Good to know

Old Market, Omaha

July 7

It's Christmastime in the city

As my wife and I wandered Sunday night around Omaha's Old Market, a couple of things became clear.

That is, besides it being chilly.

OK, damn cold. It is December, and this is Nebraska.

Al fresco season is over until May, unless, of course, your name happens to be Alfonse Fresco. We've no intention of cheating Mr. Fresco out of a single day, which leads me to clarify that Al Fresco season would be the season for Al Fresco and not the season on Al Fresco.

It is a sign of the times that this has to be made clear.

Now, where was I?

Seasons, I believe. And wintertime in the Old Market, Omaha's favorite downtown spot for sidewalk dining and people watching.

The other thing what was clear as we walked down Howard Street -- apart from the unpleasant epiphany that I should have worn a coat, not a jacket, and that it might have been a good idea for my lovely bride to wear . . . socks -- is that Christmas is nigh.

Ho, ho, ho, y'all.

Merry Christmas!

The city drops into the night

Eight-ish o'clock, Sunday night.

The Mexican joint in the Old Market Passageway has just closed for the evening, and I am full of chips, cerveza and the No. 2 combination plate.

The swanky joint next door is closed on a slow night for dining out.

Omaha is sluggishly, reluctantly steeling itself for the end of the weekend and the start of another workweek. But it's even worse than that -- there's a city primary election Tuesday.

When did we come to dread elections? Sigh.

All is quiet on the downtown front.

They paved paradise

  No, we didn't save the Paramount Theatre.

Yes, we did raze it and put up an Allright parking lot in downtown Baton Rouge, which specializes in not knowing what it's got till it's gone.

(Advertisement image from Gris-Gris weekly, May 21, 1979)

Monday night at the CWS

Nothing to say here, move along . . . to the photos, which happen to be some random slices of life Monday evening at the College World Series here in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.

Getting the picture in the Age of Terror

It's summer in Omaha. And with the beginning of summer comes the College World Series, a fine way to spend a sultry evening in late June.

Added to the mix, starting next week, will be the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials at the CenturyLink Center Omaha, just across the street from TD Ameritrade Park downtown.

The CWS is Omaha's signature event, one that has become part of this Midwestern city's very being. It has come to symbolize what we all love most about amateur sports and about America's national pastime.

IT'S THE PICTURE Omaha wants to present to the country, and the one America wants to present to the world. Here, three of these pictures belong together.

Three of these pictures are kind of the same. Can you guess which one of these doesn't belong here?

Now, with apologies to Sesame Street, it's time to play our game.

Proceed.

SORRY for the blurriness of the picture that's not the same, the one immediately above. The sports Nazis of the NCAA won't let me bring my digital SLR with the long lenses into the stadium, and when you zoom in with an iPhone camera, you get what you get.

So let me tell you what you're seeing here. The Omaha policeman on the right is carrying what appears to be some permutation of an AR-15 -- an assault rifle. These officers are stationed right before you get to the ticket-takers, and you don't get more in plain sight than that.

It took me aback -- not that CWS security hasn't always been this heavy in our post-9/11 world, but that this year, in the era of ISIS and a week past Orlando, it seems to be more conspicuous  than ever. In your face, even.

I'm not faulting the local cops. I'm not questioning the security strategy. And I'm certainly not getting in the face of the cop with the military-grade firearm to get a better picture of his assault rifle. Besides, I look rather Mediterranean in this Age of Trump.

What I am saying is this is sad. Damned sad. It might be the right thing, but it is so, so wrong.

America's right-wing, gun-nut wingnuts don't want us to become just like those socialist "Euroweenies." Seen the security at the Euro soccer championships in France?

Looks to me like we just have.

Who needs Manhattan?

The Manhattan skyline is glorious, of course. But, all in all, I'll take Omaha and the big Nebraska sky.

July 3, Omaha, Nebraska

The pause that refreshes . . . then and now

Florida at Riverside Mall, Baton Rouge, La., May 1987.

Florida at Third, Baton Rouge, La., last week.

Third Street, Baton Rouge

 

Riverside Mall (Third Street),

Baton Rouge, La., circa 1981.

