Please listen to my song about Rocky Colavito

Rocky Colavito was the cleanup batter for the American League All-Star team in the year when our Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington, was the host site.
Rocky Colavito! His real name was "Rocco." I once had an early baseball card of the guy when his name appeared as Rocco. Aside from being an interesting and captivating player, his name alone seems like an invitation to write a song. I have accomplished that! I invite you to listen to my song simply called "Rocky Colavito." It was recorded at Angello Sound Studio in Nashville TN where Robert Angello is in charge. He's a master of music and also of fishing. In the latter he goes after "stripers."
My song covers the various chapters of Rocky Colavito's career. It's interesting because he had impact with more than one team, although he's closest to the hearts of Cleveland Indians fans.
Here's the YouTube link for my song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpYR0OjBe7s
 
Rocky was in his prime with Detroit too, really hitting with power in the '61 season. He seemed such a nice complement to Al Kaline. In Detroit he got into a little tiff with a sportswriter, Joe Falls. It appears Mr. Falls thought maybe Colavito wasn't enough of a clutch hitter. Anyway, Colavito moved on and had a productive year for the Kansas City Athletics who had a doormat reputation through nearly all of their existence.
Then "the stage was set for his return," as I write in the song, to Cleveland, the city by Lake Erie which I also invoke in the song.
I invoke something else which might call for special discussion or argument. I refer to the "smiling Indian" that has adorned Cleveland's uniforms and caps. The character has the name "Chief Wahoo."
I use the past tense because, as of the current season, Chief Wahoo is gone at least as part of the team's on-field presence. I read that souvenir items will continue to flash the smile of the Indian dude. Many fans by Lake Erie are emotionally invested.
I shouldn't have to tell you what the issues are here, should I? Same as for the Washington Redskins of the NFL. The college teams of University of North Dakota have had their old nickname retired to the dustbin. So, I refer to the "smiling Indian" and is that a point of contention? I hope not.

I wondered to what extent the Chief had been used on the caps, where I seem to associate the plain letter "C" more. Well, a little research shows that Chief Wahoo has been used on the team's caps. Up through 1957, the standard cap logo was the Indian dude inside the letter "C".
You'll notice that the main photo of Rocky that accompanies my song has the "C" on the cap. I chose this photo because it's from Wikipedia so there are no IP issues. I worry less about IP than I used to. I'm pretty protected, I feel, because I have no commercial motives with what I do. I can always argue "fair use." In other words, I'm only using the image to help listeners understand the content of my song. When it comes to sharing online, it seems as though the mob has busted through the palace gates anyway.
I found out shortly after my song was posted that a fresh biography of Rocky Colavito is coming out this summer. It's by Mark Sommer of the Buffalo News. Nice timing, Mark. Or nice timing, me. I sent him an email, sharing on the Chief Wahoo thing, and he responded. He informed me that Rocky has spoken out against the use of Chief Wahoo. Sommer said the logo has a long and interesting history and that it promotes sales even now on a souvenir basis, not surprising. Sure, it's a more interesting symbol than the plain letter "C."
Logos and nicknames have of course become a highly sensitive matter over the last few years. When a new team is created today, it seems that the default choice for nickname is big cat, e.g. Carolina Panthers and Jacksonville Jaguars. We in Morris have the UMM Cougars.
My feelings about Chief Wahoo? I might find it more objectionable if the character was in some sort of combative stance like with a tomahawk. Chief Wahoo is simply a smiling human face, totally disarming. So I think it's a little endearing in fact, although one can understand the objections. Mr. Sommer asserted too that he sees "both sides" on the matter.
I hope you enjoy my song. Thanks as always to Gulsvig Productions of Starbuck, Brent Gulsvig, for getting the song on YouTube for me. If you have any media transfer work needing to be done, contact then! They're on the mill dam road. They have a very friendly orange cat.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

MACA softball comes on very strong

MACA softball enjoyed a romp in both ends of a Friday doubleheader. The Tigers squared off against the BOLD Warriors. BOLD was not up to the task of challenging coach Mary Holmberg's Tigers. Indeed, MACA won with a total flourish by scores of 18-0 and 15-0.
In the game 1 romp with the 18-0 score, we got going with three runs in the first inning, two in the second and nine in the third. The hitting was complemented by errorless fielding. BOLD was limited to three hits and they committed five errors.
Two MACA pitchers limited the BOLD bats to the negligible output. It was Liz Dietz getting the win with three innings of work, in which she struck out three batters, walked one and allowed two hits. Kenna Kehoe handled pitching for the only other inning. Kendall Mack took the pitching loss for BOLD and was roughed up by the MACA bats. She also issued eight walks.
The offensive review shows Bailey Marty with a hit and three runs scored. Emma  Bowman had a hit, two RBIs and a run. Dietz's bat came through with two hits and she crossed home plate twice. Jen Solvie had a hit along with two each in RBIs and runs. Kenzie Hockel was a major force with a three-for-four line including a double. Kenzie drove in three runs and scored two.
Katelyn Wehking was a perfect two-for-two, drove in a run and scored three. Still another hot bat was shown by LaRae Kram: three-for-four including a double, three RBIs and two runs. Macee Libbesmeier went 1/2 with an RBI and a run. Kenna Kehoe had a hit in her only at-bat. Riley Decker had a hit, an RBI and a run. Our line score was 18-16-0.
The three BOLD hits were by Jordan Johnson, Megan Ridler and Devyn O'Halloran. Ridler and O'Halloran hit doubles.
 
Game 2: Kehoe pitches distance
Kenna Kehoe took over for pitching chores and excelled in the Friday twin bill action. She pitched the distance, thrilling I'm sure my old co-worker and friend Janet Kehoe, not to mention Bill Kehoe, who I used to write about when he played for the CAHN Spartans. I guess he's not a kid anymore. Anyway, Kenna struck out four batters and walked none in the sterling 15-0 victory over BOLD. She allowed just two hits. Bravo!
I remember covering C-A football when it was at the Metrodome for Prep Bowl. The only "down" note of those experiences was when George Dieter was befallen by serious health problems.
The losing pitcher for BOLD was Caylee Weber. Kilee Elfering also pitched for the Warriors.
We out-hit BOLD 8-2 and out-fielded them as we had but one error while BOLD committed three. Our deciding rally was in the third: eleven runs in, a parade of orange and black. Bailey Marty had a hit and scored two runs. Emma Bowman drove in a run and scored two. Liz Dietz was again a factor with her two-for-two showing, two runs batted in and three runs scored. Carissa Oberg had a hit in her only at-bat and drove in two runs.
Jen Solvie socked a double, drove in two runs and scored one. Kenzie Hockel had a hit and scored two runs. LaRae Kram had a hit, an RBI and run. Katelyn Wehking drove in a run and scored one. Kehoe crossed home plate once. Riley Decker had a hit and crossed home plate twice.
The two BOLD hits were by Megan Ridler and Elfering.
 
