Fifty Nebraska Things

You’ve ended up getting a lot more Nebraska cultural reflections this week than sports stuff, but that’s because between the three of us we’ve had migraine attacks, sick kids, and a critically ill cat, so it hasn’t really been the week any of us had planned. We’re trying though!

Plus, maybe it just doesn’t bring us that much joy to talk about Husker football anymore. Can you blame us?

In our prep chat for this week, we thought a Power Ranking of “Nebraska Things” would be a fun idea. It was a fun idea, but we quickly came up with so many things that ranking them wasn’t really a possibility anymore. So we present to you Fifty Nebraska Things, loosely assigned to the following tiers:

• Osborne Tier: Successful, awesome, iconic.
• Pelini Tier: Definitely some quibbles to be had, but all in all... not bad. Especially given some distance and perspective.
• Frost Tier: I believe this audience is able to parse the insinuations of this tier.

Dylan Widger-USA TODAY Sports

Jesse also suggested a Solich Tier, defined as “things we pretend to have always liked but definitely hated in the moment” but honestly, I am just trying to get this done. Poor Frank, overlooked again.

Osborne Tier - Nebraska Greats

1. Runza: We’ve sure talked about Runza a lot this week. Also, did you know that the Omaha Storm Chasers do a Runza night? And the hats are on point? Now you do.

2. Chili and Cinnamon Roll: Iowa tries to claim that this iconic pairing has its roots in Iowa, but they don’t even know how to eat it, lol. Having the cinnamon roll for “dessert” doesn’t make it a pairing. Eat them together as God intended, you cowards.

3. Sandhills: A truly gorgeous and special landscape that hasn’t been discovered by influencers, presumably because they cannot locate Nebraska on a map and/or are afraid of buffalo (probably wise, tbh). Photographs do not always do the Sandhills justice. To better appreciate the area, you need more than two dimensions.

4. The Peni$ of the Plains: Our state capitol is just happy to see you. :) It is also an architectural gem with a lot of Art Deco influence.

5. Sunsets: Again, we have talked about this A LOT, but the sunsets in Nebraska are legit. To take this a step further, let’s look at a mix of the Sandhills + Sunsets (and a very nice golf course because why not):

6. Henry Doorly Zoo: Okay, okay, I get it. Hearing Nebraskans talk about the Zoo is one of those really annoying things on par with Iowa fans talking about their punter. Yes, it’s world class. Also yes, it’s a zoo. That said, if you’re in Omaha (or Lincoln even), it’s probably worth the trip. There still aren’t a lot of exhibits out there as cool as the Lied Jungle.

7. Trains: No, these aren’t exclusive to Nebraska, as their very nature implies. But trains have formed an important backbone to the state since 1869 (nice) when Omaha became the eastern terminus of the first transcontinental railroad, and remains the headquarters of Union Pacific. Even today, the largest rail yard in the country world is the Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte, NE. Burlington Northern also has a substantial railyard in Alliance, NE.

8. Bakers Candies: A Greenwood, NE great. I really, really do love these silly little foil-wrapped chocolates. Are they better than any other small-town chocolate company? Hard to say! But they’re ours and we love em. (Jesse note: I even had these as a fairly large anchor to the table decorations at my wedding... which was back in 2006, so maybe that wasn’t that cool, but I love them and you should love them too)

9. Split Electoral College: Look, if we’re stuck with an archaic and nonsensical institution, at least this gives us a tiny more proportionality. It’s awesome. Recent threats to change it by the usual crapheaded suspects are not. The split vote allows for at least the Omaha metro to be relevant in presidential election years. It also serves as a litmus test...if the red nominee shows up, they might lose the election. If the red nominee does not feel the need to show up, they are confident in themselves.

10. Carhenge: Because why not?

Photo by Will Powers/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

11. Arbor Day: Almost every single kid in Eastern Nebraska went to Nebraska City to learn about apple trees and the fact that Arbor Day started here. It’s a cool holiday to be attached to, all things considered. Apple picking at Arbor Lodge is a wonderful off-week activity in the Fall.

12. Great Navy of the State of Nebraska: Keisei Tominaga is an Admiral in it. So is BRT. You can read the humorous history of this odd institution here.

13. John Cook: Also an Admiral, and the most successful coach in Nebraska sports of all time? Maybe not the most important (both Osborne and Pettit get that distinction for football and then volleyball), but certainly the most successful.

14. Ogallala Aquifer: There is a heck of a lot of water under most of the state, and that’s pretty cool. Worth noting that this is basically the source of drinking water for over 1.5 MM people, which is also very cool. Nebraska: Hydrating the plains.

15. Ogallala water tower: Another entry under “because why not?” Here for the unexpected whimsicality.

16. How fun it is to say “Ogallala”

17. Old School Actors: Marlon Brando, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, and Nick Nolte to name a few. It’s worth noting that there are also more modern actors including Andrew Rannels, Adam Devine, and Gabrielle Union. Good for having famous people!

18. Talk Show Hosts: Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, and Amber Ruffin all hail from Nebraska. And, if you remember, David Letterman’s, “home office,” was in Wahoo, Nebraska as an ongoing bit from 1996 to vaguely 1999.

