Steve Moseley

Well, it’s been a quiet season so far at York Westbound.

Fellow Prairie Home Companion/Garrison Keillor fans might sniff out a subtle reference to his iconic opening line: “Well, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, my hometown.” If you haven’t seen Keillor’s wonderfully quirky, live-on-stage commentaries from this imaginary small town, please do yourself a favor and google up a video or two.

My report today does not compare to his tales of the tiny, intimate community in the north woods. Quite the contrary, mine is composed of anecdotal experiences as a Nebraska Department of Tourism travel adviser on I-80 just a mile east of York at the westbound rest area. From there, we document from 200 to sometimes more than 300 visitors — where they are from and where they’re going — every single eight-hour shift. And the seat-of-the-pants survey is nowhere near the grand total on any given day. Not by half.

Our totals for June were 6,116 personal contacts of which 90 were international folks.

It occurs to me I-80 is something of a river, though admittedly less scenic than the North Fork. Remarkably, unlike our mutually beloved North Fork, our river defies gravity by raging by in both directions at the same time, only a grassy median to divide the torrent.

It’s like drinking from a fire hose of human beings as a howling, thundering rapid of trucks and RVs and vans and sedans and motorcycles roars through our midst 365 days a year, day and night in weather fair or foul.

Tiny people. Enormous people. Tattoos by the square foot. Every skin color known to God and man. Wildly different and captivating languages and accents. Young people. Incredibly old people. The cutest kids you ever saw. Profoundly crippled people. Intellectually challenged people. Approachable, friendly people. Scowling, surly people. Working people. Vacationing people. I love striking up conversation with them because, almost always, the reward is a great story.

Not all the tales are happy, but each is unique.

There was the guy a few weeks ago who had just driven down from Canada. The sun did not shine to his standards the whole way, which was proof positive — in his sad, conspiracy addled mind — that what he has read on the internet about the government manipulating the sun with mysterious and unnamed nefarious intent must, therefore, be true. It took three or four tries before I was able to break his rant and get him to stop and take a breath long enough for me to change the subject.

I chatted with a man who was traveling with his wife and a nest of teensy-tiny baby rabbits. Rescued from their yard just before departing on their journey west to Colorado, the kind couple just couldn’t leave them behind. Thus was something of a nurture nature on the road plan adopted. They had questions about newborn rabbit husbandry (eyes were not even open) I could not answer. But I dang sure knew who to call. Kathy Johnson is our area’s guru of critter rescue both domestic and wild. She answered on the second ring. I explained the situation, asked if she would coach these folks up, then handed my phone to the gentle traveler. They talked for a long while, he asking questions while furiously scribbling notes on paper I provided, then handed my phone back with relief and appreciation.

Stuff like that is fun.

It has been my great privilege to meet people who make their homes in Ecuador, Russia, England, Scandinavia, Ukraine, Canada, Alaska, Brazil, France, Kazakhstan, Guatemala, Mexico, Switzerland, Korea, Vietnam, El Salvador, Estonia and Columbia. Add to that a boatload of Canucks and you begin to see the international flavor of daily life; even in middle-of-nowhere Nebraska. And the season is nowhere near its end. A rich and wonderful blend of humanity is flowing, 24-7, right through our little town’s city limits. Anonymous, it hides in plain sight of locals, almost none of whom have a clue about the scale of this mammoth migration that knows no seasons.

I am likely naive, but I think this man-made phenomenon is a warm-fuzzy for our town, our county, our nation and is a diverse, fascinating culture we can fully embrace … if we are willing.