Is it myth or fact that west Morris has five-way intersections? The navigating seems not quite conventional in some places. Don't question your sobriety when you arrive at this intersection, where my camera seems to affirm the five-way reality. Look closely at the left side and you see two streets entering, complementing the three others? Maybe St. Paul isn't the only city in Minnesota to have been designed by a "drunken Irishman," the way then-Governor Jesse Ventura asserted with levity on a nighttime TV program. Seriously and with respect for Morris city planners of days gone by, west Morris had to be laid out from two main arteries, known as Pacific and Park Avenues, that started at the same place (by the railroad tracks) and "fanned out." We've all adjusted, haven't we? (Photos by B.W.)
Biking/walking trails flow in, around and out of our UMM campus. Looking at this photo, one is reminded of the Yogi Berra quote "when you come to a fork in the road, take it."
The best-kept park secret in Morris? Here's Thedin Park, which I'm told is an official city park although one needs special instructions to locate it. It's on the west fringe of town.I'm writing this on a weekend when Morris feels a little like Siberia. Did we ever in the past get such gale force winds out of the south or southeast? For the first time in about 50 years of living here, we're designating one door on our home as being unusable when strong south winds are predicted.
The sky is gray. There isn't enough snow to engage in snow-inspired activities.
We have always been told this is what it's like south of Minnesota: Winter never really materializes. Winters to the south are slushy. We here have crisp snow, so much sometimes the roof on the Metrodome collapses.
Northern Iowa seems to get by all right. It's south of that where the dreary type of winter prevails, according to conventional thought. We're getting a lesson in Minnesota in how that dreary situation feels. The snow isn't able to build up beyond a "dusting."
The wind has to be the worst aspect of what we're seeing here now. We're supposed to be especially terrified of the northwest wind. Windbreaks are established to the north. We design our property like castles this way.
Wind out of the south has seemed just as wicked over the past few months. Maybe we ought to just hibernate in our castles. Nothing good comes of going outdoors.
You might be tempted to walk backwards into the wind, the way cartoonist Dick Guindon once drew a group of school kids on their way to school. "Walking backwards" thus seemed quite Minnesotan.
It's with all this as a backdrop that we ponder how Morris is going to accent tourism. We hear more about this push. Step #1 toward promoting tourism might be to cease all seat belt citation sweeps.
A school board member told me last week that our new school campus has borne out the prediction of "build it and they will come." I of course had been waxing nostalgic about our old school campus.
Maybe it would be easier to forget about the old school complex - that erector set series of buildings - if it would just be torn down. I'm greatly perplexed why it wasn't done sooner.
Reuse would have been the best outcome. But we have waited years.
A well-positioned source told me the city will probably borrow the money to do demolition. It's like we're not even spending it, then. Pay the money back over, say, 40 years and we won't feel the slightest pinch. Except that it seems too easy.
All bills come due.
Since we have solved the apparent problem of our old school campus (by deserting it), what other problems might we look at? You know what really seems "bush league" in Morris to me? It's the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and West 5th Street. This is where those mammoth trucks coming from the north have to make turns.
If you're a motorist coming from the west, you and others behind you might be expected, via an unwritten rule, to back up and give room for these large trucks. All this happens right next to the main street coffeehouse. This system needs to be modernized.
The traffic should flow smoothly and not in a bottleneck sort of way.
The empty Coborn's building is an embarrassment. How about making it an indoor putt-putt course?
Let's take a look at UMM. Everything seems to be going wonderfully there. A recent news report, though, indicates UMM might have to confront an issue not of its own making. This issue comes out of the department of "when you think you've seen it all."
Here it is: A school elsewhere in the U.S. has decided there are concerns about a proposed "Cougars" nickname.
We all know "Cougars" can be understood to denote more than big cats, right? I'm not totally hip on this, but apparently there's a definition having to do with middle-aged women.
You can click on the link below to read about the current item in the news:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlesports/2012/01/20/new-school-rejects-cougars-nickname-due-to-negative-double-entendre/
I once wrote on this site that sports team nicknames, navigating over a minefield of political correctness, were safe if they were simply "cats." I called "cat" nicknames "default" nicknames.
The NFL was safe in bringing the "Carolina Panthers" and "Jacksonville Jaguars" into existence.
But is anything safe where sports team nicknames are concerned? Is it possible the whole concept of team nicknames is bordering on anachronistic? Might they seem sort of, well, tribal?
Nicknames are the same as mascots. So they're almost demeaning by definition. This is the minefield UND ran into with "Fighting Sioux," in an imbroglio that has gone on way too long. North Dakotans look foolish. So do Iowans who blew it with their biggest claim to fame: the Iowa caucuses. After weeks of media hype of the Iowa doings, we got the climactic day of decision-making and came away with. . .a Bush-Gore situation.
First Mitt Romney (a.k.a. "Scrooge McDuck") won, and then Rick Santorum. No wonder my friend Glen Helberg says the letters in Iowa stand for "Idiots Out Walking Around."
I'm sure some UMM-oriented people caught the recent news item about the potential controversy with "Cougars." My goodness, what if we really have to face this issue? It wouldn't be good for tourism, would it.
Enjoy the rest of your winter.
- Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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