As our car crossed the state line from Illinois into Iowa, Sarah Ahlers shed a tear for Chicago.
When most college kids leave for spring break, coming home is usually the last thing on their minds. For my friend Sarah, it was at the forefront…but not in the way you might think. Growing up in a very sheltered and rural Nebraska town, Sarah realized she was a lesbian at the age of 19; something that was viewed as being “just wrong” where she was raised. It wasn’t until over a year later that she got up the courage to fully come out in every aspect of her life, and even after she did, life didn’t get any easier. Her family relationships—especially with her mother—drastically changed and Sarah started to feel very depressed.
“When my grandpa got sick, I don’t think I really got depressed until he took a turn for the worse. Ever since then I’ve just been in this funk,” she said. She stopped sleeping, and when she began hallucinating and contemplating suicide, Sarah knew it was time to get medical help, so she went in for depression medication.
To try and get away from all the stress, Sarah and I planned to spend our spring break visiting my sister in Chicago. As soon as we stepped out into the city on the first day, something about Sarah changed. She looked like she belonged there; she acted like she belonged there. She didn’t feel the judgmental eyes trying to “figure her out” like she did in Nebraska.
“I didn’t have one person looking at me. I didn’t have this big target on my chest. The people didn’t give a shit! I would rather live where no one cares,” Sarah later told me.
The energy of Chicago had Sarah wrapped up so tightly that she forgot to take her depression meds, and when she remembered, she didn’t feel like she really needed them there. Not even the slightly-creepy subway stations or leaving a bar by ourselves in a run-down part of the city after dark could dampen Sarah’s spirits. She was absolutely glowing.
“Even when things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, I was still happy; still excited. I haven’t felt that happiness in so long,” Sarah said.
After our four days in Chicago had flown by all too quickly, we climbed back into the car and began the 12-hour drive back to Kearney, Nebr. Had she been awake when we left the city limits rather than asleep in the backseat, I’m sure she would have cried then too. While I was glad to be home again, all Sarah could talk about was going back to Chicago. I wasn’t surprised when she announced that she would be moving there as soon as possible. Every time she thinks about it, every time she talks about it, Sarah can barely contain her smile. Out of curiosity, I asked Sarah what she thought the best part of our trip to Chicago was.
“The best part about going was that it felt like home,” she told me. “When I got to Chicago, it was like who I should be, I was; where I should be, I was. Everything just fell into place. There was no wrong Chicago could do. After 21 years, I have finally found home.”
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The Coffeeburger
At one time, a little cafe called Sioux Sundries in my tiny hometown of Harrison, NE held the record for the biggest hamburger in America. The "Coffeeburger" weighed in at 28 ounces, measured six inches across, and spilled out all around the regular-sized bun. It was usually topped off with onion, pickle, lettuce, cheese, mustard, ketchup..and a bag of cholesterol-free chips (we wouldn't want anyone having heart attack, now would we?). Well, I think it's safe to say that title has officially been stolen!
While reading through my fellow JMC 425 classmates' blogs, I came across a story from Garrett's blog, Welcome to the Jungle about a hamburger that weighs FOUR POUNDS! I was in such shock that this...thing actually exists that I had to write my own blog response to it.
A few years ago, the owner of Sioux Sundries died, and the people she left it to successfully drove the little cafe into the ground. Sad, considering that was the only thing Harrison really had going to attract visitors. But, with monstrous burgers like this one running rampant these days, I'd say the days of a 28 oz. burger were numbered anyway. I used to think our Coffeeburger was outrageous (my entire high school volleyball team split two of them once, and we couldn't even finish them all), but this burger would have successfully kicked our Coffeeburger's meaty little butt.
...I bet ours caused fewer heart attacks though...
While reading through my fellow JMC 425 classmates' blogs, I came across a story from Garrett's blog, Welcome to the Jungle about a hamburger that weighs FOUR POUNDS! I was in such shock that this...thing actually exists that I had to write my own blog response to it.
