The riots, the pandemic & the overall cloud

Someone from Scandinavian stock would say the Twin Cities situation is "a heckuva deal." Howard Mohr wrote this is so Minnesotan. We're aware of what's going on but do not wish to commit to an opinion. It's easy to condemn the rioting. It's easy to blame people who have an agenda not directly related to the murder by the cop.
Harping on this, however, might diminish the real foundation of the outrage being vented. Do we know for a fact that the unrest is not organic, not coming from the very real wellspring of anger? Can anyone really quantify the unrest attributable to those "outside agitators." Might a lot of the rioters be in a gray area, venting a mix of outrage over the specific incident and a more general disapproval of the inequality in our society, the duress felt by the underclass?
And of course that duress is accented for persons of color.
Me? I'm of Scandinavian stock. I live in outstate Minnesota. A small community to boot. For us folks it can seem like watching some sort of apocalyptic or sci-fi story: the scenes from Minneapolis. Oh, I was baptized at Central Lutheran Church in that Gotham place. My family took trips to shop at the Dayton's department store. Remember picking up the in-store phones to call "Holly Bell?" I remember the talking parrot! The coin collecting department fascinated me.
We'd pass through Paynesville and South Haven on our trip to Gotham. You knew you were getting close when you saw billboards for the Curtis Hotel. We actually stayed at the Drake Hotel at least once! Years later I heard on the news that it housed the homeless. The Drake had a nice restaurant as I recall.
The years rolled by and there was always reason to visit "the Cities" occasionally. Then those reasons diminished for me. Is the metro a more foreboding place now?
Made one of my rare trips there last fall for the University of Minnesota Heritage Society Supper at the McNamara Center. One of the highlights of my life, an opportunity to memorialize my late parents for whom the U of M was basically everything. You might say that everything our family has, is because of the University. So, there is a fund established in their name now.
New Heritage Society members' names appeared on a big screen. Mine had the middle initial "R" in honor of my father. Eric Kaler spoke. Since then he has moved on and we now have Joan Gabel with the reins. My, what an unexpected and awesome challenge she and other administrators face now. The pandemic is a game-changer to say the least. The last thing any administration is going to anticipate is the possible shutdown of the traditional model. And yet this is the specter as of early-summer.
Yes there are optimistic and heady suggestions from the administrative people. Cannot blame them. My cynical side suggests there's some personal job protection going on here, as motivation. The more realistic stance is probably presented by the current article in "The Atlantic," with the headline about how colleges are "deluding themselves" if they think they can reopen in the fall.
Heck, we all hope - I won't say pray - that the glum projection is wrong. Certainly it cannot be dismissed. So the U of M's top people are scratching heads and scurrying as they look at the multiple possible scenarios.

Whither music now?
For yours truly the cause of anxiety is especially marked, as a donor/benefactor. Why? The funds in our family's name are directed to music at the U of M-Morris. How in the absence of a vaccine can we expect band and choir to resume anywhere? There is no guarantee there will even be a vaccine.
Students seated or standing shoulder-to-shoulder, in band and choir, emitting moisture particles as a necessary part of performing. To be more graphic, I can affirm as an old brass player myself that you "empty spit" from your instrument. I have suggested to one of my contacts in UMM's giving department that maybe ensembles could be re-organized in this funky new online format: each musician in a little square on the screen. How practical could that be for re-creating the experience? Surely some important qualities could be lost. Ensembles would have limited size. No revenue from ticket sales.
I couldn't care less about sports, I'm concerned with music. And certainly this extends to high schools. I wonder if Wanda Dagen is losing sleep over this. I wonder if UMM's Michelle Behr is losing sleep. None of us expected that something like this would happen. Our more immediate concern is unrest in the Twin Cities.
 
Misplaced rhetoric?
I do not like seeing our leaders harp on this theme of "outside agitators." It has the effect of dismissing the base of the grievance at hand. If we peel away what transpired with the actual incident, I think it boils down to the two guys - the cop and the victim - having had a shared background with a certain Minneapolis nightclub. A backstory of conflict? Prejudice built on a past incident or interaction?
Well, I think quite possibly so. I know how workplace grudges can get unreasonable. Some people can just lose their heads. Regardless of what Officer Chauvin did, can you imagine how he feels now? He might as well be dead. Even his wife has left him! Now it sounds like a country music song. Maybe his dog died too LOL.
Am I distressed by the alleged crime by the late George Floyd: trying to pass a fake $20 bill? Was it obviously fake? To what extent is this documented? If it was a fake bill, can we be sure Floyd knew it was fake? If it was real-looking, well. . .
But hey, this wasn't even suspicion of assault. Suspicion of violent crime would be reason to be a little physically assertive. But a pure money matter? Money or property are no reason to abuse someone to the extent of risking the death of that person. Are we now ruled by the god of money and property to this extent, so beholden to "the markets" as the device for giving all of us health and happiness?
Market principles are definitely important, primary. But this has to be weighed against more transcendent values like the inherent worth of life itself. We need to back down from "the markets" sometimes. Being ruled by markets can become depressing. A lot of us feel the weight of that and we don't even know it. Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself about that. When we have Thanksgiving dinner, we share equally with all and don't divvy it up based on one's "productivity."
People might scream at me that theft by deception is just not forgivable. Oh, cool your jets. Exercise your brain and think about what Mark Cuban wants to do: give everyone in the U.S. a magic little debit card by which to, well, spend money. Oh, and where would the money come from? Guess what the magic source always is: the Federal Reserve. The Fed creates money already, and Cuban's idea is to just get $ accelerating through the economy more.
In other words, let the "common" people have it and just spend it. This turns into "theft" through the inflation that is created, according to undisputed economic theory, when money simply appears as if by magic. It chases the same number of goods. So what would you expect would happen?
I was a young adult in the '70s and I know full well about inflation, then considered a primary issue. Paul Volcker solved that. Who would come around to solve it this time? Would our president even allow for an appropriate solution? Would he allow for the likes of Paul Volcker?
Nobody talks about inflation now. This could change diametrically, I assure you. I didn't come into town on a turnip truck.
And to remind: inflation is theft, though just not prosecutable as a street crime would be. Just as prostitution most certainly exists all around us - wining and dining, perks or whatever - but is not really prosecutable except on a "street" level.
I will opine that the "outside agitators" in the Twin Cities are an overestimated element. And just because some people are from "out of town" is not proof they are disingenuous. There are broad issues to be addressed now. These are trying times for the "common people," however you want to define that class. The pandemic exacerbated things to be sure.
I pray - OK let's pray now - that the U of M fund in my parents' names finds its appropriate niche even if the music discipline has to be fundamentally re-structured. And I can't imagine how all that is going to shake out.
Don't I recall "outside agitators" as a cliche from the Vietnam war era? Was Martin Luther King Jr. an "outside agitator" when he went to Birmingham AL? Hmmm.
 
