Questions of taste in connection to obituaries

(Note: I have had this post in drafts for a while. I wrote it before the item about the nasty obituary for Kathleen Demhlow in the Redwood Falls Gazette.)

Should people only be remembered on the upside? It's a re-occurring question in the journalistic world, even the world of small town newspapers. When someone dies and that person had a dubious part in his/her background, so conspicuous we feel we shouldn't ignore it, should it be in the obit?
I remember here in Morris, we had a short front page article about the accidental death of someone who had allegations connected to him. I vaguely recall the details but won't get into that. I didn't write the article but I witnessed some of the highly-charged reaction.
At the time I didn't understand the severity of the reaction. Some of my cohorts thought likewise, that it wasn't that big a deal. I remember them reasoning that the article was factually accurate. So. . .
In those days, us journalistic types could show hubris about such things. The current manager of the Morris newspaper thought the article was reasonable and even praiseworthy. "Journalism" seemed more on a pedestal then, at least corporate journalism which was the type that still prevailed. Today my perspective is rather different. I'm much less likely to defer to corporate journalistic sources. Corporate journalism is just part of a wide mix of information and opinions that are dispensed today.
Non-corporate journalism is not to be assumed inferior. The reader must use discretion. While some of us do that better than others, the overall landscape seems healthier and more accountable. David Hogg and others use this Twitter thing to have real impact. I have not gotten into either Twitter or Facebook. Admittedly I'm a dinosaur who continues doing "long-form journalism." It's my nature.
Another exhibit of obituary controversy, this at the state level: it's regarding the death many years ago of a guy who ran the Minnesota Poll. I was still at the Morris newspaper at the time. The obit for this poor fellow appeared in the Star Tribune. It included with some emphasis the crash and burn the Poll experienced in connection with statewide political races in the late 1970s. That's going back a ways. As I recall the Poll favored the Democrats which fed into the long-time bias meme regarding the media, and let me tell you, the Star Tribune of the 1970s was truly liberal-biased in a way that was clear as the back of your hand. I say this not as some contemporary Sean Hannity type because I'm anything but, as regular consumers of my writing know. The Star Tribune of the 1970s beat its chest in presenting the paternalistic form of entitled liberalism that had currency.
So the public was revolting against that at the time. They revolted against Wendell "Wendy" Anderson, a Democrat once quite in favor, who crashed politically just like some eccentric guy in a wingsuit. "Wendy" appointed himself to the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile he pushed Rudy Perpich up to governor. I once read that if you watched carefully, you noticed that Perpich never finished a sentence. After I read that, I was always distracted watching Perpich in an interview.
I remember when the state media had a big bulletin about how Perpich would start going by "Rudolph." I remember when Perpich made a visit to Morris and I tried reporting his name as Rudolph but Jim Morrison changed it back to Rudy. Jim was right. That "bulletin" was no big deal because the real story was that Perpich was only intending to sign legal documents with the more formal name, he wasn't intending to become the red-nosed reindeer.
In the wake of the obituary for the Minnesota Poll guy, with the non-flattering paragraphs, there was high dudgeon in certain quarters. I had reason to exchange emails with a Star Tribune obit writer, not the one who wrote the obit in question, some time after that. Her name was Trudi. Trudi remembered well the tempest over the obit for the Minnesota Poll guy. She gave me helpful background about this. She said the deceased was part of a good old boy network connected to the Star Tribune. Thus the reaction of umbrage within the hallowed halls of the Star Tribune.
Factually the obit was right on with how badly the Minnesota Poll misfired. But the question is whether the failure should have been part of the obit when the poor fellow died. My opinion now, as we're surrounded with the new media landscape, is to leave people alone when they die. Report on family and cover the guy's basic bio with nothing dubious or notorious.
Which brings us to the subject of Milt Pappas. Guys my age who followed baseball in the 1960s well remember this name: a guy who was a solid if not outstanding pitcher, very consistent over a number of years. Athletes perform in such a fishbowl. We must step back and realize they're human beings. Pappas died in April of 2016. God rest his soul.
It seemed every obit for Pappas included with some emphasis how he was on "the wrong side" of a major trade (allegedly) gone bad. The ESPN article acknowledged this in the first sentence. Those old good old boy friends of the Minnesota Poll guy should know their beefs were not an isolated instance of media behavior.
Pappas appeared in his first major league game when he was 18. He settled into a pattern of reliably winning 15-16 games a year. His career record was 209-164 with an ERA of 3.40. Special distinction: Pappas was the first major leaguer to win 200 games without ever winning 20 in a season. He just missed winning 100 games in each league: his National League total was 99.
Although several players were included in the trade of note, the key figures were Pappas and Frank Robinson. Robinson went from the Reds to the A.L.'s Baltimore Orioles and blossomed into a total superstar over a long time. He won the Triple Crown in 1966. Were it not for him, our Minnesota Twins might have repeated with the A.L. pennant in '66. And Pappas? The myth grew that he was a dud in the trade.
It probably didn't help that Pappas was an early activist in the players union. He sought the role of "player rep" when it could be contentious. Today's players owe a debt to Pappas and others like him. There was a controversy involving how baseball should conduct itself at the time of the funeral for RFK. I won't wade into all the details, but let's just say Pappas picked up baggage, mostly undeserved, that might have fed a meme about how he was the poster boy for bad trades. It was essentially, factually untrue. Pappas was the same pitcher after the trade as he was before.
I view those errant obituaries as a journalistic embarrassment. But such issues are not unusual and can arise at all levels, even our small town papers. Will my obit someday say "Brian Williams, who resigned from the Morris newspaper amid severe duress in 2006, amid a time of rapid change for the print media?" I don't know. I am of a mind now that obits should be private matters, overseen by the family and not turned over to press people or even the funeral home. But I will note that funeral homes appear to defer totally to the family's wishes, so that's probably a non-issue. The prices charged by funeral homes for everything is the bigger issue!
Let's back off and stay simple and respectful with material published at the time of someone's death. A dry biography is called for. In a previous era, the Norman Rockwell era, obits for many women were loaded with details about what their husbands did, as if their husbands defined them, which unfortunately in many cases they did. That's a whole other subject for examination at another time. Thanks for reading.
 
