i love morris: Pomme de Terre City Park got walloped!

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Pomme de Terre City Park got walloped!

We are stunned having been through another storm. Last year it was the "derecho." On Tuesday night hell visited the Morris area again. The effects in town seemed bad enough the next day. Whereas the 2022 derecho pushed over two trees in my yard out on Northridge Drive, the storm of this week only resulted in branches around my yard. The trees survived.

I still have too many trees. My father enjoyed all the trees he planted but then they develop too much and can be problematic. My neighbor to the west, previous to the Cihaks, got fed up and had nearly all her trees removed in back. Some relief maybe, but the bare state of affairs has led to snowdrifts seemingly a mile high! We get slammed with the northwest wind sometimes.

The minimal effects of this week's storm where I live had me thinking it was not quite the big deal. Scandinavians talk about "big deals" or "not so big deals." We use the expression "heckuva deal." Well, I took one of my rather long walks last night and saw that the storm really was a "hcckuva deal." Effects were shocking to observe.

It was not easy to get to the hardest-hit place. I saw "road closed" signs. I followed the bike trail. Even there, I saw branches that I had to navigate around. A couple bicyclists were out there and in one instance, I saw the fellow come to a stop and walk his bike around branches. I was en route to our Pomme de Terre City Park.

Usually if there are no little kids in the "spray park," I'll go out there shirtless and shoeless and "take a shower," as it were. I wouldn't want to be so close to little kids - society gets nervous these days.

Heck, there's no way the spray park was going to be open on Wednesday. As I approached the city park, I began to see shocking signs of the Tuesday storm's onslaught. An onslaught indeed! Trees were blown over and these included some quite large trees with thick trunks. Blown right over, lying on the ground. I wondered what it would have been like to be close to the place when it happened.

So many trees left destroyed, will take a considerable effort by the city to clean it all up. I wonder how quickly this can be done. Will the park be closed for the rest of the summer? I would guess not, but holy cow there's damage to beat the band.

I came away thinking, was this another derecho? Or even worse, a tornado? I seriously concluded that a little tornado touched down out there. A derecho would have left devastating effects over a much wider area, like out at my place.

I remember the current storm at its height at my place. I actually went out in it, grabbed my ladder and had to ensure that water was flowing unimpeded through my gutter/drainage system. It is imperative. If I fail to do this, water will splatter next to my home's foundation. My problem is with all the organic stuff that collects so regularly in the gutters. It is difficult to keep up with, and a person of my age - I'm 68 - ought not be getting up on a ladder all the time. But I absolutely must take the best possible care of my residence which was a labor of love for my late parents.

I attended to the gutters with success Tuesday night amid the absolute hell of the storm. I was drenched. At a certain point you just don't notice it anymore. You get numb to the storm. At first you want to shriek. So, mission accomplished. Then the next morning I went out and around to start observing.

Then later in the day, my quite lengthy walk which is a pretty regular habit for me anyway. People say they've seen me out along the bypass. I walk a good share of the bypass as I head back home on my route. I should note that in a past time, rapidly receding in time, I was a runner in many of these places. At age 68 I have totally withdrawn from that. Even if my body was willing, which it could be, my spirit just is not in line.

I see Kevin Wohlers still enjoying the jogging activity and I salute him. He's "Mr. Mayor" now. ("Mr. Mayor" was a character played on TV by Bob Keeshan, the same guy who played "Captain Kangaroo." I was totally a "Captain Kangaroo" kid, finding affinity with "Mr. Green Jeans." I got a little scared of "Bunny Rabbit" because the character never said anything. What was he/she up to? Also a little apprehension about "Grandfather Clock" who just sat stationary and didn't speak.

What was that all about? Is it possible to get clocks to speak? I was just a little urchin.

Normally our Pomme de Terre City Park is pretty full with campers this time of year, right? On Wednesday night I saw just one and I suspected the others had to have been blown over if not blown away into the next county maybe. I was worried what all had happened with the campers and their outfits.

A new pattern?

So the derecho in '22 and now this: is it evidence of climate change? Certain people in this county - a fair number actually - will accuse you of being "woke" if you even bring this up. We are a "red" region politically, still with stiff allegiance to Donald Trump. The fever does not break with certain people, all the reverent churchgoers who feel Trump is an extension of our Heavenly Father.

