By Todd Cooper
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
Finally, Nebraskans and Iowans have a place (besides the casinos) to come together, hold hands and celebrate all that is Iowaska or Nebriowa or Iobraska or, well, never mind. You never truly understand the brilliance of Linoma Beach or Brangelina until you try in vain to combine two names.
Park officials — apparently seeking to bridge the divisions between Iowa and Nebraska, east and west, stay-at-home gamblers and migrant ones, states with clothed wrestlers and those without — recently decided to mark the line where the two states come together.
They commissioned Colorado artist Andy Dufford to sandblast a line and the words “Iowa” and “Nebraska” on the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge.
With the help of a surveyor, Dufford placed the line at the exact point where Iowa and Nebraska meet — a line heretofore uncharted by anyone other than American Indians, Lewis and Clark and dudes with motorboats.
Park administrators began contemplating how to pull off the $2,304 project — which came out of the $23 million in federal funding for the bridge — more than a year ago. In a series of discussions, they weighed how big to make the line, what kind of lettering to use, whether to have both states’ names printed in the same direction or in opposite directions, how to make it last longer than parking-lot paint.
But the issues weren’t just about aesthetics.
Though officials don’t allow couples to block off the bridge for weddings, one couple wanted to know where the line was so they could make sure their nuptials were held in the state in which they obtained their marriage license. (An issue that becomes particularly relevant for gay couples.)
Though both Omaha and Council Bluffs police can respond to emergencies on the bridge, authorities wanted to know where the line was so they would know which city or county would handle prosecuting would-be bridge thugs.
And Omaha officials wanted to know where the line was so they could put up a tollbooth.
OK, so we made that last one up. There will be no toll for incoming Iowans — no matter how much Nebraska needs the money.
And besides, the line is a uniting line, not a dividing line — a line that puts the unity in community, a line that tells us we have more in common than corn, an unending obsession with the weather and a fondness for the sophisticated musings of Larry the Cable Guy.
“I’ve been amazed at how many people stop at that line,” said Larry Foster, current Council Bluffs and former Omaha parks director. “You see people stooping over and taking pictures of it. I think it’s really neat. That bridge continues to amaze. It’s so many things to so many people.”
And that line is sure to spark many deep thoughts in so many people — some of them profound reflections on the bridges that bind and the schisms that divide us. Others, well, not so much.
“It’s no pit bulls on this side,” Foster said from his Council Bluffs perch, “and pit bulls on that side.”
