On The Road: North Platte, Nebraska

   I am currently in western Nebraska for a gig. I'll do a trip report after I get home, but I wanted to post about what my wife and I did today.

   We got in late after the gig last night, so we got a late start. I had the day off, so we decided to get lunch and explore North Platte, Nebraska. We started at Cody's Trading Post, an obvious tourist trap souvenir shop right off the interstate banking on the legend of Bill Cody's "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" show. There was a lot to look at, though, and it was fun. I picked up a book called, The Wisdom of the Native Americans,  a couple things for the boy (who is stay with grandma in Colorado while we're here), and the wife picked up a souvenir sticker.

   From there we drove out to the northwest edge of town to visit the Golden Spike Tower overlooking Union Pacific's Bailey Train Yard. At two miles wide and eight miles long, Bailey is the largest train yard in the world. The Golden Spike Tower has an open-air observation deck on the seventh floor and a glassed-in, 360-degree viewing area on the eighth floor overlooking the whole operation. The whole thing is very impressive.

   While we were looking around the eighth-floor viewing area, I came across a brochure for area attractions. My wife spotted Dancing Leaf Cultural Learning Center in Wellfleet. After looking up the location of Wellfleet -- about 25 miles south of North Platte -- we called to see what their hours were. The woman on the phone was happy to give us any information we needed and effectively told us to show up and we would get the tour whenever we arrived. We were even offered to join an earlier group for some traditional native buffalo stew, but we were still full from our late lunch.

   We arrived at Dancing Leaf and were greeted by Les and Jan Hosick. After a quick round of introductions and the obligatory explanation of why were hanging out in North Platte, Les took us to a small building across the driveway from their home. I'll admit, as we walked into the the single-room box with a single row of metal folding chairs and shelves covered with bones and artifacts I wondered if this might turn out to be disappointing. After only a few minutes of listening to Les talk about prehistoric Nebraska I was completely sucked in. He told us about prehistoric geography and why so many artifacts can be found in Nebraska using charts, maps, fossils, bones, and plaster casts. He went on to discuss Native American culture and history with an impressive array of artifacts. After almost an hour of fascinating show& tell and Q&A, we took a short walk out of the classroom to the earth lodge Les has built as a recreation of an actual Native American lodge.

  Outside the lodge are primitive racks for drying and tanning, an arbor of limbs and twigs to form a shaded work area, campfire, and a whole new assortment of artifacts to recreate the entire native family home. Inside the lodge was amazing! While Les admitted to using modern hand-tools -- he spoke quite a bit about the fragility of tools made from stone, sticks, and bones and the need for native peoples to be skilled in tool making -- the lodge is an authentic replica. The temperature inside was probably 15 degrees (fahrenheit) cooler than outside. We sat inside around the fire ring and Les told us about family life in and around the lodge and about construction of the lodge itself.

   By the time we made our way back to the gift shop Les had spent close to two hours with my wife and I and every minute was riveting. I picked up an arrowhead necklace for a souvenir and also picked up a book, How Can One Sell The Air?, a study of a speech by Chief Seattle.



   "Wild Bill" Cody, the world's largest train yard, and the coolest history field-trip ever. We didn't even make it to Buffalo Bill's Ranch. North Platte, Nebraska is a pretty cool place!

Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0

   I read Lester Brown's book, Plan B 3.0 about two years ago (as I mentioned in Backstory Part III). It's a difficult book to get through because you have to plow through a lot of doom and gloom (about two thirds of the book) before getting to any sign of hope. Brown does offer solutions to the problems, but the book is a lot of explaining exactly the what, where, why, and how of all of these global issues.

   While I wholly recommend the new book, I found this video series on You Tube that is a pretty good primer. It was recorded at the University of Chicago on November 17, 2009. This is the sort of thing that should be viral and yet part one only has 112 views, part five has less than 50 views.

   If you haven't read the book or are not familiar with Lester Brown's work, I encourage you to take the time to look at this series:

Political Labels

   I just read something asking about the "constitutional right" of a federal government to impose national healthcare. I know this is a huge debate and everyone is all up in arms on one side or the other.

   That's the design. Obama ran for President on a platform promising healthcare so the opposition attacked it. Never mind all of the balls that were dropped in the pursuit of what ended up being a fairly meager healthcare deal. Whatever -- that's how the system works now: one side finds a hot topic to exploit, the other cries to the other side ("save the kitties" - "what about dog rights?!" -- how do you think the rich people got the people who support a man who ran money changers from the Temple on their side? It goes both ways -- what liberal doesn't want "The Man" out of his business?).

   Political labels only mean one thing at this point: "I don't have time to think for myself, therefore I vote the Party Line".

   Genius! Party voters have proven the need for an electoral system. I think Bill Engvall has something for you...

   Back to my original thought, where does The Constitution of The United States of America grant the government to impose healthcare? I don't think it does and I'm not even going to look over The Constitution a couple more times to try and find it because I don't think it matters. Why? Because 12 years before The Constitution was ratified, and 15 years before the first ten amendments known as The Bill of Rights were ratified, 56 leaders of the 13 colonies signed a document that said this:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

   "Healthcare" was not in the lexicon of the late 18th century, but it seems to me that some important men were willing to risk treason (i.e. hanged, drawn and quartered) for the idea that we all have "an unalienable" right to "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness". This meant that it was intrinsic and did not require anything more than it's own self-evidence.

   Today we have all kinds of access to life against any number of medical conditions, liberty from debilitating disease, and the pursuit of Happiness beyond anything those 56 men could have imagined.

   Not only that, but governments are subject to the governed.

   But if the governed do not want everyone to have The Right of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" unless they have the ability to pay for it, then what?

Awareness

   I apologize for my absence (if anyone noticed). I away pursuing a potential new "gig" and spending some time with family and friends as I was able. The break from the virtual world was not unwelcome, but I am back for the moment...

   I was thinking about the juxtaposition of John Adams to most all of his peers in Adams' realization (or hope?) that what he was involved in during the mid-late 1770's would likely be historic. At times Adams seemed obsessed with being "important" and "relevant". John Adams was absolutely important and relevant in retrospect, but he is overshadowed by "lesser" figures in our American history like Paul Revere and Patrick Henry.

   My question is this:

   Is it better to have lived in the moment, unaware, and contribute something forever remembered in that moment?

   OR

   Is it better to have lived aware of your moment in history unsure what to do with it?


   It seems to me it may be easier to be a hero for a single act, or by being an influential extremist (Revere and Henry).

   Adams, on the other hand, defended the British Soldiers of the Boston Massacre in 1770, authored the Braintree Instructions opposing the Stamp Act of 1765, handed the writing of The Declaration of Independence to Thomas Jefferson, and ultimately became the second President of The United States. While being a perpetual realist, John Adams is arguably among the more forgettable founders of the United States.

   So I ask...

   Is it better to have lived in the moment, or to have lived aware of your moment and/or what to do with it?