From RealClear Politics, Nov. 11, 2002:
The Minnesota Poll has a long and inglorious history in Minnesota. Most famously, in 1978 the Minneapolis Tribune (as it then was) called all three major statewide races wrong by a wide margin on the basis of its Minnesota Poll. According to the Tribune on the Sunday before the election, the Democratic candidates were about to sweep the gubernatorial and two senate races.
Instead, 1978 was the year of the "Minnesota massacre." The Democrats were routed; Republican Al Quie was elected governor, and Republicans Dave Durenberger and Rudy Boschwitz were elected senators.
The Tribune immediately acknowledged the gravity of its errors and promised to set things right. In 1987 the Star Tribune hired Rob Daves to run the Minnesota Poll and the poll was returned to the newsroom. Daves has continued to direct the poll since that time.
In the past two elections, the Minnesota Poll's final pre-election poll results have proved wildly misleading in comparison with the actual electoral results. In each case, the final poll results have dramatically understated Republican support. The discrepancy between the Minnesota Poll results and actual electoral results does not appear to be random; it has consistently disfavored Republicans.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwillhy73@yahoo.com

A St. Cloud State Homecoming for 2018

UMM had an official "poet laureate" as featured speaker for graduation a few years ago. It was a nice presentation, as I recall. Included was an anecdote that involved St. Cloud State University. Immediately I wondered if the speaker would fall into a most familiar theme. Predictably it happened. She invoked the "party school" thing. Her intention was not to rip the institution, just to seek a little levity, I think in connection with a well-known reputation.
I once heard a UMM chancellor, pre-Jacqueline Johnson, diss SCSU as a "party school." It was such an easy potshot to take. SCSU's woes with the image reached its annual climax with - sigh - Homecoming. Homecoming! How many students even know the true purpose of a school's homecoming, and just consider the superficial aspects: royalty and the football game mainly.
I sensed when I was at St. Cloud State that Greek life treated Homecoming as it deserved, mostly. They were "in" with the coronation and showed respect as you'd find at your typical high school. The queen got her crown and reacted ecstatically. Greek life was not without sin in the big picture, naturally.
A wild and disrespectful air permeated SCSU Homecoming in a previous time. I say "in a previous time" because SCSU has not had Homecoming in the past few years. That's how bad it got: the SCSU president, Earl Potter, felt the only approach to a longstanding problem was to get rid of the event. He didn't want to be the one going on the record about this decision in the Star Tribune. He delegated to a former classmate of mine, Mike Nistler, who's associated with the exquisite "Minnesota Moments" magazine. The Nistlers chose to send their own children to UMM. I was pleased to encounter one of them when taking a feature photo for the Morris newspaper at Newman Center.
Mike and wife Jeanine were both in mass communications at SCSU. It was the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, in other words pre-digital times. The idea of typing with some sort of electronic screen in front of you, was barely coming into the picture when I graduated. The typical newsroom included darkroom chemicals, waxers and scissors, the latter seeming almost so necessary they were like an appendage on your body.
Potter cancelled Homecoming despite knowing there would be ripples of pure amazement. It was so drastic. What school would simply nix homecoming? It was like an advertisement for the severe extent of the problem that existed there. SCSU had issues with Homecoming for a number of years, as well as with its overall reputation, but the apex according to CW was 1988. The Washington Post had an article at the time. You know, if you're going to have a "riot" of this type, it should at least be with some sort of good political cause in mind. It should not just be pure chaos. But chaos it was, as "hundreds of rioting students burned furniture and clashed with police in a second night of Homecoming-weekend violence that resulted in 50 arrests by officers clad in riot gear," the Washington Post reported.
And we learned that as many as 1500 people, including many St. Cloud State University students, were involved in the chaotic misbehavior over a four-block area. Jerry Witt here in Morris teased me (good-naturedly) by claiming to have seen me in one of the newspaper photos. No, I have rarely made the trip back to St. Cloud through the years. My last excursion was in 2006. I went mainly to participate in the morning 5K run for Homecoming, still in existence. The 5K by its nature is not going to be disrupted by idiotic behavior. It's insulated from the foolish stuff.
So I asked myself, why can't all of Homecoming be permeated by this kind of calm, respectful spirit? I guess it makes too much sense. I made that trip just a few months after my departure from the Morris newspaper. Despite having lots of free time to get in shape and prepare, my 5K performance wasn't very good. But it was a fun time and I enjoyed eating at the Perkins restaurant close to campus afterward. I remember being at the Perkins late in the evening, sitting at the counter by myself, when I was a student, and an SCSU custodian who recognized me sat down by me and was most pleasant. Such are the simple things that can get lodged in one's memory.
The rioters in 1988 tore down street signs and jumped on cars. They threw beer bottles and pieces of lumber. About 60 law enforcement officers shot tear gas to disperse the crowd! They made 46 arrests. Some law enforcement were enlisted from neighboring counties. The State Patrol was called upon. The unruly mob was "clever" enough to set a dumpster on fire.
Assistant Police Chief Jim Moline, who I once interviewed for a class project - I forget the nature of that - was quoted in the Washington Post coverage. Alcohol was the devil behind much of the wreckage of SCSU's reputation through the years, underscored by Moline's comments. "The catalyst for this whole thing was a lot of young people with a lot of booze in them."
Why? I must ask that one simple question. What psychological demon sprouted in so many young people of the 1970s, making them think it was necessary to behave in this way? Society did us a "favor" right at the time I graduated from Morris High School, by lowering the drinking age. Society was riddled by guilt over the Vietnam war and figured that if young men had been sent in waves to die in that needless war, their age peers should be able to avail themselves of the "adult trait" of gulping down alcohol-laced beverages.
The parents of the boomers had a lifestyle of going to establishments like the VFW, Legion, Eagles and Elks, there to drink and then to stumble home, in the days before MADD. The kids followed suit. Then society began to wake up, partly with MADD's resolution. I look back and shake my head.
I remember a PSA that actor Art Carney filmed as the change set in. He talked about how we bandied about the phrase "having a drink." It was just so assumed that "having a drink" meant having something that included alcohol, Carney noted. He said we seriously needed to re-think the phrase. Why not think of various juices, soft drinks or even "water," Carney implored. I felt this PSA was so insightful with its simplicity and directness, its common sense as it were.
Society was making progress but these things always take time. It's like turning around a barge in a river. Our parents weren't going to change much. (My own parents did not drink.) The wellspring for hope is always with the youth. Perhaps symbolically, Mr. Potter who was sincere in trying to stomp out the old image (perhaps mandated by the State of Minnesota), had alcohol in his system when he was killed in a car crash where he lost control of his vehicle.
Booze, booze, booze. There was a time when it seemed to make the world go 'round. Perhaps it took hold as a way for World War II veterans to deal with PTSD. Smoking was another vice with a like purpose, perhaps. Weren't the GIs presented with free cigarettes by the cigarette companies in the war? So to get them hooked? Think of the strides we really have made as a society. Today it's unimaginable to think of someone smoking in a restaurant. We accept this value as the norm today. Oh, but to slip into a time machine and go back a few years!
Can St. Cloud put its insidious history of the SCSU Homecoming behind it? There is an effort to move forward, to re-institute Homecoming. Perhaps the institution will benefit from the cooling-off period of a few years sans Homecoming, just like UND had a cooling-off period before adopting a new nickname to replace "Fighting Sioux." Thinking of the old "Sioux" moniker is just like re-imagining restaurants that were blue with cigarette smoke once. In each instance: What were we thinking?
Will SCSU be whistling past the graveyard as it contemplates bringing back Homecoming? Can we count on a new generation of students to be more mature and intelligent? I truly think there is hope. So, plans are in the works for a 2018 Homecoming at my old stomping grounds. Will it have a 5K run? I wouldn't rule out making a trip back for that. This time my "performance" standards would be nonexistent. I'd simply complete the course, then enjoy my little walk to the Perkins restaurant on the other side of Division.
Perhaps the highlight of my 2006 trip was to notice that a left turn lane and left turn signal are installed at the busy intersection there. There was no excuse back in the 1970s for not having that. We must pursue progress on all levels. No more manual typewriters!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

