We embark on another day in our disrupted lives. Remind yourselves that we are only a few days into this - it probably seems longer. The big change happened abruptly. Have we really sorted out how this disruption is going to affect the many facets of our lives?
A favorite podcast host of mine says we're spending almost all our time at home now, "and I don't even want to know all the things you're doing."
It's 10 a.m. on Saturday and I'm sitting here with notebook, not the electronic kind, and ballpoint pen, trying to share a thought or two of value. This is how I wrote through my formative years, now seeming so long ago: spiral notebook and pen, typing done as a separate process. I learned upon starting full-time at the Morris newspaper that this was totally impractical - hoo boy. I learned "on the job" to compose sentences at the keyboard, and remember it was much more of a challenge then because we used manual typewriters. It's a tool seeming like caveman paintings compared to the norm today.
As the years go by, "the old days" become less remembered and the youth have little knowledge about it. New norms govern. My goodness, to wander around staring into a "phone?" In my background, phones had the rotary dial mechanism. If the phone rang you answered it automatically - no need for defenses vs. unwanted calls.
If you wanted information from the radio, you turned on your unit and listened, as of course there was no website. Today the radio people type articles for posting, in a manner exactly like the newspaper people. Once again I must compliment the Morris radio station on being highly effective with this. They have leapfrogged past the Morris newspaper, although in the last few days I've noticed that the paper is trying to catch up. My initial assessment is that the paper's site is a cosmetic improvement to be sure - remains to be seen how good it can be. It's not an ideal time to judge because sports is suspended.
Of course, sports seems like rather a lifeblood for local media. I say "seems like" because honestly, I wonder how much public demand really exists for all this. I spent years like a hamster in a treadmill, at least trying to appeal to the sports crowd. I remember when a local dentist stormed into the newspaper office and behaved like a rabid animal, venting a sports complaint, naturally pertaining to a team on which he had a kid. He went into Jim Morrison's office and took it on himself to close the door. He might have glanced at me once.
In the moments after his departure, I walked over to Jim because I suspected what the nature of the guy's visit was. I had no prior knowledge of this individual's intense feelings. Jim's demeanor? Was he ready to pounce on me? Well, he was quite relaxed and composed, snacking on something as I recall. "He's been complaining about the sports section for years," Jim said.
The guy also dropped off a letter to the editor at that time. The sport in question was non-revenue: cross country. To the extent my work had shortcomings in those days - I am human of course - there were some circumstances or factors out of my control. It's a common feeling at work: "Hey, it's not my fault."
I should never have been required to fill out timesheets. Eventually that system was lifted, as I recall, not long after Forum Communications acquired us. Is it possible someone discovered that the timesheet system violated regulations for me, given my overall job description? By that time, I was well-established driving the van for the company.
When the dentist's letter got published, a personal attack, Morrison reacted as follows: "The lesson I learned from Moen's letter is, let's quit trying to make sports parents happy." Jim was composed, rational and not of a mind to point fingers at me.
Transitioning to van driving may have extended my career a few years. God could not have scripted that any better.
There was an administrative-level person at the Morris school who was using everything but a flamethrower to try to diminish me. This person had reach through social contacts in the Morris community. Of course he's not here any more. At the time he left he showed chutzpah by explaining his reasons for leaving in a "list." My, if there were such overwhelming reasons for leaving the Morris school and community, why didn't he just get the h--- out of here, no big show of chutzpah in the paper? It was on the front page of course.
I have lived with the fallout of those times ever since. I remember during the Morrison years we had a reader survey at the paper, and a top complaint was too much sports. The survey company responded to this as follows: "Be careful about this. The interest is limited."
We at the paper knew that all along. Let's confess: we just had space to fill.
Why would I be willing to have such terrible wrath come down on me from school district leaders, rather than to just walk away? Simple. Journalism is what I do. It motivates and inspires me. I survived all the way until midway in 2006 at the paper. Not a bad tenure really.
Our school district went through spasms of change in the 1980s. Some of this challenge was felt by schools everywhere - it just happened to be (much) worse here. We may be witnessing now, as I write this on Saturday morning, March 21, an accelerated change due to the bricks and mortar schools shutting down. They sell themselves by saying "we can provide our instruction online." Oh, that is so elementary. Education can
always be dispensed online.