Success vs. Benson
The Benson diamond was the site for overwhelming MACA softball success Thursday. Is Benson just alone in softball now? Is it no longer "Benson-Hancock?" Yours truly finds it harder keeping up on things these days. For ages it was "Benson-Hancock." The coach joked about how maybe the team should be called the "BOwls" (pronounced bowels). It seemed common to refer to them as the "Brave Owls" which was quite nice. I don't know if that was the official nickname.
For years I'd write "Morris-Donnelly" and then I was informed there was nothing legal about the name, it was just sort of a gentleman's agreement. Ditto with "Morris Middle School." I typed that countless times and was then informed there was nothing official about the term. The Friday Willmar newspaper simply stated "Benson" as our softball opponent. I'll go with that even though that paper is known to have lapses sometimes.
So, ahem: the Tigers played a dandy game on Thursday led by Liz Dietz. We won 16-1 in four innings of play. Pretty explosive and efficient. Dietz's bat produced a grand slam! Her RBI harvest for the afternoon was six. She had a two-for-four line as her team produced eleven hits. We were superior everywhere on the diamond: we had but one error while Benson had six. The Benson hit total was four.
The Willmar paper keeps referring to us as "MCA" when it should be "MACA." One of the co-writers of the article is Tom Larson. He would never admit that his paper ever makes a mistake.
The Tigers erupted early and often with two runs in the first inning and three each in the second and third. But the big inning was the fourth with eight runs coming in. The game ended early mercifully.
Bailey Marty had an RBI and a run scored. The Willmar paper spelled her last name "Marti." Emma Bowman drove in two runs and scored two. Jen Solvie went one-for-three with an RBI and a run scored. Mackenzie Hockel was a perfect two-for-two with two each in RBIs and runs.
Katelyn Wehking went 1/2 with an RBI and run scored. The hit parade continues with LaRae Kram at two-for-three with a pair of runs scored, and Carissa Oberg went two-for-four with two ribbies and a run. Riley Decker had a hit in her only at-bat, plus she drove in a run and scored two.
These four Benson (Braves?) each had one hit: Hannah Andrews, Ellie Moesenthin, Abby Lundebrek and Maranda Wieber. Moesenthin's hit was a double. Lundebrek drove in a run.
Dietz in her pitching work struck out three batters, walked one and allowed four hits. The one run she allowed was unearned. Wehking was handed the ball for one inning of pitching. She set down two batters on strikes, walked one and allowed no hits.
Three players pitched for Benson: Zoe Doscher, Marissa Connelly and Calley Miller.
 
Success vs. ACGC
One-sided scores have been the norm for coach Holmberg's wrecking crew. Indeed, there is little suspense in most games. Such was the case on Tuesday, April 23, when the orange and black took care of business in a twin bill vs. Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City. MACA pounded out 14 hits in a 14-3 romp over the Falcons.
The highlight was a three-run home run off the bat of Kenzie Hockel who had two hits. Liz Dietz had a two-for-three line with two runs batted in. Jen Solvie rapped two hits in four at-bats and drove in three runs. Other Tigers hitting safely were Bailey Marty, Emma Bowman, Carissa Oberg, LaRae Kram, Kendra Wevley, Kenna Kehoe, Riley Decker and Jadyn Roth. Oberg's bat drove in two runs. Wevley's hit was a double.
Three ACGC Falcons had multiple-hit games: Nicole Whitcomb, Pailey Wilner and Rachel Wilner.
Featured on the pitching rubber for the victorious Tigers was Kehoe whose arm reliably handled the six innings. She fanned two batters and walked none. The losing pitcher was Shayna Hobson who didn't fool the Tiger bats at all. Our line score was 14-14-1.
 
Beating the Falcons 11-1
The other Tuesday game vs. ACGC had a similar outcome, meaning lots of opportunities to cheer for the Tiger faithful. In this game it was Emma Bowman wielding the homer bat. Bowman excelled with her three-for-four line in this 11-1 triumph. Her RBI harvest was four and she scored a run.
Kenzie Hockel was a perfect two-for-two and she drove in two runs. Katelyn Wehking and Riley Decker each added two hits to the mix. Other Tigers hitting safely were Bailey Marty, Jen Solvie and LaRae Kram. ACGC had just two hits which were by Shayna Hobson and Abbie Kragenbring.
It was Liz Dietz showcased on the pitching end of things, and this Tiger fanned three batters, walked two and gave up two hits in her five innings. Lindsey Minnick was the losing pitcher. Our line score was 11-15-0. If you add up the individuals as reported by the Willmar paper, the hit total is 12, not 15. We had zero errors.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

One year since Martha Williams passed away

Projecting the spirit and personality of Martha H.Williams

Mom is at the table at right at First Lutheran Church in Morris. It's the kitchen of the fellowship hall. First Lutheran was a special place for her.

A young Martha Williams at right, posing with her mother Hilda Ohlson and nephews Allan and Norman, identical twin sons of Edwin and Doris Ohlson.

Sibling shares a hug: Edwin Ohlson, Mom's brother, is at right.

Martha and younger sister Mildred pose with parents Andrew and Hilda Ohlson in Brainerd. Andrew started this family when he was up in years. Only recently did your blog host discover that he had a previous wife, Johanek, who died in 1920 at age 46. I don't yet know if that marriage produced children. Information is very scant about Johanek.

Mom with the childhood dog of the Ohlson children of Brainerd MN. The dog's name was "Teddy." Mom always said it was really brother Edwin's dog. She said the dog became disconsolate when Edwin left home for the service for WWII. The childhood home was basic with amenities. But it was full of love.

We never forget the times when our parents passed into the next life. Today, Wednesday, April 24, marks one year since my mother passed on. It was in the very early morning hours when two representatives of the funeral home came to our residence. One was Steve Hokanson. He shared a hug and condolences. An angel had its eye on Steve. He would be called to heaven sooner than any of us would have expected.
Our family had long been close to the Hokansons. Steve's wife Randee ran the Historical Society. That organization put up a display about my late father once. Most of us still remember Walt Hokanson who lived such a long and rich life. Walt bequeathed a lot of money to his church which happens to be my family's church too. That was generous, although I have seen much too scant evidence of how the money has helped our church of First Lutheran. Frankly I have seen no evidence. That's a little discouraging. The ELCA in our neck of the woods had a problem with employee theft a while back. Some dude who lived in Wolverton. I plan on bequeathing no money to the church.
Anyway, Steve Hokanson seemed in the prime of his life when he came to our residence last April. I was keeping my composure just fine. That's probably because Mom's death came as part of the natural order of things. I guess "her time had come" is a cliche. Mom dealt with a succession of health issues over her last few years. She had good fortune at some of those junctures. She was age 93 at the time of her passing. Her 94th birthday would have been in June.
There was a time when I felt strongly that her obituary would read "age 91." So we were blessed, in the case of both Dad and Mom, that their lives extended so far. But God does in fact create us so that life ends. He also created us so that our mortal bodies can fail us in many ways toward the end. Why? Why did God develop this kind of road map? Maybe my parents now know the answer to that in heaven.
This past Sunday was Easter. I'm not overjoyed at this holiday as I'm discomforted at hearing about the suffering of Jesus Christ at the end. I don't recall such graphic visuals, when I was a kid. Maybe we have the Mel Gibson movie to attribute for the new way. I could live without it. I find Christmas to be a 100 percent more joyous holiday, ironic since we don't even know the real date of Christ's birth.
I mark Easter by calling up the concluding scene of Monty Python's "Life of Brian" on YouTube. "Look on the bright side of life." A chocolate bunny is a nice way to mark the holiday too.
 