The Rain, the Park and The Cowsills

John C. Reilly's parody movie about pop music biopics included a gesture toward the Cowsills. The Reilly movie was called "Walk Hard." Its main inspiration was "Walk the Line," the movie about Johnny Cash. Movies like "Walk the Line," "Ray" (about Ray Charles) and others started becoming predictable. Artist pays dues to achieve fame, succumbs to self-destructive temptations but lands on his feet, mostly.
I saw "Walk Hard" and "Walk the Line" in the theater. "Walk Hard" was brilliant satire. Alas, it seems that too often satire floats over people's heads. It's an indirect form of making a point, like irony. I hesitate making this point because it makes me seem aloof. But I make it out of disappointment in finding that the theater turnout was negligible, even though "Walk Hard" had just been released.
The Reilly character goes through a number of pop music phases, even a protest phase from the '60s. The guy hosts a typical schlock 1970s TV variety show. He does disco (obviously). And there's a takeoff on the Cowsills.
The Cowsills' niche was as a family band. I confess I under-appreciated them at the time. Years later when hearing a reference, I sort of had the group pigeon-holed as a fleeting chapter in our pop culture that evaporated as pop culture chapters do. Although I associated more than one song with them, I thought of them as basically the equivalent of a one-hit wonder group. The one song that pops into my head is "The Rain, the Park and Other Things." Weird song title, actually. It doesn't follow the book for pop music.
What exactly is meant by "other things" which seems like a throwaway part of the title? The explanation, I guess, is that the song was in the midst of the chaotic torrent known as the '60s. There is a psychedelic air to the song. Musically the song has a haunting depth to it. It contradicts the Cowsills' image as being of the "bubblegum" realm.
The Cowsills may have performed in a charming, beat-oriented fashion with Susan doing the go-go dancing thing, but really their music had an impressive sheen of craftsmanship. Maybe you shake your head as you focus on the "bubblegum" aspect. Surely this group was packaged for commercial success. They were disciplined musical entertainers managed by keen marketers, but none of this contradicts the investment of art in the compositions, recordings and performances. I think our world of today, frankly, could use some "bubblegum" sound. It would loosen everyone up. It would make us less "uptight," to use a word from the 1960s lexicon.
To use a cliched term, there was "innocence" to it all. Paul Revere and the Raiders fit in with all of that. The Monkees, never mind that the four guys were sometimes only a superficial representative of their music, epitomized also. Music with "a beat" is not by definition lowbrow. The top songwriters produce lyrics that follow all the rules, even with disco.