A few years ago, the owner of Sioux Sundries died, and the people she left it to successfully drove the little cafe into the ground. Sad, considering that was the only thing Harrison really had going to attract visitors. But, with monstrous burgers like this one running rampant these days, I'd say the days of a 28 oz. burger were numbered anyway. I used to think our Coffeeburger was outrageous (my entire high school volleyball team split two of them once, and we couldn't even finish them all), but this burger would have successfully kicked our Coffeeburger's meaty little butt.
...I bet ours caused fewer heart attacks though...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
'Cause You're Hot Then You're Cold...
Ravaging fires one day, a complete and total white-out the next. Ahh, Nebraska weather. I grew up in Sioux County, which is in the Panhandle of Nebraska. There, we have a long-standing history of surviving fire after fire (including the largest in Nebraska's history in 1989--couldn't find any links to sites about that one, sorry) and countless blizzards. But, I'm pretty sure this is one of the first (or at least one of the few) times my home area has had to endure both in a matter of two days.
Sunday, March 22 the temperature in Sioux County got all the way up to the mid-70s. That afternoon, there was a fire spotted on the Wood Reserve (between Fort Robinson State Park and my family's land) that ultimately burned between 155 and 160 acres. The thing about Panhandle fires is when they burn, they BURN! A LOT! Luckily, this one was stomped out before it could do any more damage.
You know what put out the fire? It wasn't the more than 13 firetrucks from Crawford, Harrison, Fort Robinson, Job Corp, Chadron or Hemingford. Nope, it was the blizzard that came the very next day. I'm not even kidding. By the end of the day Monday, March 23 most of both Sioux and Dawes Counties had an average of 10 inches of snow, causing many schools (including Chadron State College) to cancel classes, and my parents to leave work early just so they could get home...where they were then snowed in and have been for the last couple days. My family's ranch is still sporting eight-foot-tall snowdrifts, and I just learned that it is still snowing there.
All I can say is...Mother Nature must have been having one heck of a mood swing!
Sunday, March 22 the temperature in Sioux County got all the way up to the mid-70s. That afternoon, there was a fire spotted on the Wood Reserve (between Fort Robinson State Park and my family's land) that ultimately burned between 155 and 160 acres. The thing about Panhandle fires is when they burn, they BURN! A LOT! Luckily, this one was stomped out before it could do any more damage.
You know what put out the fire? It wasn't the more than 13 firetrucks from Crawford, Harrison, Fort Robinson, Job Corp, Chadron or Hemingford. Nope, it was the blizzard that came the very next day. I'm not even kidding. By the end of the day Monday, March 23 most of both Sioux and Dawes Counties had an average of 10 inches of snow, causing many schools (including Chadron State College) to cancel classes, and my parents to leave work early just so they could get home...where they were then snowed in and have been for the last couple days. My family's ranch is still sporting eight-foot-tall snowdrifts, and I just learned that it is still snowing there.
All I can say is...Mother Nature must have been having one heck of a mood swing!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Coming Soon...
This is an extremely ROUGH draft beginning of a blog that I will be researching further, and hopefully publishing within the next couple of weeks. I don't want to rush my sources, but I would love to get a little feedback before I get way into it. Like I said, very very rough!
Yahoo! news recently featured an article listing their picks for the 100 Movies to See Before You Die. It caught my attention, and I must say I was quite impressed with their selection (though I myself have only seen 18 of the 100 listed...I'll have to work on that). About a year ago, I took a Film as Literature class with a professor named Sam Umland, and ever since then I have been fascinated with movies. So I decided to make my own list of movies to see before you die. 100 would definitely be too many for one blog post, so I narrowed it down to 10, and am soliciting the help of my movie-buff friend, Travis Robinson. This guy knows more about movies than anyone I've ever met...except for my other source, Dr. Sam Umland. There's a good chance this piece will have to be broken up into two separate blog posts, but hopefully it will keep you all so entertained that you won't mind.