Addendum: Listing more Minneapolis memories: the three times I ran the Twin Cities Marathon in the 1980s, the first time rather well in particular. I mean, for my size, my time of 3:01.11 I think was pretty decent. Oh, to shave off just one minute more! In springtime my parents came with me for two or three "Get in Gear" 10-kilometer runs which started and ended in Minnehaha Park. One of these coincided with a U of M St. Paul School of Agriculture reunion, a defunct institution where my father taught in the 1950s. So too did our WCSA in Morris become defunct: a closed chapter in MN education history. My father told me about how important tradition was there.
We enjoyed attending the St. Paul reunion.
I remember visiting Minneapolis with high school friend Art Cruze for the Mill City Music Festival one year. Especially memorable: hearing the late Etta James sing in front of her fine big band. Art and I also attended a stretch drive game of the Minnesota Twins in 1987, when the homer hankies were out in force. Priceless memories!
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Oh captain, my captain? Hardly

True Fascism may be sprouting in the U.S. It is 4:30 a.m. on Friday and we do not thank God it's Friday, not with everything that is going on. I got out of bed fully expecting to hear of accelerated unrest in the Twin Cities. And yes, such a development is in the news.
Was there not basic probable cause to make arrests of the offending police officers? The prosecution is afraid of "losing" if the decision is expedited? Is that it? It's time we forget about winning and losing so much, about the "turf protection" by public officials - caution, caution, caution. CYA. Well, covering one's posterior here has resulted in most disturbing scenes from overnight in the Twin Cities. Was it worth it?
There is so little possible gray area in judging what the police officers did. An arrest is a preliminary step. The effects can be rescinded. In the meantime we'd get a greater sense of calm among all of us. Lives and property can be protected. Instead we get public servants at microphones biding their time out of a sense of excruciating proper procedure. All this amidst the unprecedented stress of the pandemic which has turned our world upside down.
We may in fact see the start of a "Children of Men" scenario, the 2006 movie. It may be unfolding before our eyes. There is kerosene being thrown on the fire. Of course Donald Trump was not going to encourage the most conciliatory attitudes. At some point he'll pay lip service. But he has a checkered background on race issues. Will he literally start using the U.S. military? That's when Fascism starts entering the picture.
The longer Trump is in office, the more time he has to surround himself with people who are unquestioning. Is this not happening as we speak? Are there not new revelations almost daily about the slippery slope we're on? He needs to protect himself because the law could come after him once he loses the cloak of protection of the presidency. He is using all the power of his office, aided by his totally devoted attorney general, to lift his Republican Party to primacy, to demonize the other party and stick a dagger in it.
Everything that happens in Washington D.C. will become an extension of his intentions. The president cannot be held accountable. And this morning he is suggesting that looters in the Twin Cities be shot.
So, we bend over backwards for due process for the offending police officers, but civil unrest will not be met by a spirit of understanding or empathy from the powers in place in D.C. It's a splash of kerosene on a burst of frustrated and legitimate emotions.
I think history has examples of this: a political leader who may have been normal and well-intentioned at the start, and then with time comes the corrupting influence of power. Trump as an entertainer was one thing. He maybe didn't suspect what power might do to him. Reality TV made him a curiosity and an agreeable one, mostly. TV is like Hollywood: a "dream factory." Nothing is real.
Why on earth did we elect Trump as president? Hillary Clinton had the full resume for taking on the job. She was hardened to the responsibilities of the job. Most importantly she understood the give and take of political power, how you have to share common ground with your adversaries sometimes. You become insulated from some of the barbs - nothing is really personal. You can't just go scorched-earth against those who differ. Fascists would do that.
Our president should be conciliator-in-chief now. And it still wouldn't tamp down all the discontent. There are times when a president must act as a sort of calming referee. He must understand that politics is sometimes sausage-making. He balances this with the need to speak in idealistic terms, to affirm the best in us. Above all else the president must appear compassionate.
Perhaps the most dead-on commentary was offered by Howard Stern. He implores Trump to recognize that the job of president is "above him" and to please step aside. And the two could still be friends, Stern continued, could meet for a pleasant lunch at Mar-A-Lago. Of course the job is above Trump. He already had disturbing baggage on race issues. He could temper that part of his background now if he had a modicum of sensible instincts.
Instead he suggests that looters could be shot. Shooting randomly into a mob? Like at Kent State? A scene from "Children of Men?" We have arrived at dystopia maybe?
Everything I'm writing here should seem obvious. So do I have any suggestions to add to the mix? Maybe a giant "flash mob" to encircle the White House, people walking as the crow flies where possible, from all directions, with demands for the highest-ranking people in government to come out, communicate and be accountable. We might talk about police aggressiveness and pandemic incompetence. We're sick of hearing about Wall Street's interests.
The government wouldn't dare shoot and kill thousands of American citizens. Unless it's on a Fascist bent.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Two iterations in Clete Boyer's career