Steve Hokanson RIP
This Easter Sunday, we at First Lutheran were informed of the death of Steve Hokanson. What a reminder of the frailty of our human existence. I had heard about his sudden health issues. I wondered right away if these issues might be connected to his well-known service in Vietnam.
I had a first cousin, Norman Ohlson, who was a Vietnam veteran and died before his time. Norman was highly decorated. I don't even want to know what he had to do to win that. So many of those veterans were hardly aware that the travail of their service was not over when they came home. The war dominated the media when I was a kid. I was a voracious consumer of media.
The troubling stuff of the 1960s, all the tumult, instilled in me a cynicism that I have carried through life, sometimes to my severe detriment. Kids are raised to be so idealistic today.
Death has recently taken some other close acquaintances of mine, such as Sherman Waage, Bill Rickmeyer and Mike Miller. There is always a changing of the guard in the community's fabric. I ceased being a public person in this community in 2006. The new leadership network is increasingly composed of people I don't even know. In many cases I know their parents.
I am thankful that my family's affairs were not complicated at the time both my parents passed. It helped that they had only one child. We hear horror stories about estate situations when certain older people die. What a relief there is no such mess for the Williams family.
 
How much to know?
I have wondered: now that both of my parents are in heaven, would it be good or bad for them to learn about the problems I had growing up? I'd say bad. They needn't be confronted with that. They should just feel pride in their own lives. No doubt I was an impediment for them. But I was just a kid and probably needed special attention. Maybe like Ritalin. Perhaps I should have been a poster boy for Ritalin.
School was OK for me up through the sixth grade. After that it rapidly became nothing but miserable. I began defining my self image only in connection to how I was doing in school classes. It was all I lived for, it was the only area in life where I got any feedback at all. I equated failure in school with a spiritual, maybe literal, death. And how foolish, because the vast majority of what I was forced to "study" after the sixth grade was pointless. It was just an exercise in being dragged through stuff. I think this reflected our culture of the industrial age, a time when most jobs had little enjoyment. So, school was designed to reflect that.
I think school has been forced to adjust because of the sea change of digital life. The digital world is set up to make all tasks easier - it's the whole point. Not that life's challenges are wiped away, because all those efficiencies have wiped away jobs, like "middlemen," which even though marked by routineness, were after all jobs. Watch the movie "Tommy Boy" (Chris Farley).
I was greatly handicapped by my physical appearance when young. It brought vicious teasing. So bad, I could hardly circulate at all. I developed social anxiety disorder which made it hard for me to shop, to buy proper clothes etc. I was teased for having an effeminate facial appearance. That has never jumped out at me from a mirror, but I guess it's true, even today. What would all my critics and detractors like me to do about this?
I'd go play "scatterball" over lunch hour at the old elementary gym, when I was in junior high, and have other boys scream at me incessantly about my apparently unacceptable appearance. "Girl face!" they'd scream, over and over. Certainly some teachers had to be aware of this. Why couldn't they arrange for me just to go home? Just get me the hell out of there.
Would I want my parents in heaven to know this background of my experience? It's relevant to understand my orientation toward life, but I'd say "no." In heaven we are not encumbered by such mortal life misery. Sometimes I'd like to give God the finger.
 
Thanks to Del Sarlette for scanning the photos that appear with this post.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Time to speak out more about football

Maybe this idea makes too much sense: One (or better yet more than one) Morris Area school board member should make a public comment about how it is no longer wise for the school to sponsor the sport of football.
You know my logic here. You probably shake your head because of this assumption that football is a normalized part of American life. Frankly it's popular because of all the people watching it. We watch from our couches, munching on potato chips. So we feel none of the pain. The players most surely feel it.
At the youth or high school level, the boys feel encouraged to play because of the cheers showering down on them. In what other activity can these boys, many of them with typical insecurities for that age, get such resounding positive feedback?
I once fed the monster myself. Writing for the Morris newspaper, I regularly bestowed lavish attention on the sport of football. Each game was an "event." Fans would crowd our now-defunct Coombe field, named for a guy I had as a teacher in the seventh grade. He liked to refer to himself in the third person. The facility was totally acceptable for football. Each game was just as much a "town square" as it was a sport venue. Remember the idle socializing all over the place? Seriously, it sometimes seemed the game was secondary.
I learned the "town square" term from Lory Lemke. He noted that the phenomenon would fade away when the facility was replaced. It was replaced by something I would call an unfortunate shrine to the sport of football. Is Big Cat Stadium "nice?" Well of course it's nice. It would have been nicer if we'd had a benefactor like Ralph Englestad for UND. Englestad was the guy who got in trouble for celebrating Hitler's birthday in Nevada. He worshiped the sport of hockey which has its own substantial dangers just like football.
We must now seriously consider: What are we doing to the mindset of boys when we suggest that sports be so high-profile? As if sports should be the defining experience in the lives of so many of our youth. The newspaper in Willmar comes out with a sports section every day (now just five days a week due to retrenchment) with the predictable stock-type photos of certain kids doing their sports thing. It is "certain kids" because many other kids who lack the talent, physical attributes or interest do not get involved. Why is the non-sports segment left to be so anonymous by comparison? Is this something the non-sports kids passively accept? Or is there some resentment bubbling? Perhaps there is resentment but they see it as futile to express themselves about it. So they shrug and say "that's just life in America."
We used to shrug about people smoking cigarettes in public places. These things can change. Too many people wait to comment until the political landscape changes to make it seem OK.
 
Heartening signs
Regarding football, the landscape appears to be finally shifting. In the past we'd read of an outlier somewhere, always just one person on a board, making skeptical comments about football. Such comments might get widespread media attention because of their novelty. I still remember the name of a school board member in the Eastern U.S. several years ago: Patty Sexton. I quoted her in a post.
At present we are seeing the increased likelihood of more than one member of a particular board speaking up. With this trend, the public will be forced to take the comments more seriously. Unfortunately we are still a ways away from the skepticism really taking hold. Perhaps many of our education leaders are holding back as they harbor the proper thoughts, yes, but they're waiting to make sure it's OK to speak out. What a joy it would be to have a Morris Area school board member make such a comment.
Are there any UMM-connected people on the Morris board? I have lost touch. People in academia are supposed to have sharp judgment about such things. If any of you guys have inhibitions, please discard them. Please don't offend us by suggesting that you believe the spin of pro-football people who talk about "making safer helmets" and "concussion protocol." Please.
We are seeing cracks in the dike at the University of Colorado. December saw the school hire a new football coach. This individual made the tired old comments about how "tough" his team would play. Hard-hitting, yes. We ought to cringe. I remember writing an article about an MHS season opener which I described as "rough and tumble." I remember interviewing coach Jerry Witt many times where he might describe an upcoming opponent as playing "smash-mouth football." Jerry and I would not conduct ourselves that way now, I'm quite sure. We'd have to soft-pedal the violent stuff.
Football can never be made non-violent. You might note that other sports have risks, with hockey seeming high on the list. The problem with football is that violence is the whole point. Colorado's football program has a background of former players who killed themselves. Other former players have documented, serious problems with the after-effects of football. They are human beings. Do we no longer care about them after they're done dancing around on our TV screens playing football?
Not one but two Colorado university regents decided to be dissenters. The new coach's blunt talk about the asset of "hard hitting" in football fed the skepticism. The coaches are so slow to learn. They are paid to win. Football has defined them for a long time. It becomes learned behavior for these souls to preach football's religion.
People who watch football on TV are too quick to just shrug and go along with it, while they point fingers at skeptics like me as being sticks in the mud. I have totally overcome any desire to watch football any more. I'm not just saying that. It did take some time. My current cable TV package does not even include the Big 10 Network.
The two skeptics at Colorado did not win in the end. But a salvo had definitely been fired.
The pro leagues fight the enlightenment with a strategy just like the tobacco companies. It is a $14 billion industry. Our universities and public high schools simply must do better. In this sphere, morality and science are supposed to matter.
We cannot expect the boys and young men to take appropriate action themselves, and that is partly because of the "invulnerability of youth" syndrome.
At age 64 I think more and more about my limitations and frailties. I am in position to be most thankful that I never had the talent or interest in playing football. But why should I be blessed just because of that?
Sports for kids was developed long ago, I would argue, as a means to keep kids out of trouble, to combat boredom. An idle mind is the devil's workshop I guess, but today in the digital age, I don't think boredom is nearly the kind of issue it once was. It would seem boredom has been obliterated.
The feminine gender is blessed by not being exposed to playing football at all. Why should one gender be so blessed? Why are boys and young men made to suffer? It is quite simply unconscionable.
How exhilarating it would be to see a Morris Area school board member make a high-profile comment about this - be assertive and don't worry about blowback. You would be surprised how many people would feel heartened.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Jen Solvie delivers 4 hits in 16-0 triumph