Yahoo! news recently featured an article listing their picks for the 100 Movies to See Before You Die. It caught my attention, and I must say I was quite impressed with their selection (though I myself have only seen 18 of the 100 listed...I'll have to work on that). About a year ago, I took a Film as Literature class with a professor named Sam Umland, and ever since then I have been fascinated with movies. So I decided to make my own list of movies to see before you die. 100 would definitely be too many for one blog post, so I narrowed it down to 10, and am soliciting the help of my movie-buff friend, Travis Robinson. This guy knows more about movies than anyone I've ever met...except for my other source, Dr. Sam Umland. There's a good chance this piece will have to be broken up into two separate blog posts, but hopefully it will keep you all so entertained that you won't mind.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Who would smoke a cat???
I'm sure by now most everyone has heard about the man from Omaha who stuffed his over-active cat into a homemade bong in attempts to "calm her down."
I didn't know all the details, so I typed "man smokes cat" into Yahoo! search. It brought up 49,400,000 hits. Wow. Let's momentarily suspend the fact that some schmuck was actually cruel enough (and dumb enough) to stuff his 6-month-old kitten into a homemade bong so she would calm down, and observe the kind of media attention this act of pure stupidity earned him. The EXACT SAME article appeared on 6 of the first 10 pages: NBC New York, NBC Philadelphia, NBC San Diego, NBC Bay Area, NBC Connecticut and NBC Los Angeles. Even the Huffington Post had something about this (see below for link)! Yay, Nebraska made national news! Wait...
So now, not only will Nebraska be known as the "children of the corn" state, we will be known as the state that tries to smoke our hyperactive pets. Super!
Don't get me wrong, I take animal cruelty very seriously (and luckily, this poor little kitty was only "dazed" after her awful experience), but this...I'm sorry, even the news officials and interview subjects can't be serious about it! Case in point, the following videos from the Huffington Post (I recommend this one first, I found it very entertaining) and the Associated Press:
A friend of mine and I were discussing this recently, and I wanted to share our little conversation. It went something like this:
Friend: "How did he get caught?"
Me: "Maybe the neighbors heard the cat howling."
Friend: "But it would have been...calmed down by then."
Me: "Maybe he was smoking with his blinds open."
Friend: "Who would smoke marijuana with their blinds open???"
Me: "The same guy who tried to smoke his cat!"
Maybe you had to be there, but we found it hilarious. I'm not in any way advoacating animal cruelty, and I assure you this subject would have been no laughing matter had the cat been seriously injured or killed, or if the man hadn't been charged, but I did find a little sick humor in the story (especially the video with the MSNBC anchors who couldn't stop laughing).
I didn't know all the details, so I typed "man smokes cat" into Yahoo! search. It brought up 49,400,000 hits. Wow. Let's momentarily suspend the fact that some schmuck was actually cruel enough (and dumb enough) to stuff his 6-month-old kitten into a homemade bong so she would calm down, and observe the kind of media attention this act of pure stupidity earned him. The EXACT SAME article appeared on 6 of the first 10 pages: NBC New York, NBC Philadelphia, NBC San Diego, NBC Bay Area, NBC Connecticut and NBC Los Angeles. Even the Huffington Post had something about this (see below for link)! Yay, Nebraska made national news! Wait...
So now, not only will Nebraska be known as the "children of the corn" state, we will be known as the state that tries to smoke our hyperactive pets. Super!
Don't get me wrong, I take animal cruelty very seriously (and luckily, this poor little kitty was only "dazed" after her awful experience), but this...I'm sorry, even the news officials and interview subjects can't be serious about it! Case in point, the following videos from the Huffington Post (I recommend this one first, I found it very entertaining) and the Associated Press:
A friend of mine and I were discussing this recently, and I wanted to share our little conversation. It went something like this:
Friend: "How did he get caught?"
