Sometimes the best things take time

One of my favorite comic strips is Calvin and Hobbes, featuring a little boy and his stuffed cat.

Calvin always had a vivid imagination, which led to some interesting and very insightful comments about everyday life.

In just a single, simple frame, the comic strip makes a lasting comment about our expectation for instant gratification these days.

In the image, Calvin laments how long it will take to cook his food. “Six minutes to microwave this?? Who’s got time for that?”

His dad just rolls his eyes.

We are all guilty of wanting things right now.

We want to lose weight on the first day of our diet, even though we gained weight slowly.

We want to play an instrument today, even though we haven’t put in the months and years of practice.

We want to have a retirement account, even though we aren’t willing to save each month.

With everything available at our fingertips from movies to food, we have become a society that expects something to happen immediately. We can access information instantaneously so we expect the same of everything in our lives.

But in reality, the best things in life take time, take perseverance, and take patience.

And a perfect example of this happened this week in McCook.

Nine years ago, Linda Graff had just wrapped up her daughter’s wedding in McCook. She had utilized the parking lot between the Keystone and the Fox Theater, as well as the Fox for movies for the kids and the Keystone for the dance.

It was a great example of using all those spaces together for a beautiful wedding and reception, but she realized it could be so much more. She conceived of transforming the parking lot into a gathering space, where people could do everything from just hanging out over coffee to a formal reception.

The idea rolled around in her head for the next few years but finally gained traction five years ago when the Norris Institute decided to take on the project. Since then, the concept of Norris Alley has gone through many design changes, but the idea never went away.

And this week - on Linda’s birthday appropriately - the Norris Institute officially broke ground on the Norris Alley project between the two iconic buildings. If construction goes as planned, the space should be usable on McCook’s Heritage Days at the end of September.

No, the project isn’t complete yet, but the first hurdle is out of the way - getting started.

With a lot of hiccups along the way, the organizers could have given up at any point and just thrown in the towel. That would have been the easy button.

Instead, they continued to modify the design, continued to raise money and continued to push forward to make Norris Alley a reality. And because of that perseverance, McCook will be a better place when it is done.

The McCook Dog Park is another example of an idea that has brewed for years and should finally see fruition this year. One of the first mentions of a dog park in McCook was in 2011 when a site and funding was briefly considered. Since then, a new site has been selected and enough funds to purchase and install all the fencing has been raised.

Hopefully this year, the McCook Dog Park will finally be in place as the last few steps are completed to make the facility a reality.

Again, the project has been a long time coming but McCook will be a better place when it is done.

There are many examples of projects which were conceived but never happened. There are others that seemingly happened overnight. But it is those ideas that require determination and persistence that will endure for years and which will make McCook an even better place to call home.