An upbeat time capsule
"The Rain, the Park and Other Things" has been described as a "sunshine pop classic." The sheer energy of youth is felt through all such music from the time, in a manner I just do not sense today. Remember when Paul Revere and the Raiders hosted a TV show that was a spinoff from "American Bandstand?" I can still remember the opening to that show that had the guys driving dune buggies. The young generation wanted to have fun and feel love. It makes us sad now, or makes me sad anyway, as I realize that behind the veneer of all the youthful joy, the Vietnam war was reaching its apex with the body bags. It was the older generation who failed to show proper vigilance in guiding us. Remember, there was a profound "generation gap."
The Cowsills had monster hits but a couple stopped their climb at No. 2. Maybe this held back their outright bid for music immortality. A shame of course. I think another factor was that it was a rather large family together for the endeavor. Too many in the group for people to easily memorize names? The Beatles and Monkees were a nice compact four. As for Paul Revere and the Raiders, they were essentially thought of as two people: Mark Lindsay and Paul Revere himself. The namesake of the band was actually not the top banana. Lindsay was the clear star and Revere played keyboards and had a nice smile with gleaming teeth. Revere was a conscientious objector from the war.
"The Rain, the Park and Other Things" came out in a time when executives running major record labels were actual musicians! (And remember, Mothers Against Drunk Driving was once actually run by mothers!) The song was written by Artie Kornfeld and Steve Duboff. The original title of the song did not have "And Other Things."
At first the song was going to be the 'B' side (the flip side) of a record that would have a Motown song, "Come Around Here," showcased. There was no initial sense that "The Rain, The Park" was going to be big. The record company did some testing in radio and learned the truth: "The Rain, The Park" would now seem to be the 'A' side choice. But a key tweak awaited to be made with the song title. Kornfeld made the decision just an hour away from the recording being pressed. You obviously know that vinyl records ruled in those days.
Kornfeld said he tapped something spiritual within him. He said "Let's call it 'The Rain, the Park and Other Things.' " He wasn't sure of the exact wellspring at the time. Just a little 1960s Karma? That's how I view it. So much of '60s pop culture seemed inscrutable. It had a happier sheen than today's pop culture which seems actually troubled. And the irony is that the profound tragedy of the Vietnam war was going on. The war reflected the world of our parents, who weren't stupid but just couldn't see past the machinations of government and the military industrial complex.
Kornfeld seemed to pull the title of the classic tune out of the ether. He later would describe it as a predictor of Woodstock. The song was recorded in August of 1967. The production, arrangement and vocal harmonies warrant an 'A' grade. There's a harp glissando, bells and a rain sound effect. Lowbrow? Certainly not, not even by the "bubblegum" Cowsills.
The family played all their instruments in live performances.
"The Rain, the Park and Other Things" pines for sheer happiness, offered by the mysterious flower girl. It taps the base impulse of love. "Oh, I don't know why, she simply caught my eye." Finally "the sun breaks through and the girl is gone." But the guy still has "one little flower" in his hand. And he realizes "her love showed me the way to find a sunny day." He wonders if she was just a dream.

From childhood to full maturity
Susan Cowsill was integral to the success of the group. She was the cute little tyke who played the tambourine at the start. She surely blossomed. She could dance with the best of the "go-go" performers, a category of dancing that seems to me to have just disappeared. Why? Susan showcased this wonderfully for a Monkees' video of "Valerie."
Susan adjusted well to adulthood even with less fame. She has stayed active in music and has made a decent if unspectacular spark. She showed no signs of being a maladjusted former child star, none at all, and for that I'm very happy. She's the only daughter in the family. At age 9 she was the youngest person to be directly involved in a top 10 record. She developed a professional songwriting skill.

The Cowsills were an indelible part of 1960s pop culture, now evoking nostalgia as effectively as any other act. Having hits climb to No. 2 is phenomenal, but remember that America worships being No. 1. Maybe that's why the group isn't quite in the pantheon of immortals, or don't seem to be. Never mind, I salute the group as much as any other pop act of the time.
Give me The Cowsills and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Why couldn't Mark Lindsay and Paul Revere have stayed together longer? Oh, the name of their TV show was "Happening '68" with a boffo theme song.
Most people who write about The Cowsills make reference to the Partridge Family. I am doing so only as an obligation. The Partridge Family were an attempted clone from the Cowsills. It's too bad Donny Bonaduce couldn't turn out as more of a normal human being. Susan Cowsill most definitely did.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Public school no prerequisite for greatness

