Norfolk, Nebraska

 

I hit the jackpot in Norfolk—a Carnegie, a Statue of Liberty and the home town of Johnny Carson.  Though the welcoming sign to Norfolk didn’t announce itself as the “Home of Johnny Carson,” there was plenty of acknowledgement of his having grown up there, moving there at the age of eight from Iowa, where he was born.  

A huge eight-headed mural covered a wall in the center of town.

A few blocks away he was the featured attraction of the Elkhorn Valley Museum.  Unfortunately it wasn’t open so I was denied the pleasure of seeing a recreation of his Tonight Show set and an archive of his monologues, along with who knows what memorabilia.  Among the features of the museum is a tribute to his favorite teacher, Faye Gordon, who he brought on his show from time to time.

A mile from the museum, on a busy four-lane highway, the house he grew up in had a sign out front advertising itself as his home, even though someone lives there and is not open to the public except on special occasions when the owner lets visitors in.

A few blocks east was one of the schools he attended, across the street from Central Park and the Statue of Liberty.  Its plaque bore the usual message on these statues contributed by the Boy Scouts in 1950 on its fortieth anniversary.  It stated, “With the faith and courage of their forefathers who made possible the freedom of these United States the Boy Scouts of America dedicate this copy of the Statue of Liberty as a pledge of everlasting fidelity and loyalty.”

Halfway between Central Park and the museum was what had brought me to Norfolk, its Carnegie, presently vacant and with a “for lease” sign out front along with a sign for a candidate running for governor appended by the words “Trump supported.”  The library had hardly aged since it was built over a century ago and hadn’t been altered other than to have three large air-conditioners out back.  Another difference was a business across the street unknown a century ago—“AJ’s Screaming Tiki Tattoo and Body Piercing.”

It was my third Carnegie of the day, making up for the day before when I’d had none, forced back to the motel I’d stayed at the night before by fierce-some winds.  I knew after just a block that the gusting post-tornado winds that hit Kansas and parts of the region the previous day were impossible.  

As a sat in my motel room looking out the window watching the trees swaying in the wind and arrivals to the motel bent over with hair blowing in all directions, I checked to see if any of the Carnegies on my itinerary the next day would be open it being a Sunday. Under “hours open” each had the disclaimer “hours may change under current conditions” regarding that day’s hours. The spring weather certainly was in flux.  

It allowed me a relaxing day of reading, including a short book I found on-line on Nebraska’s Carnegies written in 1930 by Margaret Nesbit, a genuine Carnegie enthusiast.  She offered a strong counterpoint to those who accuse Carnegie of building libraries out of guilt for accumulating so much money at the expense of his workers.  Even before he became a man of wealth he said if he ever attained riches he’d like to build libraries, inspired by Colonel Anderson who opened his private library in Allegheny on Saturdays to working boys such as Carnegie.  Carnegie so respected him that he erected a statue to Anderson in front of the first library he funded in the US in Allegheny.  Nesbit quoted Carnegie as saying he did not wish to be known for what he had given, but for what he had induced others to give, and he indeed inspired others in small towns to fund a library for their community.

Nesbit’s book on the internet was a rough draft full of corrections:

Sunday was another windy day, but manageable.  I was heading east then north.  Weather.com reported the wind was blowing just under twenty miles an hour, half of the day before.  It was coming from the north and west, so it wasn’t entirely adversarial.  When a guy in a pickup truck waved me over I thought he might be offering a ride.  But he only wanted to talk.  The image of me on my loaded bike had struck a chord with him.  He wanted to hear about my travels and tell me about his.

He’d long had the desire to travel by bike but was now too old and “crippled up,” the same words a farmer in Iowa had earlier used to describe himself.  Back in the ‘70s he said he’d done quite a bit of hitchhiking, hobnobbing around the west.  “It was safer back then,” he said, “Plus I weighed 185 pounds and had a twenty-eight inch waist.  No one was going to mess with me.”

The Carnegie in Madison was right next to the new library, separated by an alley, and out of the book-lending business, though it was still graced by “Public Library” over its entrance and a plaque reading “A Tribute to Andrew Carnegie Donor of this Library 1912.”  It was now a government office—“Center for rural affairs.”    The new library had signs offering seeds and a program called “Muffins for Mothers.”

The Carnegie in Stanton, twenty-one miles away, advertised a Saturday Shredding, limiting patrons to four grocery bags each of items to be shredded.  The library wasn’t open, so I could only peer in, verifying it had retained its early-day aura not having been expanded.  The Carnegie portrait hung in the entry.

I had to turn west and angle north to Norfolk, directly into the wind, but by late afternoon it had lost some of its gusto.  My legs had a little bit of extra giddy-up in them after a day of rest earning me my first ninety-mile day of these travels.  I was going strong and looking forward to the next day when the wind would be dropping to five miles per hour and switching from the west to the east, just as I was turning west for a set of three more Carnegies.  Unfortunately, the stretch does not include the hometown of Dick Cavett, as it is in a sector of Nebraska near its southern border that these travels will not include.