Weather permitted an April 9 MACA softball game against Melrose. Truly it was a rare date permitting this. And the joy belonged to Tiger fans who watched their team win in a romp at Melrose. A romp indeed as the orange and black prevailed 16-0. It was our second win. Our line score was 16 runs, 12 hits and one error. The Melrose numbers were 0-2-5.
Liz Dietz handled the pitching throughout. She showed command in her shutout performance. She set down six Dutchmen batters on strikes, walked two and allowed two hits in six innings. Melrose had Makiya Luetmer on the pitching rubber.
Jen Solvie was the hot hitter with her four safeties in five at-bats. One of her hits was a double and she drove in two runs. Bailey Marty and Emma Bowman each rapped two hits with Emma coming through with a double. Dietz complemented her pitching with a base hit. LaRae Kram had a one-for-three line. Katelyn Wehking had a hit and two runs-batted-in. Carissa Oberg had a hit in her only at-bat and drove in two runs.
The two Melrose hits were off the bats of Amy Austing and Ashley Rademacher.
The Tigers jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Momentum built up more later, capped by a seven-run sixth inning. (My spelling of Carissa's name is from Maxpreps. The Willmar paper has it spelled differently.)
 
Baseball: Melrose 10, Tigers 4
The baseball fortunes weren't so great for the Tigers in competition vs. Melrose. The scoreboard outcome was 10-4 on Tuesday, here. The teams were basically even in hits, Melrose with seven and the Tigers with six. Melrose had one error compared to the Tigers' two.
The orange and black got in a hole early as the scoreboard showed 5-2 after two innings. Melrose's big inning was the fourth: five runs in.
MACA had three pitchers share the load with Jaret Johnson getting tagged with the loss. Johnson worked for three innings and allowed five runs but only one was earned. He struck out three batters and walked two. Jordan Leuthardt pitched one inning and had a rough go of it, then Zach Bruns had his arm called on. Bruns set down two batters on strikes in his two innings.
The winning pitcher for Melrose was Carter Tschida whose stint was four innings in which he fanned four batters. He allowed five hits and walked three. Reegan Nelson got the pitching save. Nelson pitched three innings, fanned four batters and allowed one hit.
On to hitting: here we see Michael Halvorson with a multiple-hit game for the Tigers: two-for-three. Jack Riley rapped a double. Bruns doubled also and he scored a run. Johnson had a hit, a run scored and an RBI. Colten Scheldorf had a hit and a run scored. There were two Dutchmen with multiple-hit games: Tschida at 2/4 with a run and an RBI, and Bradley Hellermann at 2/3, two runs scored and a double. Other Dutchmen hitting safely were Grant Moscho, Drew Ostendorf and Luke Dehmer.
This was a West Central Conference game.
 
Weather is impediment
Isn't this practically an annual issue? We see a very tentative start to the spring season of diamond sports: baseball and softball. Track and field has some indoor fieldhouse competition. Spring is unique in how it challenges us with the weather. In the fall, football gets played unless there's lightning, period. Volleyball is indoors as are the winter sports.
Following the winter sports teams is a no-brainer - if a game is on the schedule, it gets played. Nice to be able to take that for granted. We have a problem in spring.
I have written about this before with suggestions, but the world is not anticipating any suggestions from yours truly. Shall I be a broken record? Baseball and softball could run from May until the first week of August, overseen jointly by the high school and an organization like the American Legion. I suppose some of the logistics could be daunting. But maybe not.
I have also suggested that track and field be offered as the only spring sport. There is something for everyone in track and field, whether you're big or small, fast over the short distances of more of a jogger. One sport would promote simplicity and thus save money, wouldn't it? Early-season meets would be concentrated at the spacious fieldhouses.
Oh, and as for the month of April, how about some indoor intramural sports?
 
Now, Good Friday
I have been told we must differentiate Easter and Good Friday. I'm not Mr. Answer Man about religion. I do know that the crucifixion story grates on me, irritates me because of the sheer violence. Is this really necessary? Did this up-front gore come about because of the Mel Gibson movie? Why do we have to follow Hollywood's lead?
Christmas is a totally happy holiday, never mind that we don't really know the date of Christ's birth. Even if the babe was not the son of God, it is still such a heartwarming story. A babe with super powers.
Christians make such a big deal out of Easter. Even on Easter itself the gloom of Good Friday seems to carry over. I have entered the sanctuary of my church with the lights off to mark the gloom of the crucifixion. (Do not spell it "crucifiction" even if you're thinking of fiction.) By the end of the service we're supposed to be joyous. Well fine, it's always nice to feel joyous. I'll go to YouTube and call up the concluding scene of Monty Python's "Life of Brian."
My church is combined with Assumption Church on Good Friday evening. Assumption is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is in the news these days for such terrible reasons and I'm not thinking of the Notre Dame fire. Yours truly played with a musical group in that cathedral back in the summer of 1972. Nice acoustics.
I'm not sure the Lutherans should have an active association with the Catholics at present. There was even a misbehaving priest here in Morris not too many years ago. So, these things don't just happen "somewhere else." That dude had an appetite for child porn. I would feel better just reflecting on faith in solitary fashion at home. I think it's more meaningful that way. "Look on the bright side of life" (from "Life of Brian").
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Warm feelings for both the Jacobses?

So, the "celebration of life" for the Jacobs couple is today (Monday, April 15). Maybe we should not pass any judgment because we cannot relate to the adversity of aging people. Surely we are all living longer and the challenges are getting more acute. We can be sure that economically challenged people are particularly at risk for stress.
We are encouraged now to "celebrate the lives" of the Jacobs couple. Maybe there is a warm impulse to think of them "entering heaven together." Most of us ought to be smart enough to realize there should be a counter impulse.
In one sense I can relate to the kind of stresses that Mr. Jacobs was taking on. Issues of our aging population are getting increased attention. I won't play holier than thou and say I can understand better than most people, just because my parents lived into their 90s. Mom and Dad dealt with, and overcame, serious health issues for a long time. Much as we strive to care properly for everyone, the human body ultimately fails us.
Alexandra Jacobs was in a very challenged phase of her life. She had broken her hip and it wasn't healing properly. She was in a wheelchair. But the worst part most likely was mental decline. She had signs of dementia. It's easy to surmise that Mr. Jacobs was overcome with sadness and anxiety and made his drastic decision. So a part of us might suggest this is sad and we must not pass judgment on anyone. Or, even this most troubling thought: "He did it out of love."
A major problem in this situation is that we cannot hold anyone accountable. Both husband and wife are deceased. All that's left is the funeral or "celebration of life." A funeral is certainly no place for pointing fingers or venting animosity. Oh my, animosity? Well ask yourselves this: what if Irwin had killed his wife but not killed himself? Empathy toward spouse/caregiver does not extend to murder, does it?