So now, college parents are rather scratching their heads, wondering if the full $ cost of education is justified if kids are just going to be at home, learning from a screen. "College on YouTube."
Seriously, this head-scratching might turn into a belated sea change: yes indeed, learning can be done online, so let's go forward with considerably less cost to the parents and taxpayers.
"Oh, but we need our big area-wide schools because of their sports teams!" Is this a joke? Maybe not. A part of us must surely think these teams are out of proportion for popularity. I have that thought quite regularly, but the teams become an assumed part of the entertainment life of many people. Many people, yes, but in percentage terms, really not that many.
However, people who fancy themselves "community leaders" often step forward with rhetoric about how we must support our student-athletes. It's fine to support any and all young people. But is a basketball team with only seven or so students really participating in the competition, the most valuable channel? Or might it even be dispiriting for kids not so talented, with talents in other areas that are not trumpeted so feverishly by the local media? This becomes learned behavior on the part of the media people - they'd better get on board, do and say the right things. Or, they may have a hard time finding a dentist.
Addendum: The dentist's letter to the editor was followed by several people coming to my office wanting to share some gentle thoughts. I have written about this before. I have forgotten, though, to share the experience of Mick Rose paying a visit. Unfortunately he has come upon hard times with his health. I'd say we should say a prayer but I'm not of a mind to think that way.
Mick said that when a family's first child comes up through the school's sports system, the parents think "this is a really big deal!" Then, when the younger siblings go through, parents are more relaxed and have things more in perspective.
Thinking back to that whole episode, I remember how just prior to the explosion of emotion, Mary Holmberg dropped off two team pictures for cross country, which I of course published but not in a prominent enough way to satisfy the dentist. Let history record that on the night before press day, I noticed that Mary's submitted captions omitted the name of a kid. I always counted the front row and back to see if things added up. I went on a scramble to get the missing name, contacting the coach to see if he was home, visiting his house. Today I don't think people are as receptive to media people physically coming to the front door - it's a change in society. I often did that, spending lots of time with Perry Ford in his living room for example.
Anyway, I fixed the caption for the cross country photo, and what thanks did I get? Holy s---. The whole incident happened very soon after our production schedule got changed so we had to get Tuesday's paper to Quinco Press much earlier. This affected how we could perform, but I was hoping parents wouldn't go so crazy in how they assessed things.
Of course there was a "story behind the story" that perhaps explained all this better than anything: the cross country coach, according to my pretty accurate perception, was a huge advocate for a certain girls basketball coach whose tenure was cut short. I felt criticism of the coach was legitimate. I wasn't going out of my way to suggest otherwise at the paper.
An element of this community was highly dogmatic on such matters. Many of these people have since left town. I'm still here. I suppose the dentist would hate my blogging too. A lawyer friend of mine advised me to try to temper my thoughts and to realize that the complainer had a personality inclined to being "opinionated." Well, OK.
I remember in the book "Ball Four," Jim Bouton wrote about how his teammates were really ganging up on the team cook, and when they had run out of everything they could say, one hollered "And that's a horses--t shirt you're wearing too."
Not long after the letter to the editor, I was at Don's Cafe on a weekend evening and found that the local police chief was in a joking mood about the matter. He said "get out there and cover cross country, dammit!" Nice to sense a little levity among the gendarmes.
In a later conversation I had with him, when we were in the stands for a UMM basketball game, I mentioned how I personally had to change dentists, actually my whole family. And this gentleman, initials R.W., responded "we have that problem in our line of work too." So when a police officer pulls over someone who provides his family professional services. . .
Another anecdote: I was sitting by R.W. at the old Ardelle's restaurant once and mentioned that the most famous heckler in the NBA was a defense attrorney by occupation. I said "Is that consistent?" And he answered "well, they're loud-mouthed and they don't know what they're talking about."
I worked with R.W.'s wife Jill (RIP) when she coached C-A girls basketball, a fun relationship.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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| We ought to consider playing the blues. |
