Stardate March 14, 2023. Are we experiencing just the normal surprises of Minnesota weather? Perhaps something bigger than that? Reflecting climate change? Of course I have to be defensive bringing up climate change. The flat-earth Republicans rule out here on the Western Minnesota tundra. But I must seriously weigh climate change.
Some young guys entered Willie's this morning wearing shorts. A checkout clerk commented in an amused way. I found in my younger years that shorts were really not a big deal when temperatures get cold. I was a distance runner or jogger once. I recall going out on quite frigid days with shorts but with vary warm outerwear on top.
Running is buried pretty deep in my memory now. I'm sure many people thought I got carried away over a period of time. But by keeping my weight low over several years - so low I was deemed underweight - I think it benefited my heart. As opposed to looking like Kent Hrbek over those years. But God bless Kent Hrbek. It's just that his last name looks like it's missing a vowel. "Buy a vowel, Kent Hrbek." I wrote a song with that title once! It is on YouTube.
So this morning I was at the Willie's Cafe watching the world go by. Sort of my way of sitting and feeding the pigeons. The young guys came in with their shorts. People waiting for their orders at Caribou look down at their phones. My, if people from my childhood years could have fast-forwarded to see all the contemporary phenomena.
I remember my family shopping at the old Juergensen's Super Valu before scanning technology at the checkouts. What great skill was required of the employees. And then we'd get our "Green Stamps" or "Gold Bond Stamps." You know how those companies made money? They made it on all the unredeemed stamps. If customers had redeemed every last stamp, the companies would be nowhere. Is this how Curt Carlson got wealthy?
To each their own I guess, but those stamps have disappeared down the memory hole too. Juergensen's Super Valu was where Aaron Carlson set up shop. Today the building is warehouse space for Town and Country. Juergensen's had a terrific snack bar with ice cream cones that us kids thought were just as good as the Dairy Queen! And the Morris Dairy Queen had its old home along East 7th Street. Cones for a nickel or a dime. Amazing!
East 7th Street was once the main entry to Morris from the east. You most certainly know the old school was along there. Today you would never guess that the football field was where it was.
We're coming up on St. Patrick's Day with weather conditions untypical. Atypical? I know we're supposed to expect variances with Minnesota weather. What we see now is out of bounds.
On top of the weather anxiety is all this talk about the banks and another supposed "crisis." I had to detach from the media midway through the day yesterday (Monday). All the discussion about the stressed banks (or whatever their problem is) was so confusing and at times contradictory. Is this really a "crisis?" By the end of the day, government leaders were proclaiming that everyone was being "made whole."
The analysis you hear from media is all over the map. I was surprised yesterday listening to good old terrestrial radio - the Fargo stations - how up in the clouds those guys were getting. Untypical (atypical?) for terrestrial radio which is normally lowest-common-denominator. To be honest, lowest-common-denominator to a degree that could make me barf. The more educated listeners have moved on to satellite radio.
What's left is the embittered MAGA crowd who clutch to their guy like Linus to his security blanket.
But on KFGO and WDAY yesterday, my the guys on the air were drifting over my head with some of their analysis of the banking thing. Leading to what conclusion exactly? Ha! You might say they ended up right back where they started from.
Let me make a comparison: it was like listening to a jazz "scat" singer like Clark Terry. I remember a Clark Terry number where he did the scat thing brilliantly all the way through - just unintelligible syllables of course - and at the very end he recited the only recognizable word/term in the whole thing: "Watergate." OK so the analysis of the banking mess seems to hold up a mirror for that.
What the hell happened? What the hell is happening now? Why do we need FDIC insurance at all, if the government is going to make sure that no one loses any money? And my, all these free market conservatives who love throwing darts at "government." Isn't it rich that when they notice a "crisis" brewing in their world, where do they turn? Well, who else but the government? Remember the Tarp legislation? Remember Hank Paulson holding those three sheets of paper with his hands trembling?
So the government offers a safety net for everyone? Is that how we really want it? Evidently yes. So let's call it something like socialism! The robber barons are fine with socialism so long as there's something in it for them, n'est-ce pas?
We would have more government regulations in place if Hillary had been elected in 2016. But oh no, you all didn't want that, all you ignoramuses who fill the pews at the local "conservative" churches. You people are killing Christianity, I assure you. And I am genuinely concerned.
We need regulations to ensure against train derailments that are catastrophic for places where they happen. Why do you care so much about the shareholders of those companies? Deep down I'm sure you don't. But you lemmings are scared as hell of giving the slightest impression that you might deviate from MAGA. I include the local Apostolic Christians among the "lemmings." They cannot change their spots.
But it hardly ends there. Take a look out to the north of Morris at the Good Shepherd Church. Same ilk out there. I will speak strongly on this even if there is pushback. Maybe it's too late. Maybe climate change is already starting to get us. I cannot wear shorts yet.
Addendum: I use "tundra" as hyperbole, in the same way as the late radio personality Steve Cannon of WCCO used it. Some of my critics might pounce on me for less-than-precise word usage. Go sit under a cow. Once in my newspaper career I used "gendarmes" as synonym for "policemen," the idea being to be a little cute - I assure you that others have done this. Someone wrote a formal letter to the paper. Of course that person's motivations had nothing to do with the issue he sought to point out. I was a pointed adversary of the teachers union through most of my newspaper career. Call up some of Mike Pompeo's recent comments about teacher unions.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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