Clete Boyer was one of those Yankees ensconced in our mind with the early '60s chapter of the dynasty. The Yankees had a very long history of preeminence, of course. It must have been boring to see them on top so much. And remember, no wild card through all those years. The cheese stood alone in both leagues.
So, my Minnesota Twins in just their second year of existence, 1962, gave us ecstasy by finishing second to the Yankees, only five games out, but no post-season opportunities. That didn't get fixed until 1969. By '69 the Bronx crew had fallen with a thud off its one-time preeminence. But Clete Boyer had not fallen with them. The superb third baseman, remembered almost entirely for his defense, was with the Atlanta Braves.
The Braves were in just their fourth year in Atlanta. Prior to that, they had a quite successful run in Milwaukee. Mystifies me how they came to leave Milwaukee - I'm sure there's an interesting story and hard feelings.
The Braves with Boyer won the National League West - huh? - in the first year of East/West divisions. Atlanta in the west? Well there's a story or explanation there too. They faced off against the fabled New York Mets for the N.L. pennant. Surely New York would be in the East, n'est-ce pas?
The '69 Braves won a tough race with a lineup that had exciting players. How about Hank Aaron, Rico Carty and Orlando Cepeda? Can hardly top that for sort of a murderer's row. Add to that the novel pitching of Phil Niekro and his knuckleball.
Alas, the '69 Braves do not occupy any soft of storied place in baseball lore. First off they lost the playoff series 0-3. Secondly, the Mets became America's darlings, having emerged from their futile history with the big '69 surge, like Pinocchio suddenly turning into a real boy! The Mets captivated us in a year when the USA also reached the moon - lots of dramatic stuff going on and not all of it good. Divisiveness scarred America. Well, a lot like today? Let's put that subject aside.
Let's celebrate baseball from the time when America's baby boomers were young. We were entranced by the early '60s Yankees. We got familiar with all the names and personalities, even those players not getting All-Star consideration. I mean, if the Phil Linz "harmonica incident" had happened with a small-market team, would it even have been reported in the news? I ponder that with bemusement. It was fun dwelling on that episode along with the supposedly eccentric Yogi Berra and the players with peccadilloes - shall I mention consuming alcohol? In a time when society countenanced that so much more than today?
Billy Crystal paid homage to the early '60s Yanks with his movie about Roger Maris.
The 1969 Braves had to fend off challenges like the Houston Astros, a team that had its own "exile" from the Yankees of the early '60s: Jim Bouton. And Bouton wrote quite the book about '69 and used this for remembering his Yankee years, settling old scores etc. I don't remember Clete Boyer having a strong presence in the book but to the extent he's there, he is not presented in a particularly sympathetic way. I'm not dusting off my old copy to re-read it.
There is a photo in there of Bouton following through on a pitch with Boyer poised at third. Perhaps too poised, Bouton joked, as the third sacker was "over-reacting to what was probably a weak pop-up." Bouton probably threw a fastball for that scene. After '64 his arm lost its resilience. So in '69 he was "hanging on to the water wagon," to use a line from Robert Redford"s "The Natural," by throwing a novel off-speed pitch. He threw the knuckleball as a reliever for the Astros. He had his moments in '69 but he also got roughed up some. He tried hanging on into 1970 but had to withdraw, as the book's controversy loomed for him and his team.
 
Pinstripes in our memory
Fans my age have an image of Clete Boyer as a Yankee. He was important as he was right up there in fielding ability at third with Brooks Robinson. The two may even have been equal. Boyer hit well enough to hold his own. He stayed with the Yankees into their drastic descent after '64. So did Mickey Mantle and other well-established names.
Sad? I don't know, as in my mind the Yankees kept their particular mystique even when the wins evaporated. We were always awestruck seeing Mantle step up to the plate.
The Yankees fell all the way to the bottom of the standings in 1966. Boyer's departure from the Yanks after '66 was not offset by anything positive. He was traded to Atlanta for Bill Robinson. Robinson is remembered as a minor league phenom who couldn't produce at the top, not a lick.
Yankees management commented at the time of Boyer's departure that his bat was too much of a liability. Boyer's average in 1966 was .240. In 1961 when the Yankees had one of their greatest seasons, Boyer batted .224.
We see a guy playing Boyer early in the Billy Crystal movie, as the camera moves around the infield. The broadcaster in the movie refers to Boyer as "The Glove." Fielding in the infield is a mighty important commodity.
In the Yankees' pennant-winning '64 campaign, Boyer carried a .218 bat. It sure helps when you win. His average was higher in the decline years for the team, '65 (.251) and '66 (.240). Things were so bad for the team in '66, a broadcaster had his contract not renewed because he had the camera show all the empty seats for a game. As I recall, the fan turnout for that game was in the hundreds, not the thousands!
An analyst who uses "OPS" (above my knowledge, sorry) points out that Boyer in '65 and '66 was a slightly above average American League hitter. The Yanks should have kept the faith. But Boyer was traded to Atlanta for unproven commodity Bill Robinson. Bill came through with averages of .196, .240 and .171 in three seasons in New York.
And Boyer's replacement at third base? Charley Smith. I'm sure he's a nice guy but. . .

"Who's on the other end?"
Bouton got chuckles in his book for reporting the player who he was traded for: "Dooley Womack." I guess it sounds like a funny name but that's unfair - ditto nice guy, assuredly. Smith and Womack would be called "commons" among baseball cards. Unless, Womack maybe got a touch of celebrity for being cited in Bouton's famous book. Smith batted .224 with the Yankees.

Clete Boyer as Brave

While many of our beloved early '60s Yankees left the game or cruised through the mediocrity for a time, Boyer's story is more interesting. Yes we'll always picture him as a Yankee but he really found a second career with the Braves. He hit a career-best 26 home runs with the '67 Braves. His batting average stayed the same as his career norm.
Defensively he still had prowess, prowess which was an ingredient in the '69 division-winning year. It's too bad that team has become so obscure in baseball annals due to our "love affair" with the '69 Mets. I'm biased: Mets pitcher Jerry Koosman graduated from the West Central School of Agriculture in my town of Morris MN. Koosman came back here for a ceremony.
But we should also raise a toast to the '69 Braves with Aaron, Cepeda, Carty, Niekro and Boyer. A fine team that survived a challenging divisional race. Too bad the divisional format hadn't been established earlier.
Boyer played five seasons with the Braves and acquitted himself well. He had 619 plate appearances in '67.
His career home run total was 162, over 16 total seasons. His major league road began with the Kansas City Athletics, then considered rather a "farm team" for the Yankees, remember? He joined the Bronx crew in 1959. Boyer excelled in the Yankees' 1962 world championship year as he batted .272 with 18 home runs in 566 at-bats. He had seven hits in 22 at-bats in the World Series in which New York beat San Francisco. Remember the line drive caught by Bobby Richardson at the end?
Boyer's career was tarnished only slightly by a gambling misstep. He retired after the 1971 season. Thanks for the memories, Clete Boyer. Fans of "Ball Four" have matured and have learned to make a more measured assessment of the book.
 