19. Cherry County - bigger than US states: Suck it, Rhode Island, Delaware, and Connecticut. It is also a very beautiful place.

Pelini Tier: Not So Bad When You Really Think About It

21. Coach Matt Rhule: Look, we’re talking about football in this article by saying we like the guy. You’ll be happy to know we’re very happy we have an adult in the stadium who is not apparently hanging out with his old high school buddies and getting drunk.

22. Kool Aid: Hastings, Nebraska’s greatest claim to fame. When downtown is lit up for Christmas, the honors are conducted by Santa... and the Kool-Aid Man. Oh yeahhhh.

23. Corn: Uh... it’s kind of what we grow here (although Soybeans would like a word) (also, lolol all of this is not for human consumption directly which is very funny to me).

24. Omaha: It’s a nice enough city. Have you seen the zoo?

25. Lincoln: If you follow recruiting, literally everyone pulls out the, “I expected to see cornfields everywhere, but Lincoln is an actual city.” Which, that’s mostly true, although let’s be real... there are still fields everywhere.

26. Herbie: #OldHerbie4Life

27. Warren Buffet: I am convinced this is the only thing people outside of Nebraska know about Nebraska, which honestly isn’t all THAT bad when you think about it. As billionaires go, he is pretty good. It’s better than being known as like, the place where some cult is or something. Or just being Iowa.

28. Cows/Beef: Nebraska beef is probably a bit overrated, but beef is good and we sure have a lot of it here so it gets to stay here. Feels like it would be a solid 9-4 year after year.

29. Chimney Rock: It’s a rock, that looks vaguely like a chimney, and is known because you ALL played Oregon Trail and stayed there.

30. Oregon Trail: See Chimney Rock

31. Willa Cather: I (BRT) knocked her down a tier because I think Song of the Lark sucks. But it’s not about Nebraska, and her most iconic Nebraska books, My Antonia and O Pioneers! are both terrific. Cather writes place as well as anyone, and we love us some lady farmer heroines.

32. Unicameral: It’s confusing, and passing bills is very different in this “non-partisan” one branch legislature, but you know what? It’s ours. George Norris (of TVA fame) spearheaded this good government measure to limit both spending and partisanship during the Depression. It has generally worked, but the recent influx of big money is testing its guardrails.

33. Weather: Jesse says that the weather in Nebraska should probably be somewhere buried in the Scott Frost tier, but you do get all four seasons and Fall is delightful as noted in the mailbag. So firmly in the Pelini tier!

34. Dorothy Lynch: “Endless Flavorabilities” has been the recent tagline for this salad dressing. It’s nice on salad, but they’re currently trying really hard to convince us that it’s good on everything. Here are some recipes, including one cryptically called “Dorothy Goes to Thailand Pasta Salad.”

35. Pioneer Village: This massive collection of 50,000 things (including way too many creepy mannequins) and 28 buildings might actually be a candidate for the tier below this, but it’s so kitschy and such a singular dream of one weird dude that I kind of love it.

36. Cliff’s Notes: Getting students through Shakespeare since 1958. Cliff was an upstanding citizen of Lincoln.

37. Offutt AFB: Home of Strategic Air Command, and known as the place where they flew Bush on 9/11.

38. Counties with populations under 1,000 people: 12/93 fit this criterion, if you were curious. The most of any state. Most of these counties are in the Sandhills.

Frost Tier: Kinda Embarrassing, TBH

Photo by Howard Lao/NCAA Photos via Getty Images

39. Lil’ Red: I will go to my grave hating Lil’ Red. (BRT, but honestly, all the writers sign off on this).

40. New Herbie: The university presumably paid some marketing firm a LOT of money to come up with this flea-bitten monstrosity. I know there are bigger things to be mad about in the world, but come ON. (DR: BRT’s description of this...thing...taught me what buccal fat is. That alone merits New Herbie’s doom.)

41. Smells like a feed lot sometimes: More often than one would consider ideal.

42. Kearney Archway: Guess what it turns out people zipping along I-80 don’t want to do? Pull off the interstate and pay $15/pop to go to a museum about the Oregon Trail. It is a dud.

43. Buffalo Bill: Wasn’t born here, but man did he own a lot of land, and boy was he hella lame. Speaking of which...

44. Ted Turner: This guy owns roughly 447k acres in the Sandhills because he raises Bison or something? I read that it’s 10% of the Bison living, which is kind of interesting. Still, he is as lame as Buffalo Bill.

45. Sharing a border with Iowa... specifically being stuck next to Council Bluffs.

46. And Kansas... although their roads are superior. The land of sunshine, sunflowers, and sonsabitches.

47. And South Dakota... which is pretty but an unspectacular state.

48. And the lame part of Colorado: I realize that each of these states probably don’t want to share a border with Nebraska either, but this is our piece dammit and we’ll say what we want. Come at us.

49. The inability to merge lanes: ZIPPER. MERGE. FOLKS. It’s not really a hard concept. There is not enough traffic in this state to have this many drivers who don’t understand basic concepts like merging. (this is 1000% Jesse’s beef and I will defend it to death)

50. Scott Frost: Is it meta to put Frost in his namesake tier? Maybe, but we’re still here to pile on because he should have been better and wasn’t and we are nothing if not a little petty.