Irwin Jacobs - MPR news image

If matters were getting so stressful for Mr. Jacobs, could not he have turned his wife over to a memory care center? If her decline was so acute that Irwin couldn't take it, he could have said "goodbye" in a humane and touching way. And then, to get on with his own remaining years. The couple were only in their late 70s.
Mr. Jacobs wasn't as high-profile as he used to be. He had the image of a wheeling and dealing tycoon. Getting involved with the Minnesota Vikings was a good way to enter the limelight. Sometimes when a well-known person dies, we find a trivial memory about that person entering our thoughts. I remember when Irwin entered a business relationship with Fran Tarkenton the quarterback. The relationship soured. Irwin became very blunt and was quoted describing Tarkenton as a "loser." Perhaps he could have softened those feelings or vented behind closed doors.
Dying together means a joint obituary for the Jacobses. The opening sentence describes Alexandra as Irwin's "beloved wife." This is a beloved wife who Irwin chose to kill. We accept the word "beloved" because we have an impulse toward civility in these situations. We reason this is no time to be blunt or accusatory. But I again ask: what if Irwin had simply chosen to stay alive? Would the legal system or public sentiment allow him to use the excuse or explanation of Alexandra's health distress, as something he could no longer handle? Well, I do not think so.
Public sentiment would in fact be pretty harsh and unforgiving toward him. So why is it that, because he chose to take his own life too, we end up with an obituary that indicates in the first sentence that the wife was "beloved" to her husband? Why is it that such warm thoughts are projected? The first sentence merely says the two "passed away unexpectedly in their home." I don't think friends and family "expected" the husband to literally commit murder.
The obit does not suggest anything drastic. The second sentence describes the couple as "devoted parents and grandparents who prioritized and valued their family above all else." Isn't there huge irony staring at us here? Death was not a decision for Mr. Jacobs to make on behalf of his wife. It wasn't for him to decide that his spouse's life wasn't worth living any more. No one else could have gotten inside her head.
Is it sexist for us to think the husband might have the prerogative for committing such an act? I hope we're past that. The obit could have been written in a more terse way. Just give us the facts re. the deaths occurring. Family and survivor information and funeral schedule information. I find the warm and fuzzy stuff troubling. There would be nothing warm and fuzzy toward Mr. Jacobs had he survived. But the dual deaths should inspire nothing but sympathy? The media coverage seems to push in that direction.
Is this because the two were wealthy and powerful, well-known at one time?
Irwin never seemed to dodge media attention. He was a public figure. Would a poor and anonymous couple be treated in such generous, affectionate fashion in the case of a murder/suicide? Oh hell's bells, I think not. Celebrities come into our homes and onto our TV screens. It's why a part of us was not eager to condemn O.J. Simpson. We don't want to deal with the unpleasantness of passing judgment.
Do you stop to think about the very dark nature of the impulse to actually kill someone, to actually commit the act? The late Vince Bugliosi who wrote the book "Helter Skelter" said that a normal person can have the most sinister thoughts at times, harboring hate, but a normal person has a line in his mind he cannot cross. Whereas, murderers do not have that line. This is why murderers must be put away. Mr. Jacobs crossed the line.
I personally dealt with adversity and anxiety as my parents had diminished physical and mental attributes toward the end. The one-year anniversary of Mom's death is coming up in about a week. Both my parents died within a few feet of me at home. Fortunately that's where they were: at home. Dad lacked home hospice because, I found out later, his personal physician did not believe in it! I disagree with that. However, this is a doctor who saved my father's life in the 1980s.
The doctor took over from another doctor who was negligent - I won't name names. My father had told the negligent doctor that he was feeling tightening in the chest. The doc simply responded "you're getting older."
Somehow - I forget the details - the other doc became aware of this, blew a gasket and got Dad to the Twin Cities as fast as possible for heart bypass. Dad was rewarded with 30 more years of life. So fragile was his condition at his time of crisis, there was concern he might not make it to the operating table. He most surely did, and what a happy outcome.
Mom's story with health issues was more complicated. A clergy person asked me if I was "relieved" when she died. I heard someone say that Mom's death was a "blessing." These were well-meaning people and I understand the place in their heart where these comments sprung. But I felt blessed having the company of my parents until the end. If you saw Mom in what appeared to be a distressed or confused state, I'll have you know this was not constant. In the morning she was particularly good and stable, calm and aware. I'd see the first rabbit in our back yard and say "there's Mr. Rabbit." And Mom would say "they know we won't hurt them."
Blood is thicker than water. I was always prepared to deal with economic uncertainties resulting from indefinite nursing care for either Mom or Dad. Have you seen promos for seminars on "how to protect family assets from the nursing home?" I'm not sophisticated enough to get into all that. I got braced for dealing with the worst financially. I had joint bank accounts with Mom until the end.
Apparently there were some issues that Mr. Jacobs could not deal with. Surely he had sophistication. Our sympathy for both of the Jacobses should be muted at this point. There is not warmth to be felt about both. Being rich or a celebrity gives no license or cushion for doing something unthinkable.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

The old system with orange school buses

Occasionally when I drive home from breakfast I'll see an orange school bus parked along the road in front of the Soils Lab. Not sure why it's there but it's probably that the driver is ahead of schedule and is committed to arriving at a certain residence at a certain time. No problem with that.
The problem is that you sense risk when driving around a school bus at any time. So I simply never do it. I don't care to drive within a block of an orange school bus. No, I have never gotten a citation because of this issue. But we're all most familiar. Some of us appear to let our guard down which is why we occasionally see a citation report in the media. The fine is substantial and the consequences are probably severe for one's car insurance.
How severe should the punishment be? Is there room for reasonable judgment? You see, a majority of such infractions probably do not involve recklessness. The motorists are most likely very slow and cautious and just have a lapse about the absolute necessity to stop. Isn't there a former Morris mayor who got in trouble? More than once in fact? Surely this person was careful and did not endanger anyone's safety.
I wouldn't want to be a bus driver and be under pressure to report these things. Morris legend has it that there is/was a particular bus driver who "liked" turning in motorists. A couple years ago I noticed in the media that a couple of these charges were dismissed. That piqued my interest. So I asked around, as I am wont to do, and learned that the bus driver put out the stop arm when a motorist was already halfway past the bus. The bus driver had previously been advised (twice) not to do this, my source told me. I surmised this was the bus driver of Morris legend.
I feel sorry for people like the former Morris mayor who probably "crept" past a bus with the utmost of care and discovered there was draconian punishment. These people probably feel personally insulted and hurt that there is an insinuation that they neglected kids' safety. We live in a prickly new world in many respects.
My personal issue with the bus along Northridge Drive was accented as I had to plan my personal "detour." So I drove over to the opposite end by the dog kennel and proceeded to the east. Problem is, most of that road is unpaved and can get wet and slushy. There are potholes.
In the future in this situation, I shall park the car out front of the Soils Lab and walk home. I will not drive around a school bus. Am I overreacting? You might think that if the lights aren't flashing, it's no biggie to just drive along. The late Erwin Anderson, bless his memory, told a story once about how he drove around a parked bus that did not have its lights flashing or stop arm out, and he was scolded by the driver anyway. Erwin must have parked within a block or two. He engaged the driver in argument.
It used to be common to see orange buses around town during the UMM Jazz Festival. All those visiting schools. You'd see a bus parked outside Pizza Hut. Then as now, I don't wish to go anywhere near. Change your route. In my case, drive through potholes and get the car muddy. I rinsed it off later in the day. Yes this is sounding like the "angry minute," a feature of the old "Dark Star" WCCO radio show. To refresh: an obviously caffeinated guy ranting about one of the frustrations of daily life.
School buses! Man, be careful. So I'm suggesting there ought to be more discretion in assessing wrongdoing. Is there any room for that? Reckless drivers should always face consequences.
I remember hearing about a meals on wheels driver/volunteer who got a ticket for not wearing seat belt. Can't we cut some slack for these volunteers? She's deceased now, bless her soul.
I'm 64 years old and for most of my life, seat belt use was voluntary and no one thought anything of it. When the system changed and I got pulled over for the first time, I didn't even get a warning, I got a ticket. Suck your cheeks in because things are really getting "tight." Will we ever loosen up again?
There was a time when society thought it no big deal that certain drivers had consumed too much alcohol. Oh, I assure you. People congregated at "watering holes" on Friday and Saturday nights, then they might proceed to a restaurant for the "bar rush" where they acted like total idiots - and society thought this was "funny." Maybe the young people of today aren't aware of all this.
The restaurant now known as DeToy's once operated 24 hours. Oh, it had imperfections back then. But it was to be saluted for having such extended hours, even if college students would "hang out" and not order much. The restaurant served its share of "drunks." Perhaps yours truly? Ahem. Those were the "old days."
 
