Think Like a Nebraskan
By Gordon Hopkins
Do you remember that great old flick, “In the Heat of the Night,” from 1967, with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger? You remember that immensely satisfying scene where Poitier slaps a pompous white bigot across his pompous pink cheek?
Two weeks ago, that was the most famous slap Hollywood ever produced. Alas, times have changed. I can’t believe the world is still talking about what happened at the Oscars, pausing only occasionally to acknowledge that there is, occasionally, other news going on in the world, like a war. Minor stuff like that.
The rest of the world may be talking about the slap, but I’m not going to.
Yes, I’m well aware I just spent a long time writing about something just to tell you I’m not going to write about it. I want you to know how deeply I care that you know I don’t care.
So, once again, I have to come up with something else to write about for this column. So why don’t I talk about something odd that happened to me this week. Or, rather, something odd that was said to me.
I was covering a meeting, which I do a lot in my capacity as reporter. When or where or why doesn’t matter.
During the course of this meeting, someone I don’t think I’d ever met before said something to me I had never heard before, “You obviously aren’t from Nebraska.”
I have no idea what I’d said or done to elicit this statement, but it seemed like it merited a response, given my birth certificate clearly contradicts this assessment of my origins.
“I’m most definitely from Nebraska,” I said, jovially. Then I added, “Born and bred.”
I don’t know why I said it. I don’t even know for sure what “born and bred” means. I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t specifically set out to breed Nebraskans, though in the end that’s exactly what they ended up doing.
For the record, I was born and reared in Omaha. A lot of folks in the more rural parts of Nebraska don’t consider Omaha to be “true” Nebraska, kind of the way New Yorkers don’t really think of Staten Island as a part of New York City.
Anyway, my answer apparently surprised this person, who said to me, “Wow. You sure don’t think like a Nebraskan.”
What the heck is that even supposed to mean? Am I supposed to be offended by this? I’m not sure if it was intended as an insult. Was it intended as a compliment? Okay, I’m pretty sure it was not intended as a compliment.
The bigger question is this: could it be true?
I first left my home state at age thirty. Not exactly the most impressionable age. By that time, I would have thought my natural Nebraskanness was pretty thoroughly ingrained. Nevertheless, I spent more than a decade on the West Coast, as well two misbegotten years in Connecticut. I spent those years living among people who think the Reuben sandwich was invented in New York (or worse, think it is okay to make it with mayo) and having no idea you can get a sandwich with cabbage in it from a fast food joint.
Is it possible my innate Nebraskanness had been corrupted by those years among the ill-bred savages of America’s coastal communities? I cannot deny, after returning to the Cornhusker State so many years later, I had picked up a few bad habits, like calling pop, “soda.”
Maybe I should put a little more effort into thinking like a Nebraskan and acting like a Nebraskan. To that end, I’m gonna go home tonight, cook a steak and complain about how much Scott Frost is paid.
