You Mean the Oregon Trail Goes All the Way to Oregon?

By the thousands, they traversed the plains and crossed the Rockies, many walking the whole way. All worldly belongings were crammed into wooden wagons covered by tarps. Heavy or extraneous possessions, once considered too valuable to leave behind, became too heavy and unwieldy to carry any further, and lined the trail as visibly as wheel ruts. Grave sites also marked the route where migrants succumbed to disease or accident, much too often crushed by the wheels of the wagons. All sought a better life in the west, a distant, imagined paradise that was, before the railroads, too far from home to ever dream of returning.

Ah! The pioneers! Those sturdy individualists (though they traveled en mass), representing the American spirit which constantly seeks that which is beyond the horizon, greener pastures, freedom from old troubles.

Of course, they slaughtered the once gigantic herds of bison nearly to extinction. They also wildly overreacted to every story of supposedly hostile indigenous people who, in fact, were already in decline because of diseases like cholera that earlier migrants brought with them from the east.

We European Americans have a love-hate relationship with our history. We both romanticize and revile our ancestors, celebrating their hardy bravery while meekly apologizing for their excesses.

As a Nebraskan, I literally grew up on the Oregon Trail, the route taken by American migrants from Missouri to Oregon before planes, highways, or railroads. I was reared on stories about travelers so exhausted by months of boring, flat land that they happily greeted the silhouettes of  geographically unique Chimney Rock, Jail House and Court House Rocks. The sculptures of earth climaxed at Scotts Bluff, considered the gateway to the Rocky Mountains and the origin of the name of my home town, Scottsbluff.

What prompts this reminiscing about the place of my roots?

I'm reading a really great book: The Oregon Trail, by Rinker Buck, who with his brother, spent a summer in a covered wagon, tracing as closely as possible, the Oregon Trail. Both in their 60's, the men relived the dangers of flooding, wind, fatigue, and wagon accidents suffered by those migrants of yore. They also encountered modern hazards such as highways, barbed wire fences, cattle guards, and obnoxious tourists in obscenely huge motor homes who frightened the mules as they zoomed up along side to take pictures out the window as they passed.

The Buck boys also enjoyed the hospitality of modern ranchers, farmers, and communities who provided food, corrals for the mules to rest in, and facilities to service and repair the wagon.

I highly recommend this book. Buck is enchanted by the west but writes realistically without sentimentalism. This is not a child's book about the Oregon Trail. Buck makes free use of the "F" word, for example.

It's no small matter to me that he speaks highly of Western Nebraska. I loved reading about the comfortable pair of shoes purchased at the Scottsbluff WalMart. I can picture exactly the museum in Gering where he lost an entire afternoon caught up in history displays.

There is one fact which still jars me in spite of all my OT study through the years.

When I visited the Oregon state capitol in Salem, I was stunned to see many paintings and murals depicting, yes, the Oregon Trail. There were even some scenes of Nebraska.

The fact is, in all my childhood immersion into Oregon Trail history, countless field trips to pioneer Rebecca Winter's grave and the visitor's center at Scotts Bluff National Monument, it never once occurred to me that Nebraska wasn't the end point of the Oregon Trail. When I was a kid, the myth was that the pioneers set out from the east for a better life and (naturally) settled in Nebraska. The story always ended there. I was in my 20s before I realized that the Oregon Trail was called the Oregon Trail because it went all the way to Oregon. It's a little like living in Colorado and being surprised to learn that other states have beautiful mountains too. Oregon, for instance.

I'm not exactly disillusioned, but I had to come to the grips with the fact that a lot of those people settled in Nebraska because they were just too tired to go on. It took a couple of generations for my parents to finally reach Oregon on vacation, in their motor home.

PostBlog from Scottsbluff – Pigging Out in the Panhandle

You might think it strange to take a 24 hour road trip to Scottsbluff, Nebraska with the primary goal of eating a lot of local food. Well, I never denied being strange. This is what my friend Brian and I did a couple weekends ago.

Highlights of the eat-fest included a Scotty’s cinnamon glacier - ice cream mixed with a slushee and flavored with cinnamon. It tasted like Christmas. It was totally worth the drive.

