Steve Moseley

Following a few weeks absence from my hobby job at the tourism booth on I-80 at York to help Good Wife Norma through the first and worst of her stroke challenges, I am once again perched on the meet-and-greet stool a couple days a week through Labor Day.

This is year three for me as a Nebraska Tourism travel guide. I am one of four local retirees who welcome travelers with smiles and answers to their Nebraska questions from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. seven days a week beginning Memorial Day weekend.

Because GWN’s recovery has been remarkable, she released me from 24-7 caregiver status. So, I am greeting the world again. And by world, I mean the entire globe.

Earlier this season in the weeks before GWN required my full attention, I spoke with folks from Taiwan, Thailand, Panama, Ukraine, Puerto Rico, Australia, Italy, Canada and other nations I neglected to jot down. Last year, I had a marvelous chat with some fellas touring the USA from their homeland of Mongolia. Yes, Mongolia. I’m not aware of any Tibetan monks from the high Himalayas, but I would not be surprised to learn one or two tethered their yaks under one of my trees, strolled in to use the potty and slipped out again into the westbound lanes while I was lunching in the truck, air conditioner and classic rock both cranked way up.

I wondered aloud about this next question in a column last year and I remain curious today: I wish I knew how many of my fellow Cornhuskers truly grasp the incredible volume and diversity of people who stop to visit on their voyage across our ocean of corn. Could my Wyoming friends ever be expected to truly comprehend how many times more such folks converge upon Yellowstone?

Take my word, it’s staggering, even here in tragically mountain and ocean deprived New-Brass-Key. I know this because I chat ‘em up. I am helpless to resist. My dad once said, “Son, if BS was music you’d be a brass band.” The decades since his proclamation has proven him entirely correct.

Frequently, when I hear someone who doesn’t sound at all like me, I will ask, “Hello, where do you live?” Sometimes it’s exotic France or some place similar, but often as not their answer is a town or city in this country, Des Moines or perhaps Detroit. I follow, asking, “Yeah, but where did you get that fascinating accent? I bet that doesn’t come from Des Moines or Detroit.”

This genuine and sincerely offered interest in who they are and where they came from earns me a big smile every time. That’s when the pride in their own heritage — their story if you will — comes tumbling out, if only briefly.

I enjoy hearing about them. I ask a question or two. We chat.

What always comes last is my hopeless, but none-the-less intentional blow against the unapologetic racism and intentional cruelty to which our country has devolved … to our proud forefathers’ eternal shame.

I make sure each one of them can see my warm smile while hearing my voice say, “Welcome to America. We’re glad to have you.”

Well, most of us, anyway.