Don't you all realize you're scaring young people away from Christianity? Do you even care about that? People get mad at me for bringing this up with regularity but like I said, the fever will not break. No matter what is discovered about Trump's mob boss side - the sheer criminality and immorality - his supporters here stay resolute.

I don't want to have anything in common with these people. Will we re-elect Michlle Fischbach? Will Jeff Backer stay in the legislature? It's bizarre, scary.

Get with it, Morris media

I just now checked the Morris radio station website, maybe to get re-cap info on the storm. Would be so nice. I don't see anything. I'm waiting for an official report that might tell us if a tornado could be affirmed. Nothing. The top story this morning is "National Night Out" about a campaign for police-community partnerships. Who gives a flying f--k about that?

The newspaper website? I don't think it's even worth checking. I remember when Sue Dieter talked like the paper's website was going to be so dynamic. Then Dieter and Forum Communications did a disappearing act from the local media. Cowardly on the part of Forum Communications. The pretentious Republican-oriented company out of Fargo.

I won't even check the paper's website this morning. I'll just have to wait. I might have to consult with the Star-Tribune to get informed. I see that at our library.

A friend emailed me to give me a heads-up on what is going on with the Morris newspaper:

Did you go to the library to check out the current fishwrap? If not – a new staff member introduced himself on the first page of the ‘B’ section. Sam Peterson is his name, he’s the new sports editor for all 3 papers – Monitor, The Fishwrap, and the Grand County Harold. I wonder how he’s going to handle that on Football Fridays in the fall (Remember that guy that always showed up on the Ed Sullivan show that kept all those plates spinning?). I wonder if they call his position “The Brian Williams Memorial Chair.”

A nice shout-out, friend. Seriously, let's contemplate what our "fishwrap" is doing. The Morris paper thinks that the one area that should command increased resources is. . .sports? You're probably laughing. People live with the bloated sports "section" like it's just one of those things, part of our lives in outstate Minnesota.

We all love the vigorous sports programs provided by our schools, I think. That is disconnected from what the "local newspaper" does, as the paper inundates us with fine details of all these games played a week or a week and a half ago.

The only people who really care are the quite tiny minority of people who have kids on teams. OK, and the people who are their close friends. They get emotional and assertive and can really be quite ugly. But. . .the paper should never assume that these people represent the broad readership. Heavens, they do not. But the papers act like they think that way.

And the system rolls on.

I wish to implore you that the decline of the print media is real and continuing, it's just that it doesn't make news like it would have a dozen years ago. It's not a man-bites-dog story any more. We are quietly accepting new norms in our news and communication systems. We do it almost unconsciously.

The day will come when the Morris paper will close. The cost of printing and distributing the product is substantial - it will get to be too much.

High school sports can be reported online through systems yet to be fully developed. Oh yes it can. Child's play. Wait and see. Remember when we used to get the paper school calendar? Change just happens.

Addendum: Regarding the Morris paper and its announcement, is it a letdown to think the paper will not have a person whose primary focus is Morris sports or Morris/Hancock? Katie Erdman does not like me to write that Hancock no longer has its own paper. She says the old Hancock paper is now simply mixed in with Morris.

But the whole paper product is so much less. The Morris paper used to publish twice a week and Hancock had a stand-alone paper. I think it's perfectly legitimate to say Hancock lost its paper. Some would demur I guess.

So the new sports guy will be delivering a product for three papers in this area? Seems unwieldy at the very least. How much truly original writing will he be doing, as opposed to processing a raw product given him by coaches or others?

I used to interview coaches all the time. Used an old-fashioned spiral notebook and ballpoint pens, like I used for note-taking in college classes. Today the kids don't even use cursive any more - I don't see how they can keep up as they print their notes as the professor speaks. They cannot. But then again, I strongly think college classes have been made far easier today.

Colleges need students, and they cannot attract them with "rigorous" academics. Does the expression "cramming for finals" even exist any more? Back when students did that, I don't think they enjoyed their classes very much. They'd procrastinate, n'est-ce pas?

Is it true that teachers today are just "caretakers," not really "teachers." Actually there is probably an upside to that. But will the day come when we do not need the traditional bricks-and-mortar "schools" at all? My friend who emailed me has suggested that we'll always need outstate high schools because we need their sports teams.

Addendum #2: This is just me, but I do not think that black people benefited from slavery. Sorry to come up against all the MAGA types again. Oh, and I also think it's offensive to suggest that Jews in concentration camps could survive longer by "making themselves useful." Alas, I am always an an outlier around here. I resist Fox News.