I admit when my parents moved my brother and I to Rockville NE from Grand Island, in my mind we were going back in time. Why did my folks think leaving the town I knew so well and all of my friends at Jefferson Elementary was a good thing? We had no clue how to raise animals, let alone grow stuff. I guess in some small way, I felt like the pioneers on the Oregon Trail. It would be an adventure!
My first day at school in Loup City, I was in the sixth grade. It was a much smaller class and here I come in, wearing my David Cassidy t shirt and my Mrs Magoo thick lensed glasses. I felt doomed. I was so shy back then, and talk about a nerd. All eyes were on me and all I wanted to do was crawl under a desk and cry. Let me say, I felt like a real outsider, and i was. It wasn’t until I made it to high school that I came into my own. Thanks to Mr. Gerald Oswald. He caught me reading a sign up sheet for the speech team. “Put your name up there, Renae.” he said. “Me?” I almost started crying, when he put his hand on my shoulder and told me I might really enjoy it, and it was something big to be on the Loup City Speech Team. Eureka!!! And that was the beginning of four of the best years of my high school days.
I cherish the many memories during high school, and the friends I made in that time. Mrs. Francis Glinsmann, I owe her a lot, too. She was not only our Home Ec teacher, but also the 4H leader in Rockville. She would come to my home, pick me up and take me out to her family farm outside of Rockville. She taught me how to sew clothing for the fair competitions, and for my own wardrobe. She was so kind.
The life of a rural teen in our area was filled with hard work, followed by adventures in the country. Trips to Sherman Dam, parties in pastures, and trying to not get busted by the cops. Some of those stories will go to my grave with me. I am, however, very proud of where I come from. I might not be Polish, but I have been made an honorary Polish member, I think because I used to have a Polka show years back and loved every bouncing second of it. It’s a part of me.
I want to express my gratefulness to everyone I grew up with and thanks to my parents, who still live in Rockville, by the way, for bringing me to the “foreign land of Sherman County. I will end this blog with a line from one of my favorite books by Willa Cather (A Red Cloud NE native and author). My Ántonia is the unforgettable story of Ántonia Shimerda. The novel fictionalizes Willa Cather’s (the author’s) youth in rural Nebraska. The book begins with the epigraph, “Optima dies…prima fugit” – Virgil. Translated from Latin, this means “the best days are the first to flee.” Boy, isn’t that the truth!