The Bryan Bridge Over The Niobrara River In Northcentral Nebraska

   North-central Nebraska is comprised of seemingly endless miles of low-rolling grass-covered sand hills (not dunes - they are known as the Nebraska Sand Hills, get that right) interrupted by valleys and canyons and a large variety of wetlands which include small lakes, streams and marshes. Those wetlands are there due to the Ogallala aquifer, one of the world's largest freshwater aquifers*.

   There is also a fairly long river flowing from eastern Wyoming / western Nebraska east to the Missouri river at the junction of Nebraska and South Dakota. This is the Niobrara river, and most of the water in that river also springs (yeah, that was intentional) from the Ogallala aquifer.

   While the river is considered low-flow, and there are places where it's barely a shallow stream, it does need to be spanned by bridges in several areas. One of those areas is just south of Valentine, Nebraska, along U.S route 20 (considered state highway 20 in Nebraska)*. 

   In the early 1930's a pin-connected steel truss cantilever arch bridge* was built over the Niobrara river in an area now known as the Niobrara National Scenic River*. The bridge was designed by Josef Sorkin of the State of Nebraska's Division of Bridge Design, who (when interviewed by the National Register of Historic Places representative) stated that he chose that specific design for that specific spot because it was aesthetically pleasing, blended in well with the surroundings, and was economically sound for the building site (not his exact words, but, you know, paraphrasing).

   The bridge was selected by the American Institute of Steel Construction as the Most Beautiful Steel Bridge in Class C (Class C means the bridge cost less than $250,000 to build) for the year 1932.

   It is indeed a beautiful bridge IMHO, and served the community well as the primary span over the Niobrara river in that location along route 20 for 65 years, until it was replaced by a less attractive bridge along a rerouted section of route 20 approximately 2,000 feet to the north in June of 1997.

That is a seriously attractive Art Deco / Arts & Crafts font used on that plaque

    The less attractive bridge that replaced the Bryan bridge for everyday use along a rerouted route 20

    The span - notice where the two cantilevered arches meet in the middle held in place by a single pin.

                                 The Niobrara river, view from the bridge looking west

                Twenty U.S. tons...that's still the current fully loaded legal weight for 53 foot trailers.

   The Bryan bridge was named after the then sitting Governor of Nebraska, Charles W. Bryan - a nice tribute to a man who had the responsibility of leading the state during the early years of the great depression (1931 - 1935) and managed to reduce taxes, limit state spending, and still see the economy flourish.

   The section of what was once state route 20 that the Bryan Bridge is located along is now known as River Road, and can still be used to drive across the river.

* There is a lot that can be written about aquifers, but I'm trying to stay on topic here, so you'll have to look it up yourself.

*There is a lot that can be written about U.S. route 20, but I'm trying to stay on topic here, so you'll have to look it up yourself. 

    

*There is a lot that can be written about steel truss cantilever arch bridges , but I'm trying to stay on topic here, so you'll have to look it up yourself. 

*I'm going to assume you're catching what I'm dropping by now.

The Best Happens Best When You Make It Happen

    Today, this very day, may be one that you single out as a fond memory at some point in the far, far future.

    People single out specific periods of time when they wax nostalgic primarily because those times were good - not everyone though, some people seem to like dwelling on the bad ol' days for whatever reasons.

   Me, I'm one of those who enjoy recalling the best of times, as I'd rather smile than frown while reminiscing.

   That right there is what keeps me going to events I find exciting and visiting places of interest. It's what keeps me developing relationships with people and undertaking new and intriguing endeavors.

    Because I do not want to become an 85 year-old broken-down curmudgeon who sits around and cannot recall anything but a past of dull days that repeat each other ad infinitum.

  

The Samuel Bak Museum: Learning Center, University Of Nebraska At Omaha

    A couple of months ago I was once again in Omaha, Nebraska. This trip was more for pleasure than business, and it being such I was able to visit a few of the museums in the city. 

   The one I visited that made the biggest impression on me more than any since my first visit to the Louvre was the Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center, located at 2289 South 67th street in the very heart of Omaha. 

   Samuel Bak's art is striking for far more than his skill and ability as a painter, or even his incredible capacity to project mood and sentiment on a two dimensional canvas. The sum of his physical, emotional and mental capabilities far exceed the whole, and there is a readily understandable reason for that.

   His life's experiences, what he has had to endure, survive, and finally thrive in spite of. It's flat out beyond the ken.

   Samuel Bak is a 93-year old survivor of the Holocaust. He was born in 1933 in what was then known as the city of Wilno, Poland, but had been known previous to WWI as the city of Vilnius, Lithuania, and by 1939 was again known as Vilnius, Lithuania.  

   In 1941, when the Nazi army rolled into Vilnius, he and his family were evicted from their home and ordered to live in the Vilna Ghetto, a small area in the old Jewish quarter of Vilnius. 

   Samuel had been known for his talent as an artist since early childhood, and at the age of nine while living in the Vilna Ghetto, the first exhibition of his work was produced.

   The Nazi's had quartered a reported 12,000 people into the Vilna Ghetto, an area that had formerly housed 4,000 people, with the expectation that the overcrowding would result in unsanitary living conditions that would result in easily spread diseases and illnesses that would eventually decimate the population.

   They were half right. Illness and disease did indeed kill upwards of half the inhabitants of the Vilna Ghetto, but that did not satisfy the Nazi régime. When it was determined by the Nazi leadership that only the most skilled workers would be spared to be used as slave laborers, the extermination of the remaining Jews began in earnest with a reported 3,000 Jews killed on November 5th of 1941 alone.    

