Wolf

Nebraska highway 92 more or less rolls through the corn and soybean fields of days gone by. It's easy to imagine herds of buffalo out here, when there wasn't anything planted, just grass and hills. Once in a while there is a little town, most of them started by homesteaders that came out here for free land and a new start back in the late 1800's. Broken Bow has grown big, and so it was we had lunch at a Pizza Hut before leaving town at 1 pm. As soon as we left the outskirts we were back to corn country, and back to the feeling of blue sky and green earth, About 25 hills later, we rolled into Loup City, only 38 miles away from Broken Bow, but about 100 years behind.

Since it's Sunday, nothing in town is open,and we had to call ahead to meet the hotel owner. The streets look like all living things have left in a hurry. Everything is in perfect order, but no one is around. It's quiet, peaceful, and a little eerie at the same time. The streets are laid out in right angles, huge trees planted years ago follow the sidewalks in front of the houses. The yards are well kept, many being watered by the back and forth sprayer we used to use in the sixties. There are baseball fields next to the grain silos. The high school is on Main Street. It was built in 1917, and looks haunted. The average income for a single person is $21,000, a family $32,000. You don't need much money to live here, but like one guy told us, "I was born broke, and I'll die broke, it don't matter much to me." The park is called Jenner Park, and is at one end of the street at the east end of town. It's easy to imagine the Pawnee Indians having a pow wow and smoking a peace pipe under the massive trees, with their ponies grazing alongside. Now there is a swimming pool, a frisbee golf course, swings, teeter totters, and a slide. Where the zoo and the carnival once stood, there is only open space with plenty of shade. The leaves rustle overhead, and when you look around you see houses in the distance, most with American flags on poles outside. All the cars are American made, and the drivers wave at you. Loup City is named for a tribe of Pawnee Indians that inhabited this valley and were found by the French. Loup is the French word for wolf, which is what the tribe was called. We haven't seen a Pawnee in town yet.
The hotel we're in was built in 1912, is on the national historic register, and has been remodeled but not totally modernized. The tv's work off an antenna, the shower is plastic and has been placed over the bathtub spot, and the stairway to the second floor creaks like a rusty gate. When we arrived and talked to the owner, he mentioned that there was only one restaurant, it was 7 miles out of town, and he would take us there with his family and his mom, whom he was picking up at the nursing home. We passed, and reached a new low for dinner, eating at the Whoa and Go, a Sinclair station on the edge of town. So this is home for the night, and a nice one it is. We have seen fireflies tonight. You can hear the crickets chirp just like the Pawnees could, and there isn't a Pizza Hut in town.