Addendum: I remember Hank Aaron having the "Hank" phased out at a certain point, with "Henry" taking over. By the same token, the great Phillies player "Richie" Allen sought to discard that first name in favor of "Dick" and I even saw a baseball card where he signed "Rich!" And Chuck Barris of the Gong Show sang "Why does everybody call me Chuckie when they know my name is Chuck?"
 
Addendum #2: Is it true or urban legend that the Braves manager called a press conference to announce Phil Niekro would be pitching with two days rest, and when asked if he had any special concerns, the skipper said: "We're not worried about Niekro pitching on two days rest, we're worried about Uecker catching on two days rest."
  
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

I had a large collection of these Post Cereal cards!

City removes hard surface at East Side Park

A mark of progress in Morris (photo by Del Sarlette)

Looks like the City of Morris is not idle during this time of prevailing idleness. I have heard for some time that the cement or asphalt is coming out at East Side Park. The general talk has been translated into action. Driving past our park last week, I saw the work being done. Shall we assume that nice green grass is going to be planted there now?
The hard surface has not always been worthless. When I was in high school, a time receding ever further into the past, some spirited basketball took place there. Maybe outdoor basketball is no longer as popular. Remember the movie "White Men Can't Jump" with Woody Harrelson? It just brimmed with joy about the pastime. Wouldn't Woody be the perfect actor to play the late Bill Musselman in a biopic?
Musselman might also be fading into the cobwebs of history. Name ring familiar? If yes, maybe it's because he was the first-ever coach of the Timberwolves. He was at the helm for two years, the first of which had the team playing at the Metrodome.
Man, the Dome too is receding into the past. Remember how it was sold as a godsend for baseball? Man, no more worry about the vagaries of Minnesota weather. What could be better? We seemed persuaded by that argument for a very long time. Then what happened? Collective amnesia? Did we forget about how "obvious" the solution was, to Minnesota sports outdoors?
Well, beware of the marketing forces behind the behemoth sports enterprises. They'll say that a new stadium is part of the natural development of any sports team, just like anyone in the restaurant business will tell you that re-decorating is a periodic must. Cosmetic, yes. But necessary. Much of professional entertainment has to do with satisfying people's needs to overcome boredom. The same surroundings all the time get boring.
Despite the, ahem, orgasmic success of the Twins in the Dome over a long time, well, we started hearing this clarion call for how "baseball should be played outdoors." I remember Bert Blyleven eventually saying of the Dome: "That's not baseball." Would have been an interesting comment to hear back in 1980.
The Dome was sold to us as a "one-stop shop" for our big-time sports, remember? We heard that recruiting for the University of Minnesota football team would be so much better, as athletes wouldn't have to worry about freezing their butts off. The Vikings would go from their "frozen tundra" image - remember Steve Cannon? - to making their home where weather would be 100 percent consistent. For baseball, the Baltimore Orioles might have to worry about rain through the whole early spring, while our Twins wouldn't have to worry about a postponed game all season! What could be better? We might have to pinch ourselves to see if we we're dreaming, right?
Ah, the vagaries of human nature or human inclinations, or more to the point, the vagaries of big-time sports marketing. Who could have predicted that the day would come when every single major or even quasi-major team in the Twin Cities would have its very own stadium? Ah, welcome to 2020 which must surely be a superior world, right?
I personally attended several Minnesota Timberwolves games in their first two years. Musselman held forth. How is Minnesota history commemorating Mr. Musselman? As coach of the Wolves? That would be fine, but people my age embrace a different chapter of this mercurial man's career. He is distinct in Minnesota history as a firebrand. A loose cannon. A man who packaged quite the sports product at our U of M and Williams Arena.
NCAA Division I basketball plugs away in quite the predictable fashion today. Let's say under normal circumstances, sans pandemic. In the '70s the men's hoops program had a heyday of fascinating us, complete with a pregame routine that had a Globetrotter flourish. Musselman was obsessed seeking success and selling his program. And, what a cast of talent and personalities he had under him! It is never to be matched, period and end of thought.
The '70s may be getting lost a little in the fog of time. Like disco? Like Smokey and the Bandit movies? Like Jimmy Carter? Like the Gong Show? Like Euell Gibbons? A local attorney acquaintance of mine says Gibbons should be presented as the No. 1 symbol of the decade, which should tell you something about the nature of that time.
Focusing on Minnesota, Musselman's Gophers men's basketball team was "showtime" to the max. You'll remember how the decline happened or at least started: all the intensity turned into a sort of powder keg as there was a brawl. A knee to the groin? Corky Taylor vs. Luke Witte of Ohio State? In later years the two would become friends. Maybe they learned to regret the intense competition cauldron they had been placed in, when in college.
I have always personally wondered whether most former student-athletes regret the intensity of their past competition and rivalries. I have observed sports parents getting maniacally invested in all that stuff. I observed it for years and frankly I always wanted to grumble about it. I learned it does no good to do that. You'll actually invite resentment. School sports entertainment is a big unstoppable gravy train, accept it.
The pandemic has shuttered all that now. A blessing? I smile as I ponder that.
The '70s movie "One on One" with Robby Benson ended with the hero, having rejected the pressures of college basketball, informally playing hoops with his girlfriend at an outdoor playground court. Just like we once had here in Morris at East Side Park. Basketball "shirts and skins" style.
I cringe as I remember one day when I couldn't quite control a little flatulence I had. Math teacher Jerry Miller was with us that evening. I remember he laughed at me. Woody Harrelson wouldn't be caught doing that. Seriously my memories are warm, just as they are warm about when we had the glorious Prairie Pioneer Days at the park. I am stupefied by the near-total disappearance of that event now.
I also expect we will have no Morris Sesquicentennial next summer (2021). If you went back in a time machine to 1971 and told the Morris folks we'd have zero or almost-zero recognition of the Sesquicentennial, their jaws would drop. Our whole society just seemed to celebrate "people" more back then. I played in the wandering German band for the '71 event. I'm proud to share that. No recollection of flatulence.
 
