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Jacob Courtney
Hello, Hamilton County! Having been a guest from Texas since March, I have yet to make proper introductions. I could list my likes and dislikes in a boring fashion that reads like a dating profile, but I figure there is a better way than that.
As a way of introduction, I would like to share some of the differences and similarities between the two states.
The first thing I’ll address is the weather. In Texas, it can be extreme but regular. Summers are hotter and humid in the east part of the state that I am from, though winters rarely dip below 35 degrees. Any more than that, you have a statewide emergency and leaders on the next flight to Cancun.
Also there is the occasional hurricane, which is a time of excitement about 50 miles inland compared to the apocalypse it is on the coast.
Nebraska is all over the place in comparison. Everyone in Nebraska tells me that this year’s weather is unlike any other, but I can only comment on what I experience. It was freezing and snowing up to half of May and I’m half convinced it never stopped with the hail coming with every rain.
I think that people who lived their entire lives here saying it isn’t that windy are having a secret joke at my expense. There is nothing, no trees or hills, to stop the wind from going as fast as a speeding locomotive if it wants. Even the driver’s licenses have gusts of glitter blowing through them.
Wind was an issue during the colder months and then God turned off the fan when it got just about as hot in Texas. I thought moving to a place 1,000 miles away from any ocean would be less humid. Both the heat here and there has the same drowning in your own skin feeling I am too accustomed to.
Plus the threat of an inland hurricane is enough to make me paranoid every time I hear thunder.
It’s not all bad. Some of the best weather is here. When the day is just about 70, a cool breeze passes through and not a cloud in sight. It is close to heaven.
Another difference is the landscape in general. In East Texas there are all kinds of trees, mostly pine, that litter all over the place. I don’t think there was ever a time outside where a dead needle or cone from these trees didn’t prick me or get trapped in my shorts.
Nebraska has plains, truly the amber waves of grain I had always heard sung in school assembly.
Where the trees were cut down in Texas, it was always for livestock. Texans still have their cowboy heritage to consider as well, and I hadn’t realized how much so until I came to Nebraska with miles of farmland everywhere you go. I am convinced if the supply chain completely broke tomorrow, Texans would be starving in a week.
Nebraska also has more transformation than Texas, as you can see green throughout the winter. Here, the dry, brown grass turns into an emerald paradise within a week after it rains.
Another point of interest is the culture of Nebraska and Texas when it comes to naming things.
To understand this, one must understand that Texas has double the pride of any state. Not only do Texans have the pride as Americans from the revolution of 1776 onwards, but their own pride at winning their own revolution and pretending we’re the roughest, toughest vaqueros on the continent.
Therefore, you can’t escape a name in Texas. Either from the French or Spanish explorers, the Mexican empresarios, the Texas revolutionaries, politicians from the Republic, less Confederates than you would think, any elected official or educational icon from the 1870’s onward and the obligatory Martin Luther King Jr. Street.
If they can’t name it after a historical figure, then any random animal or tree will do. Their greatness comes from being shot and/or chopped on the grand soil of Texas.
Here there seems to be a distinct humble streak in the naming of counties, cities and streets.
A number of the counties in Nebraska are named after great Americans whose only qualification is that they were not born in the state.
Of course there is everyone’s favorite immigrant duelist Alexander Hamilton, but there is Grant, Boone, Franklin, Garfield, Jefferson, Knox, Logan, Polk, Sherman, Washington, Custer (odd choice) and of course the immortal Lincoln (good choice) who can be anything from a creek to a city.
Then there is a layer of England that seems to be sprinkled in for the naming of towns: Hampton, Hastings, Exeter, York (not even new), Lancaster County, Sutton, Norfolk and Albion.
If the towns are named for a merry old spot Norman boots stomped through, the streets are even more humble with, for the most part, directions, numbers and letters of the alphabet.
I point this out not to make fun but to point out how it seems that while my home state has its devilish pride, Nebraskans has a saint’s level of humility.
Another positive for Nebraska is the focus on keeping a local spirit alive. In Texas, retail and fast food chains choke the small restaurant or business to poverty. Walmarts are a staple no matter the size of the town.
In Aurora and the rest of the county, there is a respect for the local business and artisans, with large franchises woven in instead of dominating. I can only hope it stays this way.
There is also a sense of closeness here that I could not find in Texas. No one is (usually) publicly unfriendly in Texas, but connections are tough to find if not forged in childhood or business. Everyone likes to live their own lives, in their own homes, often far apart from each other in the rural areas.
Hamilton County has a friendliness and willingness to know one another that is remarkable. Everybody may not know your name, but they definitely know your face.
The community bond also extends to kindness shown. I have been amazed how often Nebraskans, neighbors and complete strangers offer help and supplies to any who need it. A woman just this last week paid for my groceries when I was having trouble with my pin, or a neighbor who offered to lend all their equipment for doing an oil change.
I do not think that this means Nebraskans are superior to other peoples’ virtue. Merely that the environment in Hamilton County has been cultivated, by the people, to a point where it is an instinct.
Things can be improved, for sure, but the people are just fine as they are. I merely hope that these observations offer as introduction my admiration for the place that has accepted me.
JACOB COURTNEY joined the News-Register staff as a reporter in March. He can be reached at features@hamilton.net
