Post 1319: Happy 150th Birthday!

It happens once in a lifetime. Today is Nebraska’s sesquicentennial! Admitted to the Union on March 1, 1867, Nebraska was the 37th state in the United States of America.

Today, Andy and Dougy take a break from kittycattery and mayhem to salute and celebrate the state where they were born on July 1, 2011, Nebraska. Most Nebraskans don’t know there is an official state song, but Andy and Dougy do, and they will meow along with you while we sing “Beautiful Nebraska”:

The vast majority of our readers won’t know that the Western Meadowlark is our state bird, and the prairie is alive during their breeding season with their lusty, lilting song, often sung from a fence post for best projection to any Western Meadowlark hens that might be around to hear. (This one sang in Wyoming, but sounds to my ear like in a dialect closest to what I hear next door in Western Nebraska. Just saying…~!)

Wow! That song got Andy and Dougy wound up! But they are dyed in the wool Nebraskans. They even stand at attention and meow along when they hear the unofficial state song, the University of Nebraska Fight Song:

Geez! They’re bouncing off the ceiling after that rousing tune! “There is no place like Nebraska…meow-meooow!”

There is historic Nebraska, a prairie state populated by people from Germany, Bohemia, Czarist Russia, Italy, England, and people like mine, from Scotland and states east like Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia, among other places. They came to build railroads to the West Coast, then to populate fertile farmland along the line that was free under terms of the Homestead Act, then the Kincaid Act, which helped turn the Nebraska Sandhills into a prime cattle-producing region of the United States.

But Nebraska is much more than that. There are two videos below. One is short, and the second one lasts over 45 minutes, in case you are really, really, really curious about where the kitty boys and I live.

Yes, the kitty boys and I are very proud to call ourselves Nebraskans on this, her 150th Birthday!

Nebraska’s flag: Long may she wave, at least until someone finally designs one that doesn’t get rated 2nd worst of all state flags by vexillogists:

nebraska-flag

As Andy and Dougy put it, “Meow!”

Uh oh...DOUGY!

“Meow up for Nebraska, Dougy!”

 

 

46 thoughts on “Post 1319: Happy 150th Birthday!”

    • Not really, though they did get kitty treats after Andy got his medicine. They do get albacore on their birthdays and Christmas. Actually, they like the tuna water more than the fish, but it’s human quality fish, so I help them with most of that.

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        • They are my little buddies, and I take seriously the responsibility of caring for their needs.

          My first two kitties, Freckles and Louie, were shelter cats, toss away kitties there because of human negligence. They were such delightful creatures and did nothing in life to deserve rotten treatment but get stuck initially with[people who didn’t care enough for their pets than to let them roam.

          Freckles mother wasn’t neutered, of course, and when she had her litter, the negligent owners didn’t find homes for all her kittens. They were tossed away to the shelter, where Freckles came home with me, but her short-haired grey brother most likely was euthanized because he was less socialized. (“You don’t want that one,” they animal control officer told me, a first time kitty person, “He’s pretty wild….” Then his sister Freckles, a very sweet little tabby was pointed out as a better match for me.)

          Louie was neutered, but he didn’t have a collar or a microchip when he. was picked up roaming. He was a beautiful ginger with tons tabby personality and a loving nature. He should have been in someone’s home being loved and cared for, but no one ever came looing for him at the shelter. The whole time I had him, I thought, “This kitty is so delightful, someone’s going to come round some day and say, “That’s my cat and I want him back!” Never happened, and I was blessed to have him, if only a short 22 months. He died of lymphoma. His death lead to me being given Andy and Dougy or I would have gone to the shelter again for two kitties.

          All that said, I strongly support spaying and neutering pets, making sure they are safe and secure inside, microchipping them, and finding pets in shelters instead of with breeders or in pet stores They are sentient creature, dependent on the goodness of those who have them.

          Sorry for the sermon! I just learned that on the people who comments here often, Fran Hunne, lost her cat FunTom a couple days ago. She noted she’s going to replace FunTom with another shelter cat. Kessy, her o her kitty, and FunTom both were/are shelter cats. I know Fran Hunne also believes very strongly in what I wrote above, and we, as people who work to be responsible cat owners, encourage others to join us in these basic principles of pet ownership.

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  2. Liked your short video of Nebraska, can’t watch the long one for now. Also liked the western meadowlark song. The boys are obviously loyal Nebraskans along with you. Happy 150th to you all.

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    • The short one is more than adequate to show you what it’s like here, and the long one is more of the same in greater detail. Don’t worry about watching it as you won’t miss out on the point of the post.

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  4. Happy Birthday to your beautiful state. I have never been to that part of the country, but the photos you have posted over the years have been nice.

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    • I didn’t expect many people to be familiar with it, which is why I created a link to the Wikipedia entry for it. It is, in fact, an interesting field, and I’ve never been able to look at flags since without judging them by the points the vexillogists use. I think it would be possible to condense them down to one point, “a child can draw it accurately without a reference”.

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  9. Happy Sesquicentennial, furry and non-furry Nebraskans! You do live in a beautiful state. I don’t have time just now to watch all the videos, but no mention of the state’s best known writer, Willa Cather? Her novels made me curious to visit the state, and I am glad I followed through on that curiosity.

    Back in Minnesota, we had a neighbor who proudly flew the Cornhusker flag in front of his house. This was a gutsy move, since most of the residents are Gophers, graduates or fans of the University of Minnesota. I admired his loyalty though, considering how many Gopher fans would badmouth their team when the season was going badly. 🙂

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    • Yes, Willa Cather is a favorite of mine, and probably is the best known of several I personally like. Marie Sandoz, whose biography of her father (“Old Jules”) tells of a land finder – Old Jules – who helped new people locate land in the Sandhills to homestead on and who himself homesteaded there. here actually are quite a few people who made names for themselves writing, and here’s a list of a lot of them: nebraskaccess.ne.gov/nebraskaauthors.asp

      Bess Stre terr Aldrich isn’t on the list, though I think she was a charter member of the organization behind the list. She wrote sweet, low stress family-centered books that have a glow of a charming golden time that probably never existed. I enjoyed reading many of them! Not the gut, raw stuff of Cather’s or Sandoz’s works, but good summer read. ThoughCather is claimed s a Nebraska writer (certainly, her writings were influenced by her life in Nebraska), she and her family moved here from Virginia when she was 12. Sandoz was born in Nebraska. I think Aldrich was born in Iowa.

      Anyway, Husker an fit the definition of “fanatic” My late brother lived in a Northern California coastal village. He never missed a Husker game on television, wore Husker-branded clothes, and could tell you about virtually any game they played for decades. (I’m not a fan of American-style football, and even went to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, home of the Huskers. That makes me something as an anomaly in Nebraska!)

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  12. I’m so proud to have grown up in Nebraska. It had only one drawback for me. The state flower in the goldenrod and it is the plant that hits my allergies worse than any other. Ah-choo!

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