Addendum: Every time I refer to "Smokey and the Bandit" I have to do a quick check to see if it's "Smokey" or "Smoky." Also, whenever I write "Charlton Heston" I have to check to see if it's one "s" or two. Every time. And of course, it's necessary always to double-check with "Euell Gibbons," the guy from the 1970s Grape Nuts Cereal commercials who liked to talk about eating things in the wild, e.g. "wild hickory nuts." Legend has it those commercials had to end because kids were going out in the yard looking for things to eat.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
  

Goodbye to hard (and hot) surface at Morris' East Side park

No more pulse for Osakis newspaper

Now we hear that the Osakis newspaper has gone out of existence. There is backpedaling all over the place. Newspapers have been in retreat anyway. The current shutdown circumstances are probably bringing the hammer down for some.
Not sure if a newspaper biting the dust is really man-bites-dog anymore. We were hearing warning signs way back when I stepped out of the Sun Tribune building for the last time. It was early June of 2006, now seems so long ago. Well it was long ago. Newspapers were stable but signs were evident due to the Internet, that the salad days were fading in the rear view mirror.
We got a taste of Fargo with the Morris paper. Forum Communications acquired the Morris and Hancock papers and proceeded to trim. We lost the Hancock paper completely. Chokio still has its paper. Hancock has its own batch of varsity sports teams, even softball where they were able to withdraw from the long-time partnership with Benson.
We regularly got reports that the Hancock school was picking up steam. Even if true, we wonder about all the fallout from the shutdown, how it will affect everything. The questions loom. Will we have anything like a normal school year for 2020-21? Will there be in-person classes at all? Not sure if anyone can say yes to that. Even if it launches in part or in full, might there be a new wave of the virus? Certainly happened with the Spanish flu, came back even after celebrations were held.
I'll use a popular word, "existential," and wonder if bricks and mortar-based education faces a truly existential dilemma. It's such a high-cost bureaucracy and one that is worth the price if it develops our young people in the way we like. However, the more time goes on, the more families will work to adjust sans that system. Their kids are not going to be in suspended animation. They are self-starters to a degree we might not appreciate yet, because up until now, we have delegated education to all the professionals working in schools.
Families will see that their kids develop. The kids will want to expand themselves. I was once a self-starter with reading books, magazines, comic books and even the backs of sports trading cards. All of that boosted my literacy and grasp of the world around me. The books assigned in school could be like torture to wade through. We had to try because teachers had the power to grade us.
I should have been working to expand myself in a wide variety of ways including many things outside a formal classroom. Problem was, I allowed myself to be terrorized by classroom judgments. To be preoccupied by all that. It always loomed because of grades on one's report card that you'd have to answer for.
 
Much ado about. . .what?
We are going through a season of the year when graduations would normally be held. UMM would be done with that. Then we'd get the high schools with the full gymnasiums or auditoriums. It was such a big deal it was almost unnerving. I use the past tense because the ceremonies are on hold as the virus hovers. No need for relatives to get dressed up and perhaps travel a fair distance.
Everyone offers "congratulations" and for what? All the graduates didn't reach some sort of magical "finish line" at the same time. They are highly diverse people with different talents and aptitudes. Much of their schooling was sort of "one size fits all." There is a big difference between my days of reading comic books and today. Today there is the unlimited Internet. I have seen TV ads just today about totally online-based learning systems for kids. Some claim to have no cost. Cost? For assimilating knowledge?
Older folks like me just assume there has to be cost. My parents' generation thought the government-sponsored public schools were essential and could reach all kids. It was like a right in America: a K-12 background with its level playing field. My parents' generation won WWII with a big monopolized government-directed war effort. War is the wheelhouse for big government - there is nothing it does better.
My parents encouraged me to defer to school, to accept all the criteria it assigned for determining success. I struggled. I should have realized there were other things like "life skills" that were just as important. I guess schools eventually came to teach "life skills" to a degree. Manage your finances, tackle household challenges, manage personal hygiene. But the "academics" in school - don't you hate that word? - put up onerous hurdles.
Maybe I could have gotten further in math if I could have been allowed to slow down some. And you know what? I could go online today for sure and find ways to "remediate" in math so that I could complete eighth or ninth grade-level assignments. It's never too late? But don't even come at me with the word "algebra." Why was I dragged into that literal hell? I could add, subtract, multiply and divide as well as anyone, so I could have stepped into many low-level occupations most acceptably. Instead I was just scared.
I'd master certain levels only to be dragged to some higher level where I'd struggle, get reprimanded and perhaps even mocked by some SOB instructor.
Maybe kids and their families are finding in this pandemic shutdown some sense of liberation from the legacy systems. Maybe the kids like not having to jump out of bed at an unreasonably early hour in the morning. Have you asked them about this? Why has formal education judged early rising to be so important? Makes no sense to me.
 
Papers can't cover sports
So, no more Osakis newspaper. There would be no high school sports for that paper to cover now. There's no high school sports to cover anywhere. How about that? I have not seen the Morris paper since the shutdown began. Don't know how they're adjusting without the usual sea of sports stuff splashed over something like three pages.
Community papers just assume they have to do this. Jim Morrison got exasperated with demands for sports coverage. He'd say "there are so many teams." And I responded: "It's not just that there are so many teams, there are so many games." Yes, the latter began to trouble me. You can argue for sports, but why the avalanche of games all the time, along with the many substantial trips out of town. The late Les Lindor who was school board chairman vented some disapproval of so much travel.
Well, there's no travel now with the shutdown. Do you get at least some sense of peace from this? Do you think the kids do? Do you think the kids find some sense of peace, away from having their ranks always divided between athletes and non-athletes? To the extent it's a status system, it's gone now.
You think it isn't a status system? Look at the Willmar paper sports section every day (in normal times), as it splashes never-ending coverage on all the athletes playing games. For what grand purpose? What about music activities?
Care to speculate on how much longer the Chokio paper will exist? Forum Communications of Fargo was believed to be on the verge of closing the Morris paper. If it was that bad then, one must wonder about the pandemic circumstances.
I don't recall ever visiting the Osakis sports facilities, and believe me I've been around. I have always loved the nickname of their teams: "Silver Streaks." Wasn't Gene Wilder in a movie called "Silver Streak?" I remember Hancock coach Dave Schoeck being a native of Osakis. Dave was a fine person as coach but he wasn't anything like his charismatic/flamboyant coaching peers at Hancock: Spencer Yohe and Dennis Courneya. What an era. You should get a primer if you're not aware.
I'm told the Osakis newspaper was down to 700 for circulation in the town of about 1,100. I will say this: my online writing has become much different with the absence of youth sports to write about. Normally that's a pretty good part of what I do. Time marches on.
Social distancing is the norm now.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

