on their team. Of course, it was always found to favor his school, but the regular confusion was just unsettling. Later, when scholarships and awards were given out, somebody had to raise the question of his "citizenship." By the time he graduated from high school, he was thoroughly frustrated and disgusted with still feeling like somewhat of an outsider.
[I should mention that there was one period when he was glad to be an Iowan. It involved kissing. There wasn't a lot for the average rural Nebraska teenager to do but go to school and work on the farm, and by the junior year of high school, every girl in the area has kissed every boy in the area, usually numerous times. (Unfortunately for our Iowan, he was not included in the general trading of favors, although he had shared some nice times with a few of the more adventurous girls.) Well, as I said, it was a pleasant enough past-time. Boys being boys, and girls being girls, the activity sometimes went farther, but - maybe surprisingly - not all that often. It wasn't serious stuff; it was just something pleasant to do.
In their junior year, some girls started to wonder about the quality of local kissing. As nice as it was - and they all agreed it was very nice - there was a certain sameness about it all. All Nebraska boys seemed to have learned their kissing techniques at the same time and place, and most of the girls realized they couldn't really tell the various kisses apart. This led to the question, did foreigners kiss any different than the homegrown kissers?
Being the only "foreigner" in the area, our subject suddenly found himself much in demand. Every girl in the area kissed him at least once. Most came back several times, to refresh their memory or to test for any little nuances that hadn't registered the first times. A few became "regulars," claiming that they really thought the experiment needed to be fully tested to make sure their conclusions were accurate. He didn't mind a bit, and happily for him he found that the "testing" continued into his senior year with some particularly diligent and thorough researchers.
As far as I can tell, no results of the study were ever published, or even discussed. It was clear that there was certainly nothing "wrong" with how a "foreigner" kissed, but comparisons were not forthcoming.]
Despite that pleasant interlude, the rest of his life continued to be plagued by questions related to his birth. He ran for office many times - and usually won - but almost every time there were questions of his eligibility and - if he won - of his right to serve. He weathered every challenge, but it got very tiresome for him.
His approval ratings were always as high as any politician in the Territory, and the feelings were nearly unanimous that he was an intelligent, fair, and honest man, who was clearly working for his constituency and for the good of the Territory. When, inevitably, he ran for Governor, he won by a landslide (not by the one or two vote margin that many winners consider a "mandate."). When eventually he retired, all political parties were unanimous that he had been the best Governor any state or territory had ever had. Still, there was some dissension, and as usual it related to his nativity, As one old-timer put it, "Yes, he was a great man, and a great Governor. Still, wasn't there even one Nebraskan out there who could have done the job as well - or better?"
When he died, his grave was marked by an enormous stone. The mason doing the work began with the traditional "a native of," but the Governor's lady wanted something else. The mason was admittedly upset, but she was paying the bill - and it was a big stone, and was costing a substantial sum - so he had to go along. When he was finished, he could hardly bear to look at his work. She was very pleased.
Under his name, and the dates of his birth and death, was carved - in letters almost as large as his name -
A TRUE NEBRASKAN.
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