Of course when in Nebraska, one must have a Runza - seasoned beef and cabbage cooked inside delicious, doughy bread. We also sampled some of the delectable local Mexican cuisine, and had a delightful breakfast at a greasy diner.

We were pleased to be accompanied by my niece and sister-in-law who reside in the area. When it comes to eating, I can always depend on my family. Every event with my dad or my siblings centers around food. Every holiday, birthday, actually any gathering for any reason – we never miss a meal. Even when one of us is in the hospital, we don’t  forget to eat.

Wherever two or three Calkins are gathered, I always say, there is food also. Our obsession with food isn't limited to just consuming vast amounts of it. We use food to show love.

 After going through surgery a while back, before he was fully conscious, my dad sent me out to get him a chocolate malt from Cold Stone. I got one for myself as well so he wouldn’t have to eat alone. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

The afternoon of a different surgery he asked for two éclairs from Lamars - the kind with frosting filling, not pudding, per his exact specifications. The nurse said he wouldn't be hungry so soon after surgery. Clearly she didn't know who she was dealing with.

I've been more or less on Weight Watchers for the past year. I do weigh less than when I started and I look pretty good. When, after losing 30 pounds, I visited my dad, he said he was proud that I'd lost so much weight. He then proceeded to pull out cheese and crackers, chips and dips, olives, and beverages for us to consume before heading out for dinner.

It's not just my dad. It's all of us. On those rare occasions when my sister comes to visit me, the highlight is often a trip to Whole Foods where we buy little samples of cheese, some crackers, maybe some potsticker dumplings to snack on. One time we bought an entire cake (moist, with fresh berries in the whipped cream filling) for just the two of us. And let me tell you, it was good.

I have to admit that it's not just when I'm with family. I make food part of many routines in my life. For example, one of the locations of my gym just happens to be next door to Whole Foods. It seems only natural that after working out, I should head over to the store's deli for a specialty sandwich (turkey, fig jam, greens, and brie on a club roll). And while I'm there, how can I not go by the bakery and pick up a couple of those big, fresh chocolate chip cookies? I have just come from the gym, after all, so eating these treats won't make that much difference.

You see, while showing love to others with food, I've also learned love myself.

Postblog from Nebraska: Subtle Distinctiveness - and Food.

Though very much at home in Colorado, I am Nebraskan to my bones. Here’s one indication: at each stop during the past week’s road trip, the first thing I wanted to know was the temperature and the humidity, and whether there was a chance of thunderstorms. No one is more obsessed with weather than a Cornhusker. Driving across Missouri today, I also noted standing water in the fields and tried to ascertain the condition of the crops. Though I’ve never even planted a garden, it’s all about the crops when you’re from Nebraska.

Another indication has to do with sports awareness: while I have next to none, what little I do have is related to Nebraska University football. I almost instinctively know who they’re playing some weeks, and I secretly delight in their wins. I laugh at the big rivalry between NU and CU which exists only in the minds of Coloradoans. Ask any Nebraskan who their rival is and they’ll tell you it’s Oklahoma. Colorado is barely a spec on the radar. Of course the reorganization of the conferences (big 10? big 12?) has messed that all up, so Colorado will have to find some other pretend rivalry.

Nebraska is a quirky state and requires a different kind of appreciation. Anyone can “ooo” and “ahh” at the mountains – that’s so obvious.

The Cornhusker State is a place of more subtle distinctiveness. I felt it today as soon as I crossed the Missouri River from Iowa. As if on cue, bugs started to smash into my windshield at such a rate that the wiper fluid couldn’t keep up. Why are there so many more bugs here than in all those other states I visited?

I was barely into Lincoln before I came upon an Amigos restaurant. Amigos, a Nebraska based chain, is home to the cheese Frenchie, which used to be served at the old Kings restaurants. Let’s see, there’s also Runza for those unique enclosed sandwiches and fabulous fries, and Valentino’s pizza of course – I could just eat my way from Waverly to West O Street and back again.

Oh yes, and on a side note, Lincoln is also the capital city of Nebraska and home to many institutions of higher education.

But the food, really, is what I plan my visits around.