Bill chewing his cud
Posted by Bill Whitney on February 6, 2007 - 09:37 AM
As I take tentative first steps into the blogosphere I’m reminded of two bloggers from the past in Polk, Nebraska - Norris Alfred and Alice Wilson. Both were friends and were very important influences during the first years of Prairie Plains Resource Institute (Prairie Plains Journal #11, 1995, contained tributes to Norris and Jim and Alice Wilson). Since blog is a recent invention (derived from the two words “web log”) they wouldn’t have recognized the term, and admittedly today’s blogging isn’t exactly the same as running a letterpress newspaper. But, in principle it isn’t that much different from Ben Franklin tacking up a broadsheet in Boston or Philadelphia more than two hundred years ago. As one of the last raised-type newspaper printers Norris could appreciate Ben’s actions (I hope people still know that Ben Franklin was a writer, publisher and printer), for he was, writer and the publisher of the Polk Progress, a weekly small town paper that featured his forthright editorials, a meandering about the community called ”Polking Around,” a report on the previous week’s weather (always accurate!), an almost weekly column on birding along the Platte River, and touching obituaries and tributes to local residents he had known all his life. Alice contributed quite a volume of her poetry in the last few years of the Progress and in Norris’s final tabloid publication (also titled Polking Around) after the grind of the weekly paper finally became too much work. Norris and Alice wrote eloquently about the place they lived, about the great concerns of their time and the ageless questions of life. Norris hardly ever went anywhere due to the demands of writing and keeping the Linotypes operating well past their allotted time. Alice, on the other hand, along with husband Jim, although extremely well rooted in the Nebraska soil, were world travelers. Both transcended their place and time as they wrote with unique perspective and written styles about Polk and its people, or expressed their views concerning the present and future of Polk County or the world. They spoke for people everywhere (except in Norris’s case not always Republicans), but were rooted on the prairie.
I hope we can honor the memories of Norris and Alice through the vehicle of this Prairie Blog. In my opinion if our Great Plains communities are going to be adaptable in the future there needs to be more serious and genuine dialogue about our place – on nature, agriculture, and community economic and cultural development. Cultivating such a dialogue is part of Prairie Plains’s mission. We believe in carrying it out in a spirit of celebration and appreciation. Like Norris and Alice, we can celebrate the good things about where we are, be forthright in stating our principles, and encourage others to do the same. It is okay to disagree. It is not okay to not communicate. Communication needs to be concerned about the common good.
