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Visiting OmahaJanet Kuypers(journal entries compiled from her book “Changing Gears” for Janet Kuypers’ 2024 CyberWit.net book “The Universe is in your Hands”) I don’t know how many times I’ve driven to Omaha to visit by friend Doug. Once I even brought him a Chicago Giordano’s deep-dish pizza because, well, back in the day you couldn’t order a frozen deep-dish pizza for delivery across the States from the Internet, and his argument to me for it was that he “needed the protein,” and really, how could I refuse. Doug told us once while we were at dinner that people from Omaha refer to their town as “The Big O.” I didn’t know if he was teasing me or not, but when I hear “The Big O,” I think of something entirely different... Once he took us around the warehouse district of Omaha, which is right near downtown. There are huge gorgeous warehouses along this one strip, and now most of them are being converted into lofts. I’d say this is my favorite part of town, because it has style, dare I say a touch of culture. (I tried to explain that to Chicagoans when I got back from my first trip to Omaha, but no one believed me.) There are retro shops, cool bars and restaurants, art stores, a store of Russian knick-knacks, new age stores and even a wine bar. (At the time, there was only one wine bar in Chicago that I know of.) There’s also a grotto in the basement of one building — a stone alcove with three fountains of sculpted bronze heads on 6-foot-tall stone pedestals spitting into the small pond on the ground near a concrete bench. The grotto was so cool in town, and every time I visited Omaha, I made a point of visiting the grotto. The first time I saw it I decided I wanted a grotto in my home. (Okay, I’d settle for a fountain.) ...The last time we went to visit the grotto, there was a locked gate blocking the entrance to the grotto, so we could only look at the spitting statues through bars. The host of the restaurant across the hall from the grotto told us that vandals kept stealing the heads, so they had to lock the grotto off for safe keeping. I thought that was so sad — and pathetic. (And all I could think is that some high school kids in Omaha were using the grotto fountainheads as a big bong or something...) Another thing beautiful destroyed. Why people have to destroy something so many could enjoy, I’ll never understand. As we left Omaha from one of our more recent visits, we were driving west across Nebraska along the expressway toward North Platte, and I saw tons of cows and feed lots and the like, and then I look over and something that looked like a camel was just walking along the side of the expressway. I tried to see why on earth there was a llama on the side of the road at this little farm, but found no answers. Then again, when I visit here, I encounter a lot I don’t expect... and that makes me smile.
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