Sam Steward

Book Review: Who Is Lionel Messi?

 Who Is Lionel Messi by James Buckley Jr., illustrated by Manuel Gutierrez, Penguin Workshop, New York, 2024.

Lionel Messi is a soccer player, perhaps the best in the world; perhaps the best of all time.  This book was written before the World Cup this year, so does not tell the story of Argentina being the runner up, but it does tell the story of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.  

Messi was born in Rosario, Argentina in 1987.  He has been playing soccer since he was three and got his first soccer ball.  He started playing organized soccer at age four; and he was good, a goal scorer and dribbler.    When he was seven he began playing for Newell's Junior teams.  His father and. brothers had played for Newell.  Messi was still a goal scorer and won every game.  Messi was small due to lack of a growth hormone.  Shots corrected this but were expensive.  He was invited to try out for Futbol Club Barcelona.  By 2001 Messi was playing in Spain.  Most of his family went.  Messi quickly moved through Barcelon's teams, under 16 then under 19.  Everyone moved back to Argentina except Lionel and his father.  This was a hard time missing his mother.  He played his first game in the top division for Barcelona at age 17, the second youngest player to do so.  

He played in the U20 World Cup at age 18 and Argentina won.  He also played his first National Team match, a friendly against Hungary.  Messi came in as a substitute but was red carded when he hit another layer in the throat.  

He retured to Argentina for a time to support a girlfriend who had lost a friend in an automobile accident.  Atonela would eventually become his wife.  They have three children.  At age 20 he started donating some of his money through the Leo Messi foundation.  Barcelona had a near perfect season in 2008-2009.  They won the FIFA Club World Cup and several other major competitions.  Messi won the prize as best soccer player in the world.  Messi started competing in the World Cup in 2006.  Each year they came up short until 2022 in Qatar when they won.  At this last World Cup he broke the record for mowt World Cup goals.  

In 2021 due to the rules of La Liga he had to change teams.  He then played in France on a team with Kylian Mbappé also on the team.  He played against France and Mbappé in the finals of the 2022 World Cup.  More recently he has joined Major League Soccer with the Inter Miami FC team.  They had been flounder

ing but with Messi's signing thay have become one of the better teams in MLS. 

Magazine Article Review: Where Bellevue Began

 Where Bellevue Began: A Bluff-top trading post on the Missouri became Nebraska's oldest permanent community by Ron Soodalter with Chris Amundson, Nebraska Life Magazine, Flagship Publishing Inc., Timnath CO, March/April 2026, pp 24-29.

Lewis and Clark came through the Bellevue area in 1804.  In 1822 Joshua Pilcher built a trading post above the Missouri River in what would become Bellevue.  From this location it commanded a way to send goods up the Missouri, and also the Platte River which was a few miles to the south.  It was a trading post and a place where furs could be dried and prepared for market.  It became the hub for traders, company men and hunters.  Pawnee, Otoe and Omaha traded there.  Beaver built the Missouri Fur Company.  Beaver skin was durable, water proof, and well suited for hats.  The trading post supported the annual rendezvous which was to the west.  Goods would leave from Bellevue and then at the rendezvous they would be sold and traded, and beaver skin would come back to the trading post.  Bellevue would keep the trade moving as a hub for the business in St. Louis.  The trade business could be dangerous.  In 1823 fourteen men were killed and eleven wounded in South Dakota n the Missouri.  Pilcher also learned the same lesson in 1823.  Blackfeet attacked a caravan along the Yellowstone River and killed seven men.  This resulted in a loss of roerty of $15,000, valued today at $467,000.

The Pilcher site faltered, but Lucien Fontenelle purchased it in 1828.   By this time it had grown beyond a trading post.  It included separate lodgings for Otoe and Omaha.  It had smith shops, and a counsel meeting area and lodging for interpreters.  Karl Bodmer made a rendering of the trading post and surrounding buildings. Lucien Fontenele would sell the buildings to the federal government and it became the Indian agency.  The area continued to grow.  1855 Bellevue incorporated as a city.  1856 the first church still standing in Nebraska was built.  The major settlements located south of the old trading post.  This encroachment of people lead to the removal of Native American people to reservation.  The Omaha reservation is further north on the Missouri, the Pawnee in Oklahoma and the Otoe to the Nebraska/Kansas border but then again moved to Oklahoma.  Peter Sarpy also arrived and established a ferry at Bellevue as well as trading posts on both sides of the river.  

First Nebraska Territory Murder Was by a Doctor

 In the Nebraska Life Magazine for March April 2026 there is a note about a murder in Bellevue.  Dr Charles Henry was a physician and a land speculator in Bellevue in 1855.  He argued with George Hollister about property lines.  Henry shot him dead.  It seemed a clear case and he was arrested and confined in the blacksmith shop.  He was protected by guards form a lynch mob.  Cholera broke out about this time.  Many needed treated and Dr. Henry was lead form home to home to provide treatment.  He was under guard and providing treatment.  When his case came before the grand jury there were enough on the jury he had treated, and others as character witnesses the he was never convicted.  This was the first arrest for murder in the new Nebraska Territory.

There were two grand juries convened, and both failed to indict.  Another possible reason for this is there were groups of land speculators who were protecting their own.  However the story of the patients refusing to indict is a good one.  Henry relocated to Omaha where he became a prominent citizen and supporter of the Union in the Civil War.

African American Biography: Charley Willis: The Singing Cowboy

 Charley Willis was born a slave near Austin Texas.  After slavery he became a western Cowboy first in West Texas.  He worked breaking horses.  He later road the Chisholm Trail taking Texas cattle north to Kansas.  He was a singer and is credited with writing the song "Goodbye Old Paint."  This song is is now in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

Fort Crook; Now Offutt Air Force Base

 Fort Crook was the original name of the fort constructed south of Bellevue to replace fort Omaha in North Omaha.  It was named for General George Crook who had been the commander at Fort Omaha.  I took some pictures of the old for from the Fort Crook days.  There was a model in the Sarpy County History museum.  The fort was planned and announced in 1888 but construction did not begin until 1894.  Officers quarters were built on the west side of the parade grounds and the private quarters opposite on the east.  Troops began to arrive in 1896.  1920-24 the fort added an airfield and the fort was renamed Offutt for a WWI pilot named Lieutenant Jared Offutt.  During WWII the base became a large manufacturing plant for B-26 and B-29 bombers.  After WWII it housed the Strategic Air Command.

parade grounds

sergeant's row

Native American Biography: Zoey Roy, Spoken Word Music

 I was informed of Zoey Roy in the book Not My Princess.  She is a spoken word artist and poet and social activist.  She is from Canada.  She is of mixed descent, indigenous person from Canada.  She affiliates with the Peter Ballantyne Cree nation.  Through her spoken words she explores indigenous issues and colonization.