Another UMM Homecoming is now history. I was pleased recently to write a check that would benefit UMM music. The check is on behalf of my mother Martha and I. Maybe it's an attempt to stay relevant in the Morris community. We have been on the sidelines for a long time.
Years have come and gone since my parents' involvement at UMM. Generations of students and staff have come and gone. Systems and priorities have changed. Mom had a reputation of having a fast "gait" as she crossed the campus doing business for the UMM post office which she supervised. I would guess few people on campus now are familiar with that. We have in our family photo collection a shot of Mom doing this activity, taken by someone on campus who wanted to preserve it. The photo has been scanned by Del Sarlette and I will be displaying it sometime.
Giving to a college can leave one with mixed feelings. The institution has fund-raising people who will be dripping with gratitude about this. But I'm sure that once any contribution is tucked away, those people without missing a beat try to get more. This is how they are incentivized. They are good people to be sure. But they are likely numbers-driven and salivate over getting more $. If you stop giving, the communications from them will dry up until you finally get nothing. It can leave you with an empty feeling.
My father will always be remembered to a degree because he was an original faculty member. He has been cited for helping cement UMM's future because of the high profile and popularity of his men's chorus. I was just the kid who would hang around. As an adult I had no chance to be accepted by the UMM community on the same terms as my parents. There was even some resentment which I never understood. People thought I was privileged.
Maybe I would have been better off as a kid being sent to a foster home somewhere.
I came to campus often as a newspaper person, probably more often than anyone else who would have held my position. My coverage of UMM was never comprehensive or totally consistent because that would have been an unattainable ideal. In the pre-Internet days, communications outreach was not nearly as high a priority for UMM, not at all like today when there is a sharp commitment to PR via UMM's website including its sports component.
I came out to UMM for music concerts. Often I'd get a photo of a musician or musicians warming up before a concert. I'd get their names and I also had a high priority for getting their hometowns! It was always interesting to find out where all these kids came from.
One day I photographed a Homecoming parade float that included a kid whose last name was Vick from St. Cloud. I asked "is your dad the speech teacher at St. Cloud State?" He answered yes. On another occasion I photographed some students - if I remember right they were in costumes for Halloween - at the Newman Center, and took down the last name of Nistler. I asked, are your parents the mass communications alums of St. Cloud State who I once knew? The answer was yes.
It's nice to see these young people with strong ties to St. Cloud State choosing Morris for their college education. St. Cloud State doesn't even have a Homecoming anymore. Why? Ahem, let's not get into that.
Not that UMM has a spotless Homecoming background, as many of us still remember the harrowing goalpost incident that left a student deceased. I wasn't there when it happened. I was at that game in the first half before departing. I came back for the 4 p.m. volleyball match at the P.E. Center. But I missed the horrible tragedy and I really have no misgivings about that. It probably left psychological scars for a lot of people. My coverage in the paper included an eyewitness description which I acquired from the ESPN2 website. I was happy to find such an account because I couldn't find people willing to go on the record. Some people took issue with what I quoted. I think maybe they were trying to create a red herring: let's make yours truly the issue.
Was there really a phantom gesture made by a UMM security person, a gesture which according to legend and rumor, had the effect of shooing the rowdy kids away from one goalpost and toward the other? The incident happened back in 2005. UMM has since moved to a new football field with artificial turf.
I got one of those mass emails Thursday informing us that the parking lots would not be checked for permits Friday, the day of the chancellor's inauguration. We have a Retirees Association permit. But I was bothered by the whole issue of UMM charging for parking. We have to try to understand why. I suppose it's a fund-raising source and also a way for discouraging rabble from coming to campus. That said, I think the permit policy is a hindrance for people who might have only an occasional reason to visit campus for something or to see someone. It might be a one-time visit. It might be a visit with UMM's fund-raising people. It's a distraction and a worry.
Don't a lot of students park off-campus to avoid the fee? I'm told some students park at Willie's and leave their car there all day. It's not like parking space is a limited commodity like it might be in a big city. We're a small town surrounded by prairie.
I made a financial contribution to UMM because I, or we, wanted to continue having a feeling of connection with the UMM community. I owe it to UMM music. I gave lots of coverage to UMM music through the years, mostly in connection with Jim Carlson. I did interviews for articles. Yet I always felt like an outsider away from the mainstream. That sense always hovered over me. A friend tipped me off once that Kay Carlson, Jim's wife, murmured some disparaging comments about me when I showed up to cover a music event. I photographed a visiting pianist who posed pre-concert with the event's sponsors. The photo turned out great. Was there something so terrible about me being there? I'm not from the right tribe, I guess.
I was raked over the coals after the 2005 goalpost incident. A Morris physician name of Mike Busian, who I always gathered had a volatile personality, wrote a bizarre letter to the editor in which he suggested the public had to put up with my coverage because of "the First Amendment." He's dead now.
I have now spent eleven years out of the loop in regard to public things. Mom retired long ago. Dad died four years ago. I am trying hard for that optimal relationship with UMM, with our recent financial gesture (of $10,000, hope it's not chump change). Already we have gotten communications seeking to wring out a little more from us. Money's honey, I guess.
All three of us are represented on our cemetery bench monument. Please stop by and visit sometime and feel free to sit on the bench. I haven't been able to bring Mom out there because our cemetery is not handicapped-accessible. There aren't many institutions you can say that about anymore.
I don't even know how UMM did in its Homecoming football game. And I don't care.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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