People who know me know I was a long-time fan of Maynard Ferguson the trumpet player. I'm still a fan after MF left us for that ballroom in the sky. The great MF came here to play at the UMM P.E. Center twice. He was known for visiting academic institutions quite often. The music of him and his band won high-level artistic kudos. His foray into disco in the 1970s didn't put much of a dent in that. Artists do what they have to do sometimes.
I saw a photo of MF late in his career accepting an award for all the efforts he made visiting academic institutions. He played events like our Jazz Fest even though he wasn't an actual guest for Jim Carlson's big event. Carlson seems to have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Actually I think he's in Florida. His Jazz Festival once seemed like the biggest annual event on the UMM calendar.
There was a major irony staring right at us, in connection to MF's high standing and the respect he won among academic types. Like many brilliant people, people who were pacesetters in their fields, MF dropped out of high school. He dropped out as a child of 15 in Montreal, Canada. He wanted to leave school to more actively pursue a musical career. I thought our public school system was supposed to be such a big boon for everyone. We always place it on a pedestal when talking about it. I would suggest a lot of that was just feel-good rhetoric.
Our public schools do appear to reflect lofty principles. It would seem ludicrous to suggest otherwise. So why would the likes of Ferguson and others see fit to dodge it? I would say the answers are readily apparent. Now, let's consider that there have been constructive changes, albeit carried out rather haltingly. The change is reflected in how much longer the honor roll lists are today. It's a sea change from when I was in school. Schools are much more inclined to give kids positive feedback and to nurture them.
We are in early summer as I write this, a time of year when kids could savor being early in the "summer vacation" which was their reprieve from the drudgery of school. 4-H gave them a better environment than did school. It was assumed that kids would groan about the thought of going back to school. There seemed to be an ethos of "pain equals gain." Except that pain does not equal gain unless you're a young man going through boot camp. And that's part of the problem: fathers of the boomers were involved in World War II. They literally learned to respect their drill sergeants. The result of all that is that we won WWII, never mind that its veterans would pray that we never go through such a thing again.
Parents of the boomers had survived the Great Depression. Pain led to gain as they learned to overcome adversity. Adversity is not an inherently good thing. Today in our age of a constantly healthy stock market and digital/tech blessings, we are not nearly so inclined to see obstacles. Where our kids are concerned, we don't want to think of obstacles at all. We focus entirely on positive, uplifting opportunities to be seized. Our economy is so different. It totally rewards the entrepreneurial spirit. Our public schools needed to adjust to accommodate the new values.
So, progress has been made, but it may not be nearly enough. Before the evolution to our current world, our clunky and monopolistic public school system was developed within the model of the industrial age. The goal was to nurture a submissive working class. We wanted obedient factory workers.
Why do kids learn music within the framework of band and choir? Why not coax them to develop with the guitar and piano, clearly lifelong instruments. A child wanting to learn piano must seek independent lessons. Guitar? Try to order a self-help course. Our education system was skeptical of the lifetime instruments because those instruments might facilitate individual expression. Such expression might be carried out in a rebellious or nonconformist way. In band and choir the director rules, sort of an extension of the drill sergeant.
I played in band for years but learned nothing about popular music song construction. The directors tended to diss popular music as if it lacked rigor or something. As if it were cheap. Well, talk to professionals who actually work in popular music, even country music. It is not cheap or lowbrow at all. It just reaches people on a more organic level. It touches their soul and relates to their lives. It wouldn't enjoy commercial success if it didn't. But of course, so many in academia, at the time I was trying to ascend that ladder, would vigorously dismiss artists who found commercial success, like Leroy Neiman. We were coached to laugh at the mere mention of his name.
Maybe this attitude is less noticeable in academia today. The influx of private money into education has probably helped to solve that. Education drifts off course when the sole source of its funding is government. I was in college when there were so many hippie-type instructors who thought we should flush down the toilet everything we thought we knew. They would want to make a face if they learned you grew up in a typical outstate Lutheran or Catholic church. They'd view such a background as being one of pathology, something to be overcome. But if you told those same hippie types that you adhered to something exotic like Baha'i, they'd gush with interest and admiration. Eastern religions interested them.
Maybe we are more inclined to admire what we do not know. Adherents of all religious faiths are the same human beings with human limitations and weaknesses. Christians accept the premise of sin and believe we can overcome it with faith. It is not a belief system that is worthy of outright dismissal.
Many of the hippie-type instructors began to notice the tremors of change as years progressed. They adjusted for the sake of sheer survival, learning to put on the cloak of societal norms and pretend they never really promoted all the revolutionary garbage. It is true we needed a revolution of sorts to get the U.S. out of the Vietnam war. There was collateral damage from that. We never really wanted to embrace Communism.
I remember my public school years like I was in some sort of prison, especially from the seventh grade on. I never made any decisions about what I wanted to do. You couldn't challenge teachers. Administrators? We viewed them like they were ogres. You see, our elected leaders were lobbied by the corporate world for schools to promote a conformist sameness. That was the world, after all, most kids would enter, holding a job like what we saw with Fred Flintstone. Flintstone's world was the model for the middle class: a dolt who stayed out of trouble, sought fun in innocuous ways and believed in showing up for work on time.
In reality, school administrators should have a beloved position in society as really the best friend of parents, not the ogre who calls only when a child is "in trouble." Why are they in trouble? Are they in trouble because they can't stand the school environment with its smothering influence? I'm writing about education as I remember it, with the knowledge there has been positive change as with honor roll expansion.
We still require students to get up too early in the morning. My God, lighten up! I read many years ago that the reason kids hate school is that "the purpose of school is to prepare them for a world of work which they will often find to be unpleasant." Work has changed, not that it's exactly joyful now, but it's more a matter of stress rather than drudgery. Our high-tech age has wiped out whole swaths of workers who did the tedious stuff. What's left, then, is work that requires analysis. And yes, this brings no small amount of stress. But the discomfort isn't quite as stultifying. It's not like the pathetic husband of the Mary Hartman character in the Norman Lear 1970s sitcom.
There are strategies for dealing with stress, strategies that most companies are quite happy to help dispense. The drudgery of the old days seemed to make people want to consume alcohol. They did their networking not with high-tech means but at the Elks or Eagles clubs on weekends. They drove home impaired by alcohol and we found amusement in such things. Shriners conventions! There's a big slice of Americana.
Shriners did great things. They could have lived without a lot of the social stuff. Today the law combats driving while drunk most decisively. Personally, I consume no alcohol at all, so as not to take any chances. I don't feel I'm missing anything. I occasionally notice people around me ordering an alcohol drink at certain restaurants, and I have to wonder "why?" It was an old badge of maturity.
Our contemporary world is a combination of old and new. Some vestigial old habits and notions remain. Our public school system still seems overly tilted toward the values of the industrial age. Do kids even have to go to a school building every day? Look at the sheer risk of using motorized transportation so much. The recent Hancock school van accident illustrates that. No amount of education received by kids at the Hancock school can ever negate what happened to those injured kids.
Maynard Ferguson built his whole storied career by being freed from the shackles of the public school system. And yet academia came to admire and love him. Ironic and rather strange, I think as someone who was once taught the "B-flat concert scale." In high school I'd be in marching band now. Now there's a quintessential model for conformity.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Chief Bender, MN native, invented the slider

