The other day we had a couple hour gap between some appointments downtown. Since we needed our walk for the day, we decided to check out the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, campus. We’ve walked some of it before, but now we got a much fuller picture of the whole place.
We started at the edge of the campus, at a funny little breakfast place. I think we were the only ones there for most of the breakfast. They had some interesting waffles…
Across from the breakfast joint is the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church. The date on the cornerstone says 2015, so it’s not very old.
This entry way to the campus was well marked with banners.
I don’t claim to know much about the University. I just enjoyed looking at the architecture, so maybe you will too.
So here’s the first of MANY fraternity/sorority houses we saw:
The campus is an interesting mix of old and newer styles.
This building is right across from the one in the last picture…
When I was a kid, we played with Kenner’s construction sets. They consisted of girders you could snap together, then place panels on the outsides to make a finished structure. The panels all pretty much looked the same, so all buildings were very similar… and looked a lot like this one…
You might notice the old reflected in the new Kenner style building…
A glimpse of the Capitol building:
This place was getting refurbished.
There seems to be a Fraternity / Sorority district on campus.
Here you see three in a row, all sporting their Greek names.
Why do they all have Greek names, you ask? It seems the first Frat house in the U.S. was founded December 5, 1776, at the College of William & Mary. It was supposed to be a secret literary and debating society. The name was Phi Beta Kappa, standing for their secret motto: Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs, which as I’m sure you know, translates to “Love of learning is the guide of life.”
The Greek seemed to represent scholarship, ancient Greek ideals of friendship, honor, virtue and brotherhood, and besides all that… it sounded cool. And three letters were easy to put on lapel pins. So the next Frat used the same Greek alphabet, and the tradition was established.
The house below opened in 1925, and it claims they are “The first Greek letter fraternity known among women.”
Ok, some of them use only two Greek letters…
The stadium where the Huskers play is enormous and very well attended on game days. We didn’t make it to the main entrance; did that once before.
The library is enormous too.
When I was a kid, I built a very large, very detailed model of one of the world’s most beautiful cars… The Jaguar E-Type, or XKE in American parlance. I was very proud of it, but I have no idea whatever happened to it. (Did my folks sell it and use the money to buy a real car?) Over the last several years, when in hobby stores, I’ve looked to see if I could find one of those kits. Nope. Wait! There’s the internet! You can find anything! So I seeked and found the exact kit I built decades ago. Supposedly intact and unbuilt. What a trip! Crazy old guy spending a fortune to buy a bit of his childhood back!
When it arrived, it looked like I’d hoped, but really complicated! Did I really do this as a kid??
So I’ve set out to rebuild my favorite childhood model. I really hope all the parts are here! I’ll post progress periodically, but don’t expect haste. I plan to savor this assembly.
The other night we had a wonderful sunset, and this turns out to be the last picture taken before our new fence is going in! The posts were just set, and they should be connected to look like a fence next week!
PS: I saw this picture with an old joke on Facebook, but I liked it enough I’m stealing it and posting it here.
Thanks for the tour of the Nebraska University. Some of those buildings would not look foreign in England. I visited Ireland after living in Austria and Switzerland for a few decades. Dublin reminded me very forcefully of where my grandmother lived in Arlington (between La Sierra and Riverside). My favorite shop was the “Five and Ten Cent” store. In Dublin, there was one just like it, but called the “Five and Ten Pence” store. There is still a lot of British and Irish influence in American architecture.
Have fun with your model car! In Swiss German there is a saying “Bubi spiile, Bubi g’sund”. When the little boy in the man plays, the man is healthy. That’s not a literal translation, it’s what the saying means. Literally, “boy plays, boy’s healthy!”
My first impression of the “outstanding young lady” was that she looks a bit like how I remember Giny when we were young.