NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/654753
APRIL 2016 • NEBRASKAland 61 I have long argued that when it comes to Nebraska weather, averages mean absolutely nothing because this "hulking giant" as one distractor once called the state I love is about exciting extremes, not boring averages. So, even while early visitors saw this as the Great American Desert – and with good reason, because it sure didn't offer the kind of rainfall they were used to in their homeland! – we are defined in large part by our water. There is the Missouri on the East; they called her the Old Harlot because she changed beds so often. Down the spine of our state is our namesake, the Nebraska, now mistakenly called the Platte. (Just to get this straightened out, let's change the name of the river back to the Nebraska or change the name of the state to Platte.) The perversity of that river found expression in the remark that the Platte is a river that runs upside down – sand on the top, water on the bottom. I write this in hopes it will wind up in your hands on a nice, warm day because today great blocks of ice are piling up at bends and bridges, backing up water onto roads and into front yards. When I bought my patch of Nebraska with its quarter mile frontage on the Middle Loup, known to this day to the Pawnee and Omaha as the Plenty Potatoes River because of the abundance of food along its banks, I explored the wetlands, sloughs and edges, making plans for what I presumed would be a lifetime of enjoying the river as my neighbor. I found one perfect place where a huge old cottonwood bent out over the water. I eased into the river and found that under that tree was an eight-foot deep pool, perfect for diving and swimming. So, I hung a rope out off the tree and over the water, anticipating what memories I and my children would find here on summer afternoons. When I returned weeks later, I found the rope hanging over a sandbar that stretched out a hundred yards to the nearest water. I would have considered the effort wasted except for the fact that only a few weeks later I came back to the spot again to find the river back at my bank. But the tree was gone, torn out of the ground and carried off in a raging flood, now replaced once again with quiet water and white sand. For 30 more years I kept a journal in which I recorded on each visit to the river where the channels and islands were, and how the banks were building or dissolving. The lesson was clear: like everything else in Nebraska what seemed transient was permanent; what was clearly ephemeral never changed. My river never went dry but then again its vagaries were never predictable. What some might think to be the most boring river on earth – "middle" is in its name, after all – surprises me again and again. As I wrote this in the dead of winter, I think of warm days "butt-bouncing," lying back in the cool, shallow waters and drifting slowly down stream, every now and then my keel making contact with the clean, white sand bottom. Or, I can wonder if again this spring I will see gigantic slabs of ice slamming into the highway bridge, piling up in huge walls, blocking the water and sending it over the banks, threatening my old log house in the bottom ground. Even in flood, my river gives up the unexpected. Once an ice gorge blocked the entire river just below my ground, piling ice against my old cottonwood trees to a height of eight or 10 feet. The next spring I amazed visitors by taking them down to the river where the ice had now melted and the river was again placid and pointing to beaver gnawed bark 10 feet above the ground, remarking simply, "We probably should get out of here before it gets dark and those giant Nebraska beaver come back to finish this job." ■ Roger Welsch is an author, humorist and folklorist. He has appeared in NEBRASKAland Magazine since 1977. The Perfect Place By Roger Welsch The river is my neighbor.