We can live without our graduations

Sen. Torrey Westrom

Is our local school superintendent "disgusted" with Minnesota's governor? That would not seem to be a prudent course to take. Our public schools have a niche in state-supported services where a modicum of harmony would seem to be needed.
Is our superintendent "very disgusted?" (Reminds me of the "very silly" political party in a Monty Python spoof of England's government system, many years ago of course.)
Our State Senator Torrey Westrom claims he's getting feedback - no "a lot of feedback" - from superintendents and families of Class of 2020 graduates. The upshot is that school people are "very disgusted with the governor coming out and kaboshing most graduation plans. Many schools locally were trying to decide how they could safely advance them. The governor basically squashed it."
Such kinetic terms: "kabosh" and "squash." (Actually wouldn't the term be "kibosh" with an "i"?) Gee, a politician wouldn't be inclined toward language of hyperbole, would he? Now that this language is established here, let's continue, as our pol claimed the governor "stepped in it on this one."
Westrom touts "local control." Republicans like him like to tout local control except on issues where they swear they are simply morally right. Let the states legalize marijuana? Let California reach an agreement with car makers to reduce harmful emissions? The Trump administration took action on that one, saying "only the Federal government" has authority in this. Local control? States rights? Oh my.
Would anyone be on board with me in saying that high school graduations are pure fluff? It's pomp and ceremony. To accomplish what? We get the rhetoric about how our kids have accomplished so much, to be recognized on this one arbitrarily selected day. It's a selling job by our public schools: "Hey, look what we've done for your kids - how could you have done this without us?"
Well, the current circumstances with the shutdown have families progressing with learning with the obvious attributes afforded by our digital world. There is nothing you cannot master by simply harnessing the attributes of the Internet, a thing that didn't even exist when I was young. Families can engage in learning systems that are comfortable for them. The pace is suited to your preference. You can review anything you want at any time.
We've always heard the proclamation of kids wanting to learn. It may be true but our legacy system (pre-digital) was set up as onerous, as if textbook writers wanted to 1) bore us, and 2) deliberately make knowledge elusive. Regarding No. 2, remember that in our legacy system, teachers had to "ration" grades. Perhaps this was less so as the years went on - some enlightenment crept in - but my generation was dragged through school when 'A' grades were scarce and we all knew the very small sliver of "smart" kids who'd corner them. Heavens, that was most certainly true with my high school class.
A college teacher would survey his/her class on the first day and realize "a certain percentage of these kids are going to have to get a 'C' grade." The teacher was literally required to follow through on this - failure would have professional consequences. It's ridiculous, of course: how could this teacher know for a fact that a given, rather large percentage of kids were going to have that much trouble learning?
A theory I have floated before: since schools exist largely to replicate the workplace, I would opine that schools in the industrial age prepped kids for jobs that were going to be unpleasant and boring - the proverbial "Mr. Dithers" type of boss lording over you. This isn't to say the jobs of our new digital age are literally easy, but they are different. They call on practitioners to have a passion for their work, not to "drag themselves" through a work day. There is pressure to perform because of the sheer power of our new info systems.
Tom Friedman talked about how if the programmer of a plane's route gets just one digit wrong, well, all hell breaks loose. The power is in a simple series of numbers being able to accomplish so much, bypassing the "busy" nature of analog systems.
An article the other day claimed that as many as 40 percent of all parents are going to want to continue home learning, "home schooling," when the current crisis is over. Of course, we have no guarantee yet that the crisis will be "over" according to an organized timetable. We aren't all going to start taking this hydroxy-whatever, for sure.
The article I cite here should have an asterisk because it's from Breitbart, an outlet which shall we say has recognizable spots. But it might be true - would not surprise me.
The term "home schooling" remains a little tainted because it was once associated with religious zealots. Today the whole Republican Party of America is associated with religious zealots, a class of people that seems to celebrate sheer ignorance much of the time. Right, Sen. Westrom? Seems rather paradoxical they go into fawning over education and the puffy, superfluous and overdone "graduations."
No you kids, you have not gotten past some sort of significant hurdle by "graduating" and getting your "diploma." It just means our public education is done with you and you need to move on so the next crop can come up. You are the same person on the morning after graduation as you were the day before. Don't be fooled. And don't be in a rush to decide what you're going to do next. The fact of your "graduation" will end up meaning nothing.
How can one argue that high school diplomas are so essential, when we are beaten over the head continually by this mantra about post-high school education being so necessary? And once we get to where everyone has a college degree, we'll start to hear "well, you'd better get a graduate degree." Sound like a racket to you?
Sen. Westrom, you "protest too much" on this matter of graduations getting this "kabosh" or "kibosh." Temper your language a little, too. I realize that's hard in this age of Trump who I'm sure is your hero or guru.
Does our local school superintendent Troy Ferguson really agree with the senator?"
(Let's note that the "kabosh" spelling was probably chosen by the radio station website article writer. What's his name, Marshall Tucker?)
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Oh, to have a UMM commencement for 2020

(B.W. photo)

