We wind up summer too soon

Funny how summer seems to end at about the time of the county fair. It does not end in a real sense. Oh my, lots of nice weather, even hot weather, in the month. Our perception does not seem to reflect that. We "pack it in," as it were, and then it's time to start thinking of "school." 

I remember being advised against scheduling our school reunion for August. Reasoning being, people would get back to us and say "we can't come because we have to get ready for school." I never understood this obsession with "getting ready for school" so long ahead of time. 

I am perplexed, too, as I think back to when I was with the newspaper and the Tigers played at Coombe Field: I'd notice the pep band absent for the opener on Labor Day weekend. I'd inquire about that. The answer: the kids told the director they'd be gone. Well, this is Morris, isn't it, where "we're going to be gone" is rather our theme. But I thought that thoughts were so focused on school as that time approached. 

Regarding the high school reunion matter, I remember Steve Dudding telling me once: "the ones who want to be there will find a way to get there." 

Looks like plenty of '72 MHS alumni made it for their big 50th this past summer. The word out there is that the reunion unfortunately served to spread covid a little. The 50th reunion is such a milestone - who'd want to miss it? Reunions after that are going to be more small-scale. The grim reaper makes the rounds for one thing. I remember a classmate saying in an irreverent vein at the time of my ten-year: "Let's have an award for 'most dead' - it'd be a three-way tie!" 

We're so exuberant at the ten-year. My MHS Class of '73 will have its 50-year next summer. I hope the United States of America holds together that long. Things are getting so crazy. We were all so much more subdued about politics in an earlier time. At the very least, we believed in "the American experiment," the fundamental structure and laws of the country. Today? It's a madhouse and getting worse. 

Some of us might still express amusement about it. My fear is for when amusement is no longer palatable, when full-fledged crisis arrives at our doorstep. Existential crisis. 

Trump could in fact come back in 2024. Our whole law enforcement apparatus could come crashing down. It is not outlandish to suggest we could see executions, perhaps in the hundreds or even thousands. Congressman Jim Jordan has suggested or implied that this might be the way to go. He may have brain damage from his extensive wrestling  background. 

 

Get real re. football, please

And do y'all really think I overdo it with my cautionary notes about high school football? Do you really think so? We are learning more all the time about how questionable this sport ought to be. But y'all react to me like I'm raining on a parade. I can just see you showing up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the first game at Big Cat Stadium, a fancy place that helps our boys feel so special as they go out and smash heads. 

The message they get from their elders is that this is a really special activity - brings honor to the community etc. Poppycock. I'm sharing below some paragraphs from the "Daily Camera" commentary. The writer is Bob Carmichael.

 

How many mothers and fathers will allow their children to play a game whose violent impacts result in life-altering orthopedic injuries and brain damage? Twenty-first-century science has now officially revealed that this pounding 19th-century game is wholly unsuited to the physiology of human brains. 

This new study obliterates the often cited “mental health” issues that athletic departments and football apologists advance to cover up the obvious source of these human tragedies which is playing football.  

The CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, Chris Nowinski, who led the study, stated that, “Sport Governing bodies should not mislead the public on CTE causation while athletes die and families are destroyed by the terrible disease.” Since 2000 the NFL has invested more than 100 million dollars in promoting football. Fully aware of the existential crisis facing the game, the football industry has responded with slick television PSAs which beckon families and young players to “Play Football.”  

The football industry would have you believe this game is a laudatory sport. How can football be “character building” when its essence is bigger, stronger, faster players blocking and tackling? These instant decelerations are cumulatively causing brain damage. What about the “new rules” that call for “Heads Up” safe tackling techniques? The fact is that the subconcussive impacts of football, head or no head, result in the brain traumatically ricocheting within the cranium. No “helmet technology” is going to change that fact.

Let it go. . .

Please look past the euphoria at Big Cat Stadium this coming fall. On the surface: pride and happiness over a school activity. Which should be a wholesome thing. The reality suggests something far darker. I didn't have the talent or interest to play high school football. So I can say "thank the Lord." What about all my peers who got on the football bandwagon? They should have been protected.

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com