Chief Bender did not deserve to be called Chief. It's not surprising that the moniker got attached to this (part) Native American. That's because Mr. Bender's talents were in baseball which could be a rather Neanderthal world. People could get categorized in crude terms. I suppose it can still happen, but I think so much money has washed into baseball, it's less likely. Money brings civility.
Crudest of all was how Jackie Robinson was berated when he made his heroic entrance to big league ball. Interesting how "Negroes" were disallowed for so long in baseball, yet a Native American or "Indian" like Chief Bender could be assimilated. That was one blessing for this talented man who was outside the Anglo norm.
Let's emphasize his real name: Charles Albert Bender. He was the consummate baseball man and baseball talent. How long ago? His heyday was before Babe Ruth. He began pitching around the turn of the century. Unlike so many stars who have their storied ups and downs, turbulence in their personal life etc., Bender was remarkably mature and stable. His pitching arm was resilient, carrying him through a most productive career.
He has a very significant niche in baseball history, separate from his non-Anglo background: he is credited with inventing the slider! That's quite a mark to be made. We hear about the slider pitch all the time. While effective, it can be hard on the already-delicate arm of a pitcher. It's a curve ball with extra speed. A pitcher had better have some ice packs handy.
Some reports have Bender as a native of Brainerd. That's my late mother's hometown. Most likely he was a native of the general Brainerd area, most certainly North Central Minnesota. He was the first Minnesotan elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, getting the nod in 1953. He doesn't seem well remembered in Minnesota, due most likely to having spent relatively little time here.
Bender's status as Native American followed him. He was proud of his Ojibwe heritage. However, after his ascent to fame in 1905, after pitching a shutout, he said he didn't want his name presented to the public as an Indian. He said he simply wanted to be known as a pitcher. A laudable aim to be sure, but one that would, alas, be elusive. We still remember him as "Chief" Bender. He endured hackneyed war cries.
We haven't advanced so far as a civilization, have we. I mean, it was like pulling teeth getting University of North Dakota to scrap its "Fighting Sioux" nickname. I remember when some crude hockey fans somewhere, I think in Duluth, taunted the UND team by chanting "smallpox blankets!" The horrible chant referred to a dark genocidal chapter of U.S. history.
Tom Swift wrote Bender's biography. Swift noted that the great pitcher was subjected to caricature treatment because of the Indian heritage. There were crude cartoons. Swift talked about all the exhibits of "narrow-mindedness," a phenomenon that would certainly stick around as we saw with Robinson's entry into the game. Bender threw one of the most dominating games in the early years of the American League, only to be subjected to being depicted in a drawing wielding a tomahawk and wearing a headdress.
Jackie Robinson was taught to disregard the taunts like those from the "evil" character in his biopic: Ben Chapman. Chief Bender indeed took his share of taunting from the bench or the stands. A fan might yell "back to the reservation!" How Bender handled it? Quite admirably, I'd say. He didn't get shook, and actually would smile at times. And then after he handled an inning with a real flourish, he'd get cocky himself and yell back "Foreigners! Foreigners!"
We know that Chief Bender was born in Crow Wing County. The exact date of birth is open to some debate. He was not 100 percent Native American as his father was German. His mother was part Chippewa. As a kid he got the Indian name "Mandowescence" which means "Little Spirit Animal." His family had 160 acres on the White Earth Indian Reservation.
He really found his home in baseball at an early stage of the sport's development. He's one of only a few pitchers to throw 200 or more innings at the age of 19. He was fortunate to not show evidence of arm overwork henceforth. Some pitchers like Gaylord Perry just seem immune to that. Bender threw a no-hitter in 1910. The 1911 World Series saw him tie Christy Mathewson's record of three complete games. His career win-loss record was 212-127 for a .625 winning percentage. His career ERA was 2.46.
Bender was known for unflappable poise in the World Series. A movie ought to be made about this guy's life.
Was it a case of "Minnesota Nice?" Bender was well-liked by his fellow players. Ty Cobb described Bender as the most intelligent pitcher he'd ever faced. Bender had a reputation as a sign-stealer. His groundbreaking slider pitch was called a "nickel curve" in its early years.
Bender came from a large family. He was just age seven when leaving to attend a boarding school in Pennsylvania. He graduated from Carlisle Indian Industrial School. He began his pitching in Harrisburg PA. Thus he is not closely associated with Minnesota. It wasn't long before Connie Mack, famous leader of the Philadelphia Athletics - yes, Athletics and not Phillies - signed the budding pitching prodigy to a $1,800 contract.
By the end of his rookie year, Bender fashioned 17 wins. The young man was on his way, building a reputation for consistency and resilience. He deserves to be better remembered today than he is, in Minnesota and everywhere.
He never encouraged the "Chief" name. But he never reacted to it in a visceral way - he kept his cool and let his pitching do the talking, thank goodness. He gets a pass for responding to his detractors with that "foreigner!" putdown. At the time of his death, at least one media account tapped into the regressive attitude by reporting that the great man had "gone to the happy hunting ground." Sigh. (Oh, but remember when our late State Senator Charlie Berg talked about "smoke signals!?")
Major League Baseball in pre-Babe Ruth times can get lost in a fog, like it's just too remote for us to understand or appreciate. I think Chief Bender would be a successful pitcher today! I refer to him as "Chief Bender" in the headline for this post because it's what stuck with him, and I feel most fans did not intend to be disrespectful with this reference. In researching for this post, I typed "Chief Bender" into search.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Please listen to my song about Kent Hrbek

I'm pleased to announce I have an original song about the great Minnesota Twin Kent Hrbek online. My song "Buy a Vowel, Kent Hrbek" is on YouTube. I remember watching a televised game one day where a fan held up a sign, "Buy a vowel, Kent Hrbek." The announcers were amused and certainly this message was clever. But I don't recall that it ever caught on. It did stay in my recollections though, and upon deciding to try to write a song in tribute to the Big Guy, the quip popped back into my head. It seemed perfect.
My song is in 3/4 time. I think it has rather a singalong feel to it. Mr. Hrbek is a fun-loving character so I feel he'd have a sense of humor about it. I think at some point he'd discover it and I hope he enjoys it. The song was recorded at the Frank Michels studio in Nashville TN. I love the Nashville music community. I'll give you a heads-up that my Christmas song for 2018 will include the pedal steel instrument. What a unique and lovely instrument, quite demanding to play. It's closely associated with country/western.
My Kent Hrbek song was ably put online by Brent Gulsvig of Gulsvig Productions, Starbuck MN. If you have any media transfer work needing to be done, call Mr. Gulsvig. The Gulsvigs have a friendly orange cat! Hey, I hope you enjoy my song! So, here's the link and thanks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK8TixePhwQ 