Wouldn't yesterday (Saturday, May 16) be the day for UMM's annual commencement? Think of the sense of "buzz" in our community. Think of the exhilaration and joy. Yes, an injection for the local economy. But let's weigh instead the intangibles. Our local college is liberal arts which has a lot to do with the intangibles of college.
Such knowledge builds wisdom, and wisdom leads to prudent guidance with our economy and general welfare. We gain a sense of wide perspective. You'd never guess we as a nation value such an asset, when you look at the occupant of the White House. Or, at the prevailing political party in D.C. now, in control of the Senate as well as the presidency.
Why do we put so much emphasis on this one person we call the president? I don't think our system was set up with this in mind. I began hearing concerns about this as the Nixon presidency deteriorated. Why does this one mortal person hold forth with such commanding effect? Why can't he be more of a low-profile executive within the overall balanced nature of government?
Our system at present is allowing the executive branch to consolidate enormous power. And the main power is owned by the GOP, a party that is not suited by its basic nature to respond to something like this unprecedented pandemic.
Why am I weaving in these thoughts in a piece inspired by our UMM? Well, I suspect the states of the nation, who are not allowed to run deficits, are going to need the feds to do some heavy lifting before all this is over.
Ah, "when all this is over. . ." A philosopher might wish to pick that apart. Is "this" the death, the inconvenience, the anxiety or the mystery? All of the above? And then there's the assumption that a true "end" will arrive, a resolution followed by resumption of totally normal life. What about the after-effects or "hangover" from the incredible steps being taken to have some modicum of stability?
And the poor states, deficit-less: how can they re-establish normalcy without navigating some rough waters caused by a prolonged shutdown? I mean, how can we just shut everything down as if we're a big bear in Yellowstone Park, hibernating? Even if we're "smarter than the average bear" (homage to Yogi Bear), how indeed can we just land on our feet?
Let's trot out "when this is over" again and assume that Republicans in D.C. are not going to bend over backward helping states out. After all, we are not Wall Street. (Rimshot)
The states, which would likely feel pressed under normal circumstances, are going to be pressed in spades. So, it's likely there will be an exhaustive review of state spending with little hesitation in applying the scythe. "No mercy," as the bad guy character in "Karate Kid" said. (That actor is now playing a good guy in TV commercials.)
So I have to wonder, how are colleges going to come through, like our wonderful University of Minnesota-Morris? In normal times we can spin the most effective lobbying messages for our beloved campus. We here in Morris believe all of it. While I have privately harbored concerns re. the viability of the liberal arts, I'm delighted with the ship steaming ahead: our campus on the east end of town.
It's an extended campus if you include the K-12 public school on the higher ground. And in between is the thing tying the two together: Big Cat Stadium. I have never been a big advocate for that, but then you might be aware I'm quite the harsh critic of football. The best thing that happens there all year is the Irondale marching band practice and exhibition in summer. I suppose that's off for 2020. What isn't off?
  
My sentimental practice
I have the 2018 and 2019 UMM commencement programs lying on my late mother's bed. They are there permanently, to be joined by new programs when or if normal life resumes. Yes I specify "if." Interesting: Trump professes closeness or at least some sympathy with the anti-vaxxer crowd, yet he is now making a bold, and I think misleading promise for a cure-all vaccine within an unreasonable timespan.
Vaccines are fundamentally needed but it's reasonable to have some apprehension about them. I'm sure my parents availed themselves of the polio vaccine the second it became available. I was born in 1955. Our State Fair had to be canceled because of the polio scourge.
I am profoundly scared by the idea of a "rushed" vaccine because these can indeed be dangerous. Trump might rush this, I fear, out of desperation to look good and win re-election. Is there anything he wouldn't do?
Of course there is no guarantee we'll even find a reliable vaccine for the pandemic we have now. What kind of future can we envision then? Dystopia, the stuff of science fiction fantasies or apocalyptic projections? I'll site again the 2006 movie "Children of Men." If our states of the U.S. have to plunge into retrenchment, due to obstinance by the feds, what might happen to state-supported colleges?
On the positive side of the ledger, the U of M is top-tier. That's why an element of the Morris community fought so hard to get it. The second-tier colleges have a lot to be worried about now. But the U is top-tier and its research purpose will always be of the highest priority. That said, I wonder about the satellite bricks and mortar campuses. That's us. And we're liberal arts, a mission that often has to be promoted with language that comes off rather as platitudes.
Platitudes are sweet-sounding and they don't originate from whole cloth. But the forces of retrenchment might not be so impressed. This is just speculation but I don't think politicians like Jeff Backer are enthused about UMM, though they might say the opposite. They'll respect what the institution provides as an economic asset within their district. But conservative Republicans like Backer are suspicious of liberal arts institutions, I feel, because the schools allegedly nurture future political liberals.
The liberal arts promote critical thinking as with the scientific eye toward climate change - this can run counter to the emotions-based arguments of the deniers. So it's verifiable facts versus emotions and I tend to favor the former. Just my bias.
I must put forward a bleak scenario, that maybe UMM will sit idle for a year or two until we "come out on the other side." Again, the federal government can run wild with deficit spending and the states cannot. And can we trust the GOP-controlled federal government to be the truly helpful asset we need it to be? Or, is it too preoccupied feeding Trump's ego with the hugely expensive "Space Force" with its rockets? An expansion of bureaucracy with Space Force. Republicans like to talk like they're against expanded bureaucracy. Watch what they do, not what they say.
I shared my thoughts about UMM's prospects with a friend a few days ago. He is conservative by nature. He said much of the gloom and doom is being put forward by "economics" commentators who are inclined toward such projections. I will admit such people have been getting proven wrong over the past few years. But why? Have the laws of economics changed?
My friend said that inflation cannot re-surface like in the '70s because of some "new factors" not present then. Yes, the Federal Reserve has been doing incredible things to try to plug the hole in the dike as it were. The Fed just prints and does "repo" on and on, to the point where the agency appears to have our fate in its hands. Some are pointing out that the money-printing does not appear to be causing inflation. OK, if true let's just have the Fed print and print and print, and just spread it around with hardly any prerequisite for working and being productive. Ultimately that is absolutely absurd.
Money-printing without productivity simply must cause inflation or we're living in a fantasmagorical dreamland. OK, so maybe we are? Ask Peter Schiff.
So in summation I'm worried about the future of our local liberal arts campus. I'd be delighted to be wrong. What's to become of music at UMM? Kids standing shoulder-to-shoulder in choir or seated side-by-side in band? When can we envision such things returning?
Most of all, I am so profoundly sad that I cannot place a 2020 UMM commencement program on Mom's bed. Please stop by our family monument at Summit Cemetery sometime: a black bench in the new portion. Sit a spell. Take a load off. Remember UMM's past. Whistle a happy tune.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Where our UMM commencement would be held on a nice day (B.W. photo)

Tony Kubek with microphone: "establishment"

