January 2013

By Bradley Bereitschaft

Having arrived in Omaha just six months ago, the city and I are still engaged in what I like to call the honeymoon phase. As so happens when getting to know a potential life partner, I have already begun to appreciate some traits more than others.

When interviewing for the position that ultimately brought me to the “Big O,” one of the first places I was introduced to was the Old Market. I can’t imagine a better place to showcase Omaha’s budding urban vitality.

By Connie Reimers-Hild, Ph.D., CPC

After my mom’s unexpected passing two years ago, I received a mini-book on grief from the pastor of my church. The book, “Grief … Reminders for Healing” by Gale Massey, was perfect! I could read it quickly and easily when I needed help dealing with Mom’s death. I also gave a copy to Dad, who found himself suddenly struggling with being a widower after 45 years of marriage.

I began writing as well, a bit of therapy to deal with Mom’s death. The result: my forthcoming book, “Go Wild with Confidence!” My goal was to publish a book designed to help others as much as Gale Massey’s book helped me.

As a researcher and coach in the areas of leadership and innovation, I noticed one issue my clients struggle with most: confidence. Many people have great ideas and a wonderful sense of what they want to do with their lives, but they lack the confidence and inner strength that enables them to move in the right direction. It has taken me over a decade of research focused on leading innovation, entrepreneurial individuals and major life events to understand the significance of focusing on strengthening what I call the Inner Leader. I do not want it to take so long for others to come to this realization. It is my greatest hope that a piece of my work can help you tap into the essence of yourself—your Inner Leader.

By William Beachly

After emerging from Otter Canyon, we cross the Niobrara, heading north, and pass Carl’s pickup headed south. We do a “Huey” and catch up with him at his ranch, where an interesting ensemble of antique vehicles peek out from clumps of sunflowers and hemp. He knows we are interested in some pictures over the river and leads us up a sandy road that climbs the high, rounded shoulders of the north bank, offering an excellent view to the west. One cloud in particular doesn’t look like a regular cloud, as it rises directly from the ground and is “anviling” like a thunderhead. It is a cloud of smoke.

By Benjamin Vogt

I’d intended to go to the opening celebration for Union Plaza, our new downtown park in Lincoln, Neb., last September, but was not able to attend. Instead, I visited a few weeks later, ready to have my breath taken away after seeing it from the O Street bridge—a real, bona fide park in downtown Lincoln. Fantastic. But stepping out of my car I was surrounded by concrete. There was a lot of concrete ahead of me and, if I squinted just right, I could almost make out some green in the distance. It was an auspicious start.

I walked the paths made wide enough for strolling families and passing bicyclists—the latter is what I have most experienced here, a safe thoroughfare for two-wheeled pedestrians. Union Plaza is rather dull and lifeless, cold and industrial. A few modest planting beds grace the margins and will some day fill in, but the expanse of drought-tolerant native buffalo grass leave much to be desired. There’s no nature here. No reason to visit. No reason to stay. Granted, this may not be a sunken garden, but it sure isn’t a park; it especially isn’t the prairie, as tiled murals along the west walls would like to suggest.

Review by Christine C. Pappas

“Artifacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley”
Edited and with an introduction by Tom Lynch and Susan N. Maher
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press

Who was Loren Eiseley? He was a mental time traveler, a scientific shaman who wrote in essays and poems. In his personal and professional life he lived between worlds: human or animal; artist or scientist? The essays in the volume “Artifacts and Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley” (edited by Tom Lynch and Susan N. Maher and published by the University of Nebraska Press) finally may provide basic insight into Eiseley that will allow his readers to break the code that has been surrounding his works for 40 years. Lynch is an associate professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Maher is the dean of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. The University of Nebraska Press has been instrumental in keeping Eiseley’s books in print and offering them with new intro- ductions. Hopefully this new volume will spur more Eiseley scholarship on the themes they begin to develop.