I like to drive, and Nebraska gives you plenty of opportunities. The state’s best road trip might be up the old Oregon Trail, past Chimney Rock to Scotts Bluff.

If you are curious about how many local journalists it takes to change a lightbulb, the answer might surprise you. Let’s just say, if you happened to find a typo in this week’s newspaper, the reason is simple: We were reading the pages in the dark.

There’s an old saying about government: “It’s not that ‘what is said isn’t so,’ it’s ‘what is so isn’t said.’”

If you have ever spent an extended amount of time hospitalized, or really any time in a hospital at all, there is one thing that you can quickly become an expert on. Jell- O.

As I sit down to write this column, my tomatoes have finally met with a hard freeze and the cannas we plant in the local park are giving up their red-topped glory. It was one, long fall in my section of southeast Nebraska, with lots of warm days and, only recently, a couple of cold snaps.

There’s a game of musical chairs going on at the state capitol, and who gets a chair is in question. Last week, former State Senator Tom Briese of Albion announced his resignation as state treasurer.

I recently heard some rumblings that there were some new residents spotted in my neighborhood.

Nebraska is cattle country. We used to be known as “The Beef State”—a nickname I always liked.

I almost made it. I could have hit the gas and sped through the crossing, but I knew that if I did there was always a chance I didn’t make it in time.

There’s an old saying about government: “What is said isn’t so, it’s what is so isn’t said.” So that means that someone—maybe a state auditor, maybe a whistleblower, but often a news reporter— needs to dig in and find out what is really happening with our tax dollars.