Getting kids to/from school
I got to thinking about the whole system of orange school buses. Might this whole model be obsolete? How many families would have no problem getting kids to and from school, just with parents and their automobiles? This has the benefit of kids not being beholden to the exact bus schedule. Come and go at school as you please.
For sure some families might not have this flexibility. But the universal system of "school bus" seems rather unwieldy. And, perhaps too expensive for the public.
The Morris school district had a serious proposal a few years back to end in-town bus service. At first most of us thought this was radical and surprising. Upon further reflection, why not? I heard the common sense suggestion, BTW from another Morris mayor, that the country buses could just stop at certain designated stations in town - "bus stations" as it were - and pick up town kids on their way to school. It makes total sense but you can imagine one roadblock: the requirement of kids to walk a short ways to get to the pickup point. And, our society cannot countenance that because of the fallout from the Jacob Wetterling tragedy.
We are so risk-averse that we have to continue spending a fortune on school bus transportation.
Oh, but we cannot tolerate any risk for our kids, right? And wouldn't you want to stone me for suggesting otherwise? OK this would be a good question for the New York Mills Great American Think-off. Is that still held?
Risk and children? The boomer children grew up when "risk" was really out and about everywhere, as we played unsupervised etc. We pray that nothing bad ever happens to children. But toward this end of preventing risk, we are raising our children like they're caged chickens, resulting in obesity among other problems. So in some states we hear about "free range parenting" laws which, to be blunt, mean we allow some risk into the lives of our children.
Oh, isn't that terrible? Well, I don't know. God in his wisdom created the world in which we live with pitfalls. Talk to Him about it.
The old system of orange school buses was developed in a time when every neighborhood in America had a batch of school-age kids. That is not the case now.
When I was a kid, certain neighborhoods were associated with kids who made an imprint with their personality. I was a close friend of the kids along South Street in Morris. "The South Street Kids": sounds like a good name for a movie.
 
A note re. Stone's Throw in Morris
On an unrelated topic, I received an email last night with a story about how Stone's Throw Restaurant is doing, that restaurant of the Go Fund Me campaign:
 
A couple of our band director friends were going to attend Jazz Fest Friday night, decided to eat dinner beforehand at Stone’s Throw. I asked one of them today if they got to the concert Friday as I didn’t see them there. She said that they went to Stone’s Throw, and it took an hour and a half to get their meal after they had ordered it, so by the time they got done eating, it was to late to go to the U. An hour and a half wait for food? Hmmm... The blurb on the GoFundMe pitch mentioned they’d be cutting corners and making do with fewer employees having to do more. I don’t think it works that way.
  
Surprise at ShopKo: It's a bombshell enough that ShopKo is closing, so I go out there to make a farewell purchase as it were, of about $62 and as I write out the check I'm told "no checks." Sheesh. I had to leave empty-handed.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

The early Internet was compelling

The image shows Kurt Vonnegut who contrary to urban legend did not write the viral "Wear Sunscreen" speech.
 
Nostalgia yanks us from reality. The only meaningful world is the one we currently inhabit. We deal with the stimuli bombarding us in the present. Nostalgia becomes a make-believe world. It attracts us, I would suggest, because we filter out the unpleasant aspects of the past. We are reminded of things that make us happy. In reality, the past was really not such an enchanted place.
I remember watching NBC's Today Show when the Beatles first burst on the scene. It was interesting but did not bowl me over. Our reflections on the Beatles push nostalgia into overdrive. People have seriously reasoned how history would have progressed if the Beatles had never existed. There is a presumption that the four guys were immensely talented. But commercial music has never had any shortage of aspiring stars with great talent, all driven to reach the summit.
I could suggest that young people's taste with music and all pop culture would have evolved in basically the same way, even without the four Liverpool guys. The music industry worked tirelessly, as it always did in pre-digital times, seeking to anticipate popular taste. That world had an underbelly where talent could be chewed up and discarded. But it had the irresistible motive of reading the public's tastes.
I specify "pre-digital" because everything was different then. Commercial music still exists, don't get me wrong. But there has been a huge democratization or egalitarian effect. We much prefer the new way of life.
The Internet has existed long enough that it is generating its own nostalgia. It takes time of course, just as it took time to realize that rock 'n' roll was taking on a "retro" air (i.e. the likes of Fats Domino). We scarcely knew the potential for how the digital world was going to re-shape our lives, back when the early building blocks were placed.
Normally I'm the type who is late getting on board with new trends. But, working at the Morris newspaper thrust me into the position of having to delve in the "Internet."
It seems we don't even hear the term "Internet" much anymore. That term belonged to when the whole thing still seemed a novelty, pre-Facebook, Instagram and other such stuff.
 
Like being in Chicago
I was given a substandard hand-me-down computer at the paper. That was ridiculous. Still, I could plod along and make discoveries. I found I could communicate with a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times! Unheard-of previously. Mark Brown wrote a column about "Babes of our youth." Seems cringeworthy today as there's a misogynistic suggestion. We often let our guard down back then, a la Joe Biden.
Anyway, Brown wrote a column inspired by a colleague who made a water cooler comment, a comment in which he compared an attractive female friend to actress Julie Christie. Brown realized the actress in question had become rather old. This colleague was thinking of the actress in her younger prime, as if she was frozen with her earlier appearance. So Brown wrote the column about how men have this natural inclination of citing "babes" from their memory as if no aging had occurred. Hence, "Babes of our youth never fade away."
I know this premise would be edgy to write about today. The column was probably in the glorious pixellated 1990s. Email! What a thrill! What a novelty! So I emailed Mr. Brown and informed him he had misspelled a name, that of actress Hayley Mills. He spelled it "Haley," a good guess if your memory failed you. I felt a rush as I clicked on "send." My it seemed magical - the immediacy of it all.
Then I got an answer! Mr. Brown said "I knew I should have checked the spelling." He thanked me. Turns out he got a lot of feedback on that column. So he sent a mass community email to those who had corresponded, sharing review thoughts and appreciation over a journalistic project which today would seem to project misogyny.
You think that's bad? You may not be old enough to remember the Dean Martin Variety Show on TV in the 1960s.
Remember Frank Sinatra narrating for the movie "That's Entertainment?" It was a looking-back about Hollywood, its supposed glory days, and early-on he points out that the "chorus girls" from an early "Singin' in the Rain" were "chubby." Hell's bells. Watching that clip, the women looked most ordinary with their bodies. Objectifying, indeed, on the part of Mr. Sinatra who was totally in the Dean Martin mold.
 
