Holy cow, really? I grew up in--and my parents still live in--Hamilton County, right next to Hall County (where GI is). My mom used to work at a building just two blocks from the building in your first picture (which is still standing but no longer serves as the Court House, I believe). My folks still subscribe to the Indpendent, the newspaper which is published in the building in the foreground of the bottom picture. Growing up, the big thing for teens with a car to do on weekends was to cruise South Locust in GI. Yep, for us that was the big city. EDIT: By the way, Grand Island really IS an island...in the Platte River. Named by French Explorers. The river is now so depleted from irrigation that the name probably seems sarcastic but back in the day when it was over half a mile across in points, the Platte was a real impediment to transportation and travel.
I stand corrected: My mom grew up in Howard County, one county up. Born in Farwell on January 1st, living in Dannebrog for a few months until spring, then moving to the county seat of St. Paul (birth place and death place of baseball Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander, whom my mom remembers as the town drunk). But for my mom, Grand Island was also the Big City. I haven't been in St. Paul for forty years, but I remember how small it was compared to the booming metropolis of Galesburg, IL. I assumed based on those initial impression that GI must've been the county seat because St. Paul struck me as so rinky dink.
i was going though this town just a couple of days before xmas, many years ago... a kid got on and sat beside me... he was on his way to des moines. he'd never been to des moines, and he wasn't looking forward to it. nor had he ever been to omaha, and only a half-dozen times in his life to grand island, which he didn't think much of either. he came from some small town somewhere near there which was the only place he considered really suitable for habitation. but he'd bucked up his courage for the sojourn to des moines because he had just enlisted and it was there that he would be welcomed into the bosom of the US armed forces. and sent off for three years in korea. of which he was surprisingly far less apprehensive than of a couple of days in the fleshpots of des moines.
well my prediction for next year's edition is that i'm not going to miss out on all the fun! i'm bringing this war back home! we're bringing the war back home! where it ought to have been before, will kill all the bees and spiders and flies, and we won't play in iceboxes lying on their sides! we'll wash our hands after wee-wee, and if we're a girl before! and we'll march, march, march, et cetera, 'til we ain't gonna march no more!
as with all wars, if we don't fight them there, we'll have to fight them here. those are our only options. seriously...
Benghazi. Seems like that is where all the anger was going this season. Of course, Bill O' Reilly was claiming that he already won.