  

Third Street, Baton Rouge, La., circa Tuesday.

The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat

For the College World Series championship

last night, your final score is UCLA 8 . . .

 

Mississippi State 0

These colors don't run

LSU is gone from the College World Series, but Eunice, La., is in the house at the North Carolina-North Carolina State game Thursday.

Geaux Tigers!

CWS: The flow of humanity

As we saw oh this light I swear you, 
emerge blinking into to tell me it's alright . . .

As we soar walls, every siren is a symphony, 
and every tear's a waterfall, is a waterfall. . . .

-- Coldplay

Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city,
Linger on the sidewalk
where the neon signs are pretty
How can you lose?

The lights are much brighter there
You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares
So go downtown; things'll be great when you're
Downtown; no finer place for sure
Downtown everything's waiting for you

-- Petula Clark

7 can help . . . revive a landmark

 
Wow. Just wow.

In 1898, Burlington Station was built to make a big impression -- there was a world's fair going on in the young city on the Plains, and the message to Trans-Mississippi Exposition visitors was to be singular from the moment they stepped off the train.

Everything is up to date in Omaha.

A century and change later, steam locomotives have gone the way of  T. Rex (both the dinosaur and the band), and old Burlington Station has been something of a fossil itself. The last Burlington Northern passenger train pulled off into the sunset in 1971, and then-new Amtrak abandoned the depot in 1974 for much smaller, cheaper-to-maintain digs next door.

So there it has sat for almost 40 years . . . alone in its faded glory.

Likewise for the last four decades, Omahans have driven down 10th Street, glanced over from the viaduct and thought "Somebody really needs to do something with Burlington Station."

WEDNESDAY, somebody stepped up to do something with Burlington Station. KETV announced that a renovated Burlington would be the new, bigger and state-of-the-art home for Channel 7 in a couple of years.

Ariel Roblin, president and general manager of KETV, said Wednesday that the television station has been at 2665 Douglas St. for 50 years, a time of significant change for broadcasting. Station officials, looking for a larger, updated facility, considered several sites and were attracted by the chance to bring a historic building back to life while gaining more operating space.

The project represents a multimillion-dollar investment in Omaha, she said, but she declined to estimate the total cost.

“It allows us to move with the technology,” Roblin said. “We looked at all kinds of options, but this one really made sense to us because it exemplifies what we do. Bringing back an old building to something beautiful and used and honored is important to us.”
KETV's plan calls for restoring the building's exterior to its historic appearance, Roblin said, which may qualify for preservation tax credits, and installing the newest technology inside.“One of the things that rang the most true was everyone's memories of being in this building,” she said. “We haven't finalized the plans for the interior yet, but we do have in mind that there is probably going to be some area that people will be able to access so that they can experience what we've done and may take a trip down memory lane for themselves.”

The news operation would be on the building's first floor, with administration, advertising and other departments on the second floor. The site has ample parking. Roblin said plans for the 2665 Douglas property are uncertain.

Constructed in 1898 and extensively remodeled in 1930, the limestone and brick depot has been vacant, while the Union Station just to the north was restored and turned into the Durham Museum, housing historic Omaha artifacts and related exhibits.

WOW. Just wow.

Nebraska, explained

Sometimes, words are wholly insufficient in explaining a place and a people.

Sometimes, only art will do.


Consider this sculpture garden in downtown Omaha -- Pioneer Courage, it is called -- as good an explanation of this city, of this state, as any you will find in history texts.

When the white man fanned out across the Plains, as Willa Cather wrote in My Antonia, “There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.”

In 1854, the year Omaha was incorporated, there weren't even trees to be found on this vast prairie. The pioneers . . . the homesteaders planted them all.


I love this park. It's where the pioneers silently and eternally press on through our past -- and headlong into the future they bequeathed us.

Before, during, after

Here's the scene before Omaha's annual Independence Day fireworks show Saturday night at TD Ameritrade Park.

And here's what it looked like during the show.

Yep, still going.

Yep, still going. It's a big, big show.

And we all go home afterward. Happy

Fourth of July weekend, America.