   By 1943, when it was becoming apparent that the Nazis were beginning to lose the war, the last of the dwindling Jewish population in the Vilna Ghetto sensed that the end for everyone was near. Young Samuel Bak was chosen by two Jewish elders to become the guardian of the Pinkas (the official record of the Jewish community) with the hope that Young Samuel and the record would somehow survive the war.

   Samuel Bak and his mother found refuge in a Benedictine convent with the assistance of Maria Mikulska, a Catholic nun. Despite her courageous efforts however, Samuel and his mother were both soon deported to a forced labor camp, from which they eventually were able to escape and again find shelter at the Benedictine convent, where they were able to stay until the liberation of Vilnius by the Red Army in July of 1944. 

   The Jewish population of Vilnius before the Holocaust has been estimated at 60,000 to 80,000. The number that survived the war, including Samuel Bak and his mother, is placed at 250. Even today, in a city that numbers over 600,000 inhabitants, the Jewish population is less than 1,000.

    The Jerusalem of Lithuania has truly never recovered.

   That Samuel Bak and his mother survived the Holocaust is incredible. The following years, when they went from resettlement in Poland to the American-occupied zone of Germany then to Israel, is another extraordinary tale. Suffice to state that Samuel Bak learned how to survive in the very belly of the beast.

    Eventually, after art studies at both the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and the École Nationale Superieure Des Beaux-Arts in Paris, then residing for various lengths of time in Italy, France, Switzerland and Israel, Samuel Bak and his wife moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1993 and have become naturalized U.S. citizens.

   He continues to paint and educate to this day. Here are a few pictures of his works that are on display at the Samuel Bak Museum: The Learning Center. 

                                 Target Revisited, 1996 Oil on Linen approx. 63 X 78 inches

Close by, 2015 Oil on Canvas approx. 30 X 40 inches

Icon of Loss, Identity, 2008 Oil on Canvas approx. 48 X 60 inches

                       After the Outcome of Peace, 2013 Oil on Canvas approx. 24 X 36

Composition With Banana In F Minor (Between Gray & Highly Tinted)

 

   He got his hands around the throat

                    The fat bloated mid-afternoon three-cocktail-hour lunch throat

                    Of the persuaders that decided the public wanted good looks

                    Far more than they wanted quality or efficient performance

                                                   No one wanted to think anymore

                                                   Therefore they weren't

So they repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated and repeated 

             The message

                    And the message was, "This will fulfill your wants and needs"

So buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it

             Until your wallet bleeds

Andrew's style came of age 

                When the style over substance transition was engaged

While creating art for a living wage 

           He drew inspiration from the comics page

The galleries decried what he was doing was better done by Roy and Blake

       Muriel playfully suggested he should just print his own money 

                   Proclaim his love of currency is solely for arts sake

                                  He had learned the art of emotional manipulation 

                                  At the feet of the New York mad ad men

                            His muse was lucre then

                                   Floriano taught him how to screen

   

                                            When galleries declared his banknotes as worthless

                               While sipping soup he decided to try his luck in Los Angeles 

            Where his cans-vases met with disdain and he was proclaimed recusant

                               Which he relished as those words translated as original

                                            And no one was confusing him for Rembrandt

                                          A December show in Cali but still the critics squealed

                      So like a white Christmas in SoCal that show was cancelled 

                           The blow was softened however when ten canvases were sold

                   Nothing screamed success better than when the coffers swelled

           So he screened and screened and screened and screened and screened

                                                                                      Marilyn and Elvis

                And the reaction was, "This is fulfilling our wants and needs"             

     So they bought them, bought them, bought them, bought them, bought them

                                              He opened up a factory with the proceeds

                                                          He set his mind on the minimalist approach

               The dry dramatic middle class grey-three-piece wool suit approach 

               Of the seekers of the publicly acceptable but avante garde images

                     Far more for the association with decadence than appreciation   

                                                  No one wanted to feel anymore

                                                                   Therefore they didn't

                                                  

 

                                                   

  

The Indicators

She never imagined the relationship could turn violent

Much like that of her parents

It crushed her when she realised that she was just like her mother

And the man she had married was so much like her father

They fought and it felt like she was reliving her childhood

Watching them fight over matters little and matters large

Neither of them capable of apologizing or expressing regret

For words screamed in anger or actions taken with bad intent

Just like her, just like him

Those promises she made that she wouldn't let it happen

She couldn't, wouldn't believe she had ended up like this

Staring into a mirror with her face (and life) a mess

The Tree Fell & Everybody Heard It

 

Last Night I Dreamed Of Snakes

 Rarely do I remember a dream this distinctly.

In the dream I was standing in a street - just off the sidewalk a foot or so, not in the center of the street.

And I was watching a large snake, maybe six feet long and about as thick as a spray paint can, crawling it's way up the sidewalk with what looked like a pastry in it's mouth - like, a maple bar or some such treat.

I watched as the snake crawled up to a patch of grass at the end of the sidewalk and joined three other snakes that were also holding pastries in their mouths.

All four of the snakes were about the same size, and they were lined up parallel to one another as if in some snake military formation.

As I looked at the snakes one of them dropped the pastry that it was holding and looked over to me and said, "These pastries are not yours, they are ours."

And that was it, the whole dream that I had last night, or at least what I recalled with an odd clarity when I woke up this morning.