This time the gamble paid off.

written as a free-write, stream of consciousness, journal for English 521 – Teaching Writing K-12.

I went to Seward’s new Chinese restaurant last weekend with a pair of my cohorts and I was a little nervous. I have said it before: you are taking a leap of faith when you enter into an unknown Chinese restaurant. It is on the short list of things I do that I actually regret later and reflect “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” This time the gamble paid off.

Seward has grown a great deal since I was last here – and paying attention to it. I came back for a job interview. I was not really interested in the job and my heart was not in it. Well, they were fifteen minutes late picking me up from the airport and that put their professionalism in question for me in such a profound way that I think I may have taken myself out of the interview process subconsciously.

Seward has grown a great deal since I was last here – and paying attention to it. I came back for a job interview. I was not really interested in the job and my heart was not in it. Well, they were fifteen minutes late picking me up from the airport and that put their professionalism in question for me in such a profound way that I think I may have taken myself out of the interview process subconsciously.

In looking at Seward and comparing it to how it used to be, there are many changes from when I was an undergraduate. The Chinese restaurant that my friends and I enjoyed – primarily for the low, low prices – is gone and so is the coffee house we never patronized, it is now the Chinese restaurant. The Plum Creek Café, which is a new establishment annually, is transforming into one of the local pizza pits and they are moving out of their older, charming building into this place where diners go to die. Personally, I do not want to own that restaurant, I want to be the contractor who goes in and remodels it every other year.

There is also the Plum Creek Death March, which makes a loop one fourth of the way around Seward passing the sewage treatment plant that looks eerily like one of the buildings on our campus in style and presentation – although we are sure the large domed tops of the building would have a collage on the by now – and the barbed wire is something we have not yet seen on campus, but expect shortly.

There is also a rash of newly built homes bringing urban-like sprawl to this tiny community. The cancer of ugly homes has metastasized to the rural areas as well. Is this rural sprawl? Should we fight this? The new super Wal Mart is surely a symptom of this phenomenon and next summer when I come back I would not be surprised to see some more of the local businesses dead and replaced by a CVS and Starbucks. Please, for the love of all I hold dear: Starbucks and CVS. I do not know how people live like this! They have the heat, the humidity, and the ode de pig in the evenings, all that and no Starbucks! There should be a federal program, UN intervention, or at least public outcry. University students have basic rights; one of those rights (under the UN Charter on University Student Rights) is the Right to Starbucks.

There was also a tiny Eastern Orthodox Church, and by tiny I mean, “your laundry room,” and if you do not have one to relate to then you have the idea. This building only stood out because it was yellow and the riot of color distracted me as I crossed Highway 34 last night. The roll up the sidewalks at six o’clock and I really should have been doing homework.

There are also changes, although not profound ones, on the campus where I am studying and was an undergraduate (who really did not study). Offices have moved around, the landscaping is nicer than it used to be and there are rabbits running around biting my ankles at every opportunity. I contend that these rabbits are plotting against me; Sarah just thinks I am crazy. Those rabbits have a taste for blood and when they are done with me they will not be satisfied, they will move on to someone else: you or someone you love.

I know these changes happened everywhere; it is just interesting to notice them in Seward. I have spent more consecutive time in Seward than any single place in the United States but most of the time I spent here as an undergraduate was wedged between Lincoln Street, Columbia Avenue, and Faculty Lane. I did not get into Seward as much as I perhaps should have. I spent my free time in Lincoln when I did chance upon free time.

Comments

[Margaret]

My town has morphed into a city and the housing developments are an epidemic. That has made the traffic hellacious and the countryside(farms and berry fields) is dieappearing. I would like to also state some "positive" changes--three Starbucks within a couple blocks of each other.

[Margaret]

disappearing! I need type check.

[Christopher]

I will not be satisfied until I have a Starbucks in my living room.

[Alex Vance]

You might not have a Starbucks handy, but you're smack dab in the middle of the Runza service area.