07/25/2025
Geezer Tour 6 - Western Swing. Fifty Shades of Beige
When we last left our intrepid travelers, we were waiting for repairs to our squirrel-damaged car in Lincoln, Nebraska. A week later, we are still here, with hopes of departing tomorrow for points east and home. Having observed the state's capital city at close range, I have some thoughts. Before I express them, a caveat: if I were here of my own accord, for a wedding or to see friends or even on business, I'd probably be more open to this town's charms. As it is, I really had to look hard to find them.
A salient characteristic of Lincoln is its monochromatic color scheme. So much tan, beige, brown everywhere. But don't take it from me, take it from famed Nebraska daughter Willa Cather: born in Virginia, died on Park Avenue, claimed by the Cornhusker State for her years in the town of Red Cloud and the University of Nebraska and her writing about life on the Great Plains. But I digress.
Here's Willa praising the immigrants who brought a little dash to the drab landscape: "Colonies of European people, Slavonic, Germanic, Scandinavian, Latin, spread across our bronze prairies like the daubs of color on a painter's palette. They brought with them something that this neutral new world needed ever more than the immigrants needed land."
She got that right. The urge toward neutral shades is all around us here. Part of it is where we're staying, an aging hotel well located close to the Toyota dealership, equidistant from Costco and Walmart and mere steps through a used car lot to a Super Saver discount grocery that compares its bargains favorably to the better-known Hi-Vee. Beyond the shopping areas, the vast majority of neatly landscaped homes and low-rise apartment buildings are on the beige end of the spectrum. Even the yard art conforms: note the white toy truck, rusted metal tractor wheel and bleached deer skull decorating a local property. There's plenty of green in lawns and trees but you wouldn't call Lincoln 50 shades of green. That's the name of a local w**d dispensary.
Still, there are spurts of colorful rebellion, as in the dark-skinned doll in a red coat at the Nebraska History Museum's exhibit that seeks to explain the state in more than 100 artifacts. The Patty-Jo doll was commissioned from the Terri Lee Doll Company in Lincoln by Jackie Ormes, the first African-American cartoonist to be published in a newspaper, according to the museum. Ormes felt other dark-skinned dolls were based on negative stereotypes and found a better option here.
The prosaic nature of the place works itself into everything, including the ph***ic state capital building, topped not with a warrior or a flag or a toga-clad Statue of Freedom like the one that crowns the U.S. Capitol, but The Sower: a 19-foot-tall figure scattering seeds, symbolizing agriculture as the basis for civilization.
Not to generalize too much, but the people we've encountered here have been a bit like the folks in fictional River City in "The Music Man": flinty, down-to-earth and not all that cuddly, but helpful when you need it most. I can recommend (402) Creamery, a local chain of high-end treats -- try the peach cobbler ice cream -- and Hiro88 for sushi and innovative Chinese specialities, including a first-rate hot and sour soup. Though things can seem beige, the sunsets are often dazzling.