Tony Kubek sat side by side with Curt Gowdy in the broadcast booth for baseball. The two gave us NBC's "Game of the Week" on Saturday afternoon. Only rarely in those days could fans see televised games involving teams other than your own. We in Minnesota were invested in the Twins in the team's first decade of existence in the '60s.
I was rather bored and distressed in school, and baseball was an uplifting departure from that routine. So I paid close attention to the Saturday matinee type of showcase for big league ball. Once a week! A quite limited diet but one we had to accept. The word "digital" would not have even registered with most of us.
We wondered what teams NBC would pick for the next Saturday game. American or National League? Remember, no interleague play then either. To this day many people my age have a hard time, I'm sure, accepting the Astros as American League.
The Astros played in their wondrous dome which we learned in class was "the eighth wonder of the world." Probably learned that from one of those "World Events" posters at East Elementary in Morris. (We needed the "East" to differentiate from Longfellow where I attended grades 1-3.)  Ironic that a stadium like the Astrodome could go from "wonder of the world" to defunct. Life often accelerates and leaves past assumptions in the dust.
Were it not for our pandemic now, we'd see big league ball on TV with lots of choices. And it's a world we now take for granted, which we assume will return - knock on wood - when the mysterious virus abates. Seems at present, we cannot assume anything about the virus. Times change and so does our culture.
So when I introduce Tony Kubek here, I must explain that in the '60s, culture clashes caused people to get pigeon-holed, sometimes fairly and sometimes not. Society today seems largely to have forgotten the cultural divisions and stereotypes.
My image of Kubek is one of a crusty and humorless interview he did, with a player who had written a revolutionary baseball book. Whether you considered "Ball Four" excellent literature or not - I considered it superbly crafted for the kind of journalism it was executing - it was a tome that pried open cultural division.
 
Rose-colored glasses?
Today we are all so forgiving of people who might have offended us then. Offended? Think of what was at stake. War or peace in Southeast Asia. The desperation of young men to avoid military conscription for an obviously unnecessary war. Tens of thousands of young men - let's knock off "men and women" because you know what I'm saying - died. "Body bags" entered our terminology and many years later surfaced again in, of all things, "The Karate Kid."
Civil rights made painful and halting progress. We were on the doorstep of women's liberation but that took time - my, high schools didn't have girls varsity teams until my senior year.
The progressives or liberated crowd in my growing-up years decided the traditional sports book had to shake off pretensions. It was part of peeling through the veneer of idyllic American notions, to see the athletes as real human beings. Just as we needed to see the young U.S. servicemen as vessels of God that needn't be thrust at an enemy that was described as subhuman. That old trick wasn't going to work anymore because people were getting better educated, had more options, and the media world was getting more adventurous in finding truth.

So in 1970 we got the breakthrough book about life in big league baseball. It was written by Jim Bouton but had vital input from Leonard Shecter too. Shecter was known as one of the "chipmunks," a group of New York City sportswriters who broke away from the old mold.

Bouton reviewed a season in which he played for three teams: Seattle of the American League, Tacoma in the minors and Houston in the National League. The book benefited greatly from that variety. Bouton was throwing a new pitch, the knuckleball, and sort of "hung in there" in 1969. He tried extending this into 1970. The notorious niche of the book was a distraction for him and his team I'm sure.
His notoriety put him on the pre-game show for Kubek and Gowdy one Saturday. Kubek did the interview. I'll use 1960s parlance here and say Kubek came off as "establishment." That doesn't register with you? Memories of this have faded as we wish to put our national warts behind us. Another term going along with "establishment" was "narc" (short for narcotics officer).
"Establishment" meant that you weren't likely to second-guess the war much if at all. You'd be down on drugs and probably even on rock 'n' roll. As a kid on the converse end of things, I felt I had to dress at least moderately "grubby" and have hair over my ears.
Silly of course to focus on such things. But focus we did through a troubling decade, with the hinges finally coming off with Kent State and the Manson murders. I grew up when the No. 1 national story was the war and it was a war the U.S. lost, a proclamation heard in the media today even in the most "objective" programs. Wolf Blitzer has said it and NBC's Brian Williams too. So, what a time to grow up, in terms of setting your orientation toward life. A little defeatism maybe? Cynicism?

I remember watching the Kubek interview with Bouton and immediately thinking Kubek was going "establishment." I thought it unfortunate. I remembered Kubek as a Yankee from the early '60s dynastic years. By the time I was old enough to pay much attention, Kubek's offense had fallen off and I had a pedestrian image of him. His was an unfortunate story of injuries cropping up.
A key physical problem for Kubek came away from the diamond: touch football when in the National Guard. As kids we didn't realize just how frail were the bodies of our favorite pro athletes. As time has gone on, I have gained much better understanding, to the point where I have cooled as a fan. As kids we all had the "invulnerability of youth," right?
We might get frustrated with a favorite player when he was out with an injury. Some like Rod Carew had National Guard commitments that protected them from being sent to Vietnam. But we'd get upset about their periodic absence. Need I remind you that the Guard was the ticket out of active combat, used by sons of many favored and well-to-do families? I don't blame anyone for doing anything to get out of Vietnam - this includes George W. Bush.
Interesting how Bush looks more and more like a sympathetic figure as the Trump administration just keeps oozing along.

Bouton stood there gamely for his pre-game interview for NBC's Game of the Week. Kubek was an old teammate of Bouton. Bouton had his prime with the Bronx crew and probably crashed and burned (with his fastball) due to pressure in '65 to pitch through a sore arm. He took notes through the '69 season and worked with Shecter and others to write a groundbreaking book: "Ball Four."
The media began telling us about controversy in connection to the book. The book broke rules. It was derided as "kiss and tell." It showed heroes like Mickey Mantle as flawed mortals while not dissing their talents. It's just that they were human beings with all the ups and downs and human failings as we all possess. Seems no big deal. But it was at the time.
Naturally all the commentary in the media served to push book sales! I remember all the pushback but there were other elements in the legacy baseball journalism apparatus that weren't so quick to criticize. I'm thinking of the Sporting News, "baseball's Bible."
Change can be upsetting and uncomfortable. Wise souls know it has to be confronted. I'm disappointed in Kubek because he could have taken a more measured approach. But this was network TV in the days of censorship and the "Big 3" with all its redundant westerns. Let's stay in our comfortable world, many of the old denizens seemed to think. Kubek's tenor immediately showed he was gravitating toward that. He reported all the intense criticism and said "I agree with them."
Bouton spoke into the mike as best he could with confidence.
There was no turning back in sports journalism once Ball Four found its legs.
Bouton was outspoken against the Vietnam war and most certainly an activist toward civil rights. He represented the new and enlightened wave in American life. And far from hurting the interests of his fellow players - my goodness, his book has been cited as key in bringing more rights and riