Over the moon: An old-timey small town bakery is putting Cortland on the map
CORTLAND, Neb. (Flatwater Free Press) — It’s five days before the big day. The Model A dashes down West Fourth Street. Its driver eases up in front of a brick storefront and strolls inside, jaunty as you please, dressed in his Sunday best. The black-and-white scene turns technicolor, like a Gage County “Pleasantville,” as a brunette with cherry red lips leans in with a coffee pot and a wink.
CORTLAND, NEB. -- 11/4/2022 -- Lindsey Oelling shows off a freshly baked tray of kolaches at her bakery, Paper Moon Pastries in Cortland, Nebraska, Friday Oct. 4, 2022.
Welcome to Paper Moon Pastries, the 1930s-style small-town bakery inspired by a classic movie – its introduction to the sweet-eating public set to the sound of tinny music from a bygone era, but captured with a drone and an iPhone. That spring night, the brunette baker heads home – a short tree-lined stroll away – and edits the footage into 38 seconds of nostalgia. “It’s not a commercial if it’s not a little corny, right?,” she writes on social media. “Share the news!” Lindsey Oelling is an actress, an artist, a baker, a therapist, a TikTok queen and history-loving small town revivalist. But she wouldn’t be any of this if not for a faulty ‘55 Chevy and a grandmother she’d never know. On May 21, 2022, after years of dreaming, months of planning and a frantic, hopeful week of baking, Oelling retraces her steps to Fourth Street, crosses her fingers and opens for business for the first time at 7 a.m.