Groundbreaking creation
I am proud to say I paid considerable attention to "Wear Sunscreen." I printed out that faux "commencement speech" - and no it was not by Kurt Vonnegut - and tacked it to my bulletin board at the old Sun Tribune. It seemed interesting although I would not have considered it a timeless jewel at the time. The forces of nostalgia took over. Or, is it that we truly appreciate the wisdom in the "speech" now more than ever?

Refreshing my memory now, the piece does indeed exude considerable wisdom. "Wear Sunscreen" came into being on the Chicago Tribune's website in June of 1997. The title was "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young." Mary Schmich wrote this as a hypothetical commencement speech. It was the first big "viral" thing. It's a chain letter type of story for a medium that has parallels with chain letters. We were just getting accustomed.
Schmich wrote that your body is "the greatest instrument you'll ever own." Now that I'm 64, I more than ever appreciate the blessing of a reasonably healthy body.
The "greatest instrument" line re-entered my mind as I discovered my old 8x10 high school and college graduation photos, as part of cleaning and re-organizing our household after Mom died. The pictures were no big deal for me at the time they were current. Today I look at them and realize the health and potential as a human being they projected. Maybe a great deal of the potential went unfulfilled. I don't know, but a feeling of warmth grips me as I observe them, awareness of the raw enjoyment of life when young and before the complications of adulthood.
So much wisdom in Schmich's piece. She wrote "enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded." Another gem: "The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind."
How many of us thought this "speech" would have such staying power, or might even grow in its reach? We did not instantly realize the Beatles were going to be so impactful either.
Remember the "Alta Vista" search engine?
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

"God and Donald Trump" at Morris Library

It is always interesting to observe the new non-fiction display at our Morris Public Library. It's a mixed bag, of course: some very substantive material along with the more light stuff.
Oh, here's one. "God and Donald Trump." We ought not be surprised seeing a title like this. We are waiting for the worm to turn in connection to Trump. It's not that we want to see a disruptive sort of uprising or awakening, the sort of thing that seems overdue. We want things to stay orderly. It might not even come to impeachment. What it might come to, is a general consensus that God did not send Trump, that Trump's political adversaries are not treasonous or agents of the devil.
The worm has not turned yet. The media grind away with discussions of how the Mueller report remains elusive along with the president's tax returns. It is like pulling teeth, driving us to drink as it were. And if we could just get all the Christian zealots and evangelicals out of the way, maybe the way would be open for simple good sense and prudence to prevail.
Not to prejudge anything regarding Trump - hard to type that with a straight face - but evidence is overwhelming that he has mob boss instincts. He lies continually and blatantly. All of this is so demonstrable. Let's just see the Mueller report and the tax returns. We could engage in a sensible discussion and move on.
A very sad part of all this, is how conservative media have hitched their wagon to the prevaricator in chief. You come across the Limbaugh and Levin programs and want to instantly move on, so predictable and tired are their rants on behalf of Trump. These are people who normally employ logic much better. I have never asserted they lack intelligence.
People say Ben Shapiro can whip anyone in a debate. No doubting that, absolutely. William F. Buckley once shot to stardom with similar skill. I'll quote my old college friend Brad from the Iron Range: "Republicans are good at arguing on matters of principle, but Republicans don't care about people."
Intelligent conservatives like George Will do us all a favor. The problem now with conservative media is that they are attached at the hip to Trump from a time when Trump was coming forward as a serious contender - and program hosts found their ratings went up when they talked up Trump. Ratings were tepid prior to that. These guys make money as pundits.
So I have identified a two-pronged problem here: the religious zealots who put forward the offensive argument that Trump somehow reflects God and Jesus, and the conservative media that really made a business decision on how to proceed. All of this has added up to a roadblock for simply learning the truth about serious questions pertaining to Trump and his people.
The slog of media coverage now makes us weary. What other "news" might be getting covered, were it not for this? Are we missing some important things?
Richard Nixon talked about the silent majority. He was suggesting that we should ignore a seeming cacophony of media voices, such as those encouraging skepticism about the Vietnam war. Well, thank God we ended up thinking constructively about the war, yes belatedly. Good sense prevailed. Nixon's silent majority may not have been imaginary but in the end it faded.
Right now I think there's much more skepticism about Trump out and about than we might think. I was speaking with a very intelligent employee of a local bank last week. She sensed my biases so she had no trouble showing candor. She said the problem with Trump is that "he is normalizing his behavior."
Are we becoming passive in consuming the daily news, as if all the outrageousness of Trump's behavior should draw nothing but a shrug? My banking acquaintance is not shrugging. She is paying close attention as I'm sure many people are.
There are many people streaming into churches these days who do not profess a connection between God and Trump. Only a minority of loud voices are on the other side with this. They get attention and build a particular constituency. Certain fundamentalist strains, whose presence is evident right here in Morris, probably stick with the Trump side. The Trump supporters are circling the wagons but we sense it's just a lot of noise, what we might expect of an element in our society that does not have history on its side.

Carrey paints Sanders

So now we have that new book at the Morris Public Library, "God and Donald Trump" by Stephen Strang. I looked yesterday and it was gone so someone checked it out. I might want to page through it for the same reason I sometimes watch Fox News: to see what these people are up to. Oh, the forward to the book was written by Mike Huckabee. Isn't his daughter the spokesman for Trump? I think Jim Carrey captured her demeanor real well in his painting.
Here's what Robert Jeffress says about "God and Donald Trump": "It's a well-written, much-needed look at the undeniable hand of God working in our nation's most recent presidential election." Jeffress is a well-known Southern Baptist pastor. He undoubtedly has gained more fame as a Trump supporter than by professing any other views.
Trump's supporters tend to talk about religious liberty. I attended church often during the eight years that Barack Obama was president, and at no point did I feel my freedom to worship was impeded at all. So I fail to understand the fuss being kicked up by so many of the "evangelicals." Strang's book seriously weighs the question of whether there was "a supernatural element involved (with Trump's win)." So, does God want the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates too? Where does this reasoning end?
Promo material for the book says "Christian leaders prophesied before the election that God had raised up Trump to lead the nation through a time of crisis." I grew up when there was a real crisis in America: the Vietnam war. I think the eight years of Obama were pretty passive and nice.
The Democratic candidate for president in 2016 actually got more votes than Trump. Was it God who vetoed this and decided that Trump should be president anyway?
We learn that Strang "was involved with other Christian leaders who campaigned for Trump's election." I am nothing short of flabbergasted that so many prominent Christians find it essential to crusade for the likes of Trump. Again I sense there is self-interest involved. There is a constituency out there which is not broadly representative of America at all, but is very fervent and defensive, ready to buy books and watch TV shows feeding their ideas and justifying their paranoia.
Strang gets his profit from being a Trump supporter. Were he to be a normal, thoughtful person, this status would not come his way. Let's just call a spade a spade: these people have a "racket" going. Could they still win? As I have opined repeatedly, we cannot rule that out. We cannot always assume that good will prevail.
We cannot always assume that political tumult will end in the manner of Watergate. We ought to be genuinely scared. Pray to God for help please.
 