 

Kent Hrbek! We associate the Big Guy with a real golden age of Twins baseball. He helped define that team as it won championships in 1987 and 1991. He was ample in size and some fans thought he could have controlled his weight better. Yes, and fans thought Mickey Mantle could have taken better care of himself. I would never second-guess Kent Hrbek's approach to life. He was the Twins' mainstay at first base.
In 1987 he hit that memorable grand slam against St. Louis in the World Series. The most dramatic Twins home run ever? It would certainly be a candidate but I'd put it at No. 2. Perhaps the greatest moment in Minnesota sports history was when Harmon Killebrew hit a blast just before the All-Star break in 1965. Besides the sheer drama of that, the homer had symbolism because it showed the curtain was closing on the New York Yankees' dynasty. The team closing that curtain, our Twins, were only in their fifth year of existence (although they came here as an existing franchise).
Would you believe that before 1961, we were in "the bushes" with the AAA Minneapolis Millers? Would you believe that before 1956, the Millers played in modest old Nicollet Park? But there we were in 1965, a guaranteed-not-to-tarnish major league team, making the daily big city newspapers all over. Our weather even made national news because it was a factor for our big league games. And there we were in the summer of 1965, not only looking legitimate as a big league franchise, but giving a knockout blow to the one and only New York Yankees, those fabled Yankees, so long a darling of the national media.
There we were, our Minnesota Twins.
Of course the success of the 1965 season would be bittersweet: we lost to the Dodgers in the World Series in seven games. We were really stopped by one guy: Sandy Koufax. David Halberstam wrote a book in which he noted that Koufax became great not because of how he developed his pitching craft, but because umpires started calling the high fastball a strike! The lefty Koufax could throw letter-high fastballs like he was other-worldly.
We waited until 1987 and Hrbek's career before we could savor a world championship. A part of me was actually sad in 1987 because I knew that the new Twins were going to upstage the 1965 team in the state's collective memory. What a shame. The '65 team besides being great helped establish that Minnesota could nurture a big-time and successful pro sports franchise. Before 1961 all we had was the U of M Gopher football team, right? It's interesting how the Vikings and Twins got started at the same time, truly transforming our state's whole persona. We needed to pinch ourselves to see if we were dreaming.
Vic Power, Bob Allison and Don Mincher were early Twins first basemen. Killebrew would ply his glove there too. But Hrbek was the institution at first base for our glory Twins in the late '80s and in '91.
For a long time I considered myself an old-timer with how I considered the '65 memories so important. But now, you increasingly sound like an old-timer if you pine about those '87 and '91 campaigns. It recedes in time like all memories do. The '91 Series was so dramatic it could inspire a movie. Hrbek had his indelible moments in the spotlight.
I'm proud to have written my song about the Big Guy who played first and hit powerfully.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

My "Joe and Mika" song is now on YouTube

"Mika and Joe"

I'm old enough to remember watching Barbara Walters and Frank Blair together on "The Today Show." Ah, the days of the "Big 3" TV networks. Our Channel 7 out of Alexandria would go off the air for the night. Early risers might see the "test pattern" on the screen, complete with the Indian headdress.
What a vast new media world we are in now. I'm watching "Morning Joe" on MSNBC as I write this early Tuesday morning. The media are harvesting the Trump scandals and controversies. Day after day it rolls on. Just imagine how "Morning Joe" would have helped us explore Watergate. Or, how such shows would have revealed the travesty of the Vietnam war, and most likely gotten us out quicker.
"Morning Joe" features Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski - I always have to look up the spelling of her last name - and it comes on at 5 a.m. CDT. It runs for three hours. Their guests are the sharpest for sifting through the issues of the day that are bubbling in the Beltway. Even us denizens of Flyoverland, here in Minnesota, can keep up with the insider Beltway whispering and gossip, thanks to "Morning Joe."
The Today Show still airs. But it seems superficial and dated now. I need the insider stuff!
In a previous blog post I shared lyrics for an original song of mine, "I'm Watching Joe and Mika." I'm pleased to announce that I have had this song recorded, at the Angello Sound Studio of Nashville TN (actually in Hermitage, but Bob Angello presents the address as being Nashville). I wrote one new stanza of lyrics since the post.
OK so I'd like to invite y'all to give a listen to my song! I'd sure appreciate it. Imagine you're snacking on a Goo Goo Cluster, a treat staple in the U.S. South. I hope Joe and Mika themselves eventually discover the song and enjoy it. I incorporated names of some of those regular guests like Heidi Przybyla whose last name I also have to always look up. I invite you to click on this YouTube link to listen to "I'm Watching Joe and Mika." Again thanks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5L3sMJFPxBA