Me: "Maybe the neighbors heard the cat howling."
Friend: "But it would have been...calmed down by then."
Me: "Maybe he was smoking with his blinds open."
Friend: "Who would smoke marijuana with their blinds open???"
Me: "The same guy who tried to smoke his cat!"
Maybe you had to be there, but we found it hilarious. I'm not in any way advoacating animal cruelty, and I assure you this subject would have been no laughing matter had the cat been seriously injured or killed, or if the man hadn't been charged, but I did find a little sick humor in the story (especially the video with the MSNBC anchors who couldn't stop laughing).
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Seat Belts in School Buses: Necessity or Hazard?
Editorial #3
"Click it or ticket." That's the slogan for the Nebraska seat belt law. But what about the vehicles that transport hundreds of children to and from school nearly every day? As of now, Nebraska school buses are not equipped with seat belts. This issue recently came before Nebraska lawmakers when they began debating whether or not seat belts should be installed in school buses.
According to an article in the Kearney Hub, KPS Transportation Supervisor Jim Catterson said, “It’s going to be quite an issue. The feds have done all the testing, and they don’t recommend putting seat belts in. But all the states are going to have them pretty soon. Parents will want them.”
The idea of installing seat belts in school buses is far from a fresh one. According to an article published online by the Canada Safety Council, in 1984, Transport Canada crash tested three different school buses (one small bus, one van-type bus and one large bus). Each contained unbelted and belted test dummies. The tests indicated that the use of a lap belt on forward-facing seats could increase the risk of head injuries during a severe frontal collision. In a head-on collision the occupant's head could hit the seat in front, resulting in severe or fatal head and neck injuries.
Further investigation showed that the combination lap and shoulder belts would require stiffer seats, which could increase injury to unbelted students. Moreover, the shoulder belts increased the chance of abdominal injuries because of children slipping down in their seats. Tests showed children would slip down, risking injuries to organs covered by the lap belts. Similar tests were done with similar results in 1986 and 1999.
Unfortunately, too many people might hear "seat belts" and automatically think "safety" but, as the tests show, this is not necessarily the case. Obviously this is an issue that has been given serious, long-term thought and put through continuous testing, but until a safe way to install seat belts in school buses can be found that won't increase potentially fatal injuries, this isn't an issue that should be rushed.
"Click it or ticket." That's the slogan for the Nebraska seat belt law. But what about the vehicles that transport hundreds of children to and from school nearly every day? As of now, Nebraska school buses are not equipped with seat belts. This issue recently came before Nebraska lawmakers when they began debating whether or not seat belts should be installed in school buses.
According to an article in the Kearney Hub, KPS Transportation Supervisor Jim Catterson said, “It’s going to be quite an issue. The feds have done all the testing, and they don’t recommend putting seat belts in. But all the states are going to have them pretty soon. Parents will want them.”
The idea of installing seat belts in school buses is far from a fresh one. According to an article published online by the Canada Safety Council, in 1984, Transport Canada crash tested three different school buses (one small bus, one van-type bus and one large bus). Each contained unbelted and belted test dummies. The tests indicated that the use of a lap belt on forward-facing seats could increase the risk of head injuries during a severe frontal collision. In a head-on collision the occupant's head could hit the seat in front, resulting in severe or fatal head and neck injuries.
Further investigation showed that the combination lap and shoulder belts would require stiffer seats, which could increase injury to unbelted students. Moreover, the shoulder belts increased the chance of abdominal injuries because of children slipping down in their seats. Tests showed children would slip down, risking injuries to organs covered by the lap belts. Similar tests were done with similar results in 1986 and 1999.
Unfortunately, too many people might hear "seat belts" and automatically think "safety" but, as the tests show, this is not necessarily the case. Obviously this is an issue that has been given serious, long-term thought and put through continuous testing, but until a safe way to install seat belts in school buses can be found that won't increase potentially fatal injuries, this isn't an issue that should be rushed.
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