Addendum: Trump said yesterday that "America is full" and there's no room for immigrants. Well, have you ever flown across the U.S. and looked down? I used to go to Las Vegas twice a year. Just look down. America is empty.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Whither our cemeteries in Morris?

Colorful Summit Cemetery

It is impossible for the University of Minnesota-Morris to expand to the west. You might doubt the use of such an absolute term, "impossible." But the problem is this: There is a cemetery or cemeteries next to our campus. We tend to view it all as one cemetery. Technically there are two with the Catholics having their own so they don't get tainted by proximity to the likes of Lutherans.
We have the Catholics and then we have the non-Catholics. And of course young people are alienated by these rigid ideas of how to approach religion or faith. Who gives a rip whether Catholics are buried separate? Surely the Catholics have bigger fish to fry than this. A city official once told me "there is a cemetery for Catholics and another cemetery for the rest of us." The Williams family is in the category of "the rest of us." In Glenwood there is a Lutheran cemetery.
Again, millennials are probably mystified or even amused by such distinctions. A major problem with cemeteries is this: The land cannot be re-purposed. We were made aware of this by a front page article in the March 27 Star Tribune. There is a photo of a cemetery business person at Crystal Lake Cemetery in Minneapolis. This individual is of course dressed as expected with black suit/pants, a white shirt and tie, looking to all the world like Brett Kavanaugh when Kavanaugh showed up for the hearing on his alleged sexual assault.
Ah, the funeral home business. Wonderful and caring people to be sure. They believe in what they are doing. The question is whether the rest of us will continue to believe in it much longer. Changes are already evident and seem to be progressing fast.
I wonder how many UMM students glance over to our cemetery (or cemeteries) and, subconsciously at least, wonder about the point of it all. Many of the older grave monuments are weathered to the point you can hardly make out the name. Those long-ago people have been nearly or completely forgotten. All of us will fall into obscurity someday. Oh, but it's important to remember? Oh of course it is. The value of a permanent rock with someone's name on it seems limited.
They say memorials are being done online today. Well of course they are, because nearly all facets of our lives are being touched by the Internet. It's a total no-brainer to conclude that online-based remembrances have more value than a monument. Whole biographies can be published for posterity. And then we have photo-sharing sites like Flickr. A bio site can link to the photos, because you can link to virtually anything. We learn that Facebook is a resource for all this but I haven't gotten into Facebook at all.
A simple blog or photo-sharing site can be established for free. Free! Compare that to what the "death industry" will cost you, and OMG. That dude in the suit and tie, the Kavanaugh wannabe, owes his livelihood to the traditional notions of how death should be handled.
On TV today we see life insurance commercials that start out with "the cost of the average funeral is going up." Oh no it isn't, because you can explore options to that. A real no-brainer for lots of people is cremation. The funeral industry has probably tried to cook up ways to charge more even with cremation. How? Oh, I'm sure the wheels are turning in their heads. You weren't born yesterday, were you?
I remember a conversation with the late Skip Sherstad where we felt amused along with dismay at commercials for life insurance companies. They seem so grim. "What if something were to happen to you?" Well, I guess tough bounce, Skip and I agreed.
So, a life insurance policy is needed to pay off funeral expenses? Well fine, but how else might the money be used? This isn't hard to answer. If you don't wish to keep the money for yourself - and you know darn well many of us might cite reasons to do that - then make memorial contributions in the name of the deceased. There are plenty of good causes around. Our family has one that is set up to benefit UMM.
We do have a monument at Summit Cemetery. It is a black bench monument in the newer portion. Feel free to use the bench anytime to sit and relax, like during the upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Please. My parents made arrangements long ago where they assumed the traditional way was the way to go.
Unfortunately we were the kind of family that never wanted to discuss death. This was a mistake, but I suppose hindsight is 20/20. Death is easier to deal with now, now that two members of my family have entered eternity. They are with their Lord. The cemetery has no importance to them. My father would have been revulsed at the cost of funeral arrangements and the monument.
That funeral home guy with the suit has the last name McReavy, a familiar one from the Twin Cities funeral home scene. The article says Crystal Lake Cemetery became known long ago as the "ideal city of the dead." That's a logical challenge to weigh, isn't it: Dead people are not meaningful entities at all, so they cannot make up a "city." These souls have departed this life.
The article went on to note that "fewer people these days are choosing to spend eternity in this enclave of northern Minneapolis." Except of course that no one is "spending eternity" there. My late parents are with each other in God's realm. Or I wonder: Might they be with their own parents and siblings? Don't questions like this cross your mind? But surely they are not "spending eternity in a cemetery."
Owners of the Crystal Lake Cemetery have offered to donate it to the City of Minneapolis. The property is reportedly losing about $300,000 annually. This is due to maintenance costs and fewer burials. Isn't this a generous offer? Well no. The city is not considering it.
The article tells us about how the issue reflects the challenge of many cemeteries today, due to increased popularity of cremation. And while I'm sure funeral homes come up with creative ways to charge families a lot anyway - vulnerable families who are having to make decisions fast - the cost will have to be lower than for the old embalming/casket/vault routine.
I personally feel bad that my father's embalmed body is in a casket in a vault in the ground. It serves no purpose. I made the decision for cremation for my mom who died last April. Her urn is in the ground there. All the funeral arrangements were nice but they were not necessary for my benefit. It's untoward for an industry to ever make lots of profit from all this.
 
A burden for government?
My, some distressed cemeteries have had to turn to local governments. OK, now it's an issue that should concern all of us. We must face the stark and perhaps unsettling question: Will cemeteries become a total vestige of the past? In other words obsolete, outdated, a mere frozen curiosity in time for our UMM students to glance at as they go to and from campus.
If that ends up being the case, it's sad.
I regret I personally did not have more foresight. LaVerne Swanson told me I could have arranged to have my father's body buried at sea because he was in the Navy. He was a lieutenant in the Pacific for World War II. I have moved mountains trying to arrange for one of those stars with a hole in it for insertion of an American flag for Memorial Day. Unsuccessful so far. If nobody wishes to do this for me, then please do it for my deceased father.
Crystal Lake Cemetery is on land that I assume would have development potential. But it's a cemetery. Or to use the words of a mock/satire piece that once appeared in the University Register of UMM, "it's a friggin' cemetery." A mock professor was interviewed. It almost seemed like a legitimate article so I had to ask around. Jim Morrison assured me the thing was satire or whatever.
Our cemeteries in Morris can be viewed as offensive because of the blatantly anti-abortion political statement that those Catholics have been allowed to put at the edge. I wish to make it clear our family has no association with that.
I recently observed in my blogs that the cemetery is not handicapped accessible. It's not practical to try to push a wheelchair over the uneven grassy surface, is it? My mom used a "transport" which is like a wheelchair but has small wheels. It's intended for use by someone who has someone else doing the pushing. I assume a grassy surface is not practical for wheelchairs, or why else would the City of Morris expand sidewalk space at Eastside Park?
I suppose the city wanted to be sure the park is in top-notch shape for Prairie Pioneer Days. Wait a minute, PPD no longer exists as the big midsummer event. Oh, the Thursday night talent shows? Wait, these are gone too. Yes, time passes and we must adjust.
Who are my parents with in heaven? At what age are they? For sure they are close to our beloved dog "Sandy."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

The Williams monument before Mom's date of death was engraved

Sam Smith statue: the most striking feature of Summit Cemetery