 
"Morning Joe" has been more than a TV show to me. It has been like a daily companion. It was on the air for all eight years of the Obama presidency.
Much was made of the Michael Wolff book that came out about the early Trump presidency. Thanks to our Morris Public Library for ordering the book for me. All the hype about the book made me most eager to read it. A similar new expose type of book about Trump is by David Frum: "Trumpocracy." I read both books for only a portion, maybe one-fourth, and then I had difficulty reading further. Why? It's because I watched "Morning Joe" for nearly the full three hours every morning, so I felt I was already aware of everything in the books!
It also helps that I watch Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell in the evening. No shows of that type were available for us to watch in the evening hours in "the old days." We'd watch "Bonanza" with Lorne Greene. Expose-type shows would have shown us that the Smothers Brothers TV show was right about Vietnam! I'd like to see a reality-based movie based on that edgy (for its time) Smothers Brothers show. The Smothers Brothers took on all the bulldog-type older Americans - "America love it or leave it" - who insisted we could "win" the war in Vietnam. The memories are so unpleasant, I have to dismiss them quickly.
The movie "LBJ" glossed over Vietnam. The movie "All the Way" showed the president too distracted to pay proper attention to early developments in Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin "incident" never happened - nothing happened.
So here we are, summer of 2018, and the media daily gives us exposes about Trump and his crew. I'm troubled because normally when the media does exposes, it forces resolution, i.e. the problems get solved due to public pressure. The big worry for me is that this process isn't happening. We're just filled with information every day about how Trump is unacceptable as both president and human being. It ought to be plain as the nose on your face. But the status quo just rolls on and on.
Trump is a slick-tongued demagogue just as George Wallace was. We see this story unravel every morning on the "Morning Joe" show with Joe, Mika and their guests. I keep watching even though the daily reports don't seem to lead to the proper resolution. But Mike Pence might be even more dangerous than Trump. Paul Ryan appears to have tail between legs - he will be remembered with the likes of Neville Chamberlain.
Maybe with some luck we'll get through the thicket of all this dangerous stuff. Hang in there, y'all, and keep watching Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on "Morning Joe." Encourage your friends to listen to my song. My recently-deceased mom liked to see me engaged in songwriting. She was more encouraging than my father about this. I guess my dad knew the rat race of the music business. One of the songs I may have recorded soon is "Ralph Williams Wrote the Tunes."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Movie "LBJ" (2016) adds nothing to "All the Way"

My first reaction to "LBJ" could have been the same words used by Roger Ebert after seeing "The Three Stooges" movie. The movies shared a nostalgic purpose. Their creators no doubt sensed grand purpose. The real Three Stooges entertained a generation of moviegoers during the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood. And "LBJ?" We're making contact with the sweet part of the bat in connection with the boomers. Boomers can tell you in great detail where they were and how they heard about the JFK assassination. I was in Mrs. Peterson's third grade class at Longfellow Elementary School in Morris MN.
The two movies I'm referencing seemed to get a fair amount of traction in reaching an audience. But Roger Ebert said of "The Three Stooges" movie: "Was this necessary?" And I'll staple that comment to the 2016 cinematic offering "LBJ." The basis for my feelings? It's odd this movie should come out so closely on the heels of "All the Way." I found "All the Way" to be a more effective movie. It's about the Civil Rights Act but it could just as easily be seen as a biopic about Lyndon Baines Johnson. I'll never forget the scene where Johnson takes Hubert Humphrey across a lake, by surprise, in his amphibious car! A conspicuous portrayal of Humphrey would seem necessary in a movie about Johnson.
Because of my fondness for "All the Way," I found "LBJ" to have a redundant quality about it. "LBJ" takes us further back in Johnson's career than we'd really care to go. OK so he was a cunning politician who knew how to climb the ladder of power. Nothing unique or distinctive about that. His wife is seriously downplayed. I wish we'd heard the quote from her about how "I spent my inheritance to finance Lyndon's first campaign, and it was the best investment I ever made."
Somewhere I'm sure you can find a definition of "riding coattails." Such a definition should surely be accompanied by a picture of Lyndon Johnson, because he most surely rode the coattails of the deceased JFK to win in a landslide in 1964. Surely this decisive win had little to do with any inherent charm or heroic characteristics of the man himself. He seemed as unglamorous as JFK was glamorous.
Chris Matthews of MSNBC told us that when Lyndon Johnson left the presidency, "he went back to Texas and smoked himself to death." Did we see that habit in "LBJ?" I'm not going to re-watch the movie to see. I remember a critic putting down the movie "Pearl Harbor" because none of the GIs were seen smoking.
Many critics have pointed out the excessive makeup applied to Woody Harrelson in order to play LBJ. But they don't seem to use this as a serious point of indictment for the movie. Most are inclined to admire Harrelson and to consider him a trooper for making this movie. The extent of makeup bothered me. Such makeup can endanger the health of the wearer. I'm reminded of the makeup job for Howard Stern, when he had a TV show many years ago, when he tried to portray William Shatner in Star Trek. Stern didn't even look like Captain Kirk but he rather looked like a monstrosity, sort of like the Phantom of the Opera.
I felt sorry for Harrelson under all that makeup.
"All the Way" had already made the point about Lyndon Johnson that needed to be made: he was a southerner who was readily amenable to bending on racism to accomplish an outcome he felt was inevitable. "All the Way" showed us Johnson's masterful cajoling techniques. Humphrey was the northern liberal who didn't have to bend at all. Johnson had to implore fellow southerners on how "the train is leaving the station." In "All the Way" he tells George Wallace "I'm not going to be remembered in history with the likes of you."
It never seemed a matter of pure principle with Johnson. He was master of he pragmatic.
The movie "LBJ" would have achieved a grander purpose, setting it apart from its predecessor, if it had probed further our slide into the Vietnam war, and Johnson's negligence in connection with this. "The train is leaving the station" meant that fundamental civil rights legislation was coming no matter what. The tragic escalation of Vietnam seems not in retrospect to have been inevitable. Maybe movies shy away from this because it's embarrassing to consider such failure and mendacity by our leaders.
Civil rights accorded basic rights to countless people for whom it was a huge step forward. Vietnam cost the lives, literally, of tens of thousands of young men who should have had their future in front of them. Our leaders lied to us because they didn't want to admit it was a mistake. Their fear was of "losing" the war. Well, we sure did go and lose it. Think of those images of desperate people trying to cling to helicopters at the end. The 1970s developed into a "funk" because we seemed rather ashamed of ourselves.
Now, here's a more novel and interesting movie idea than "LBJ": a movie about the then-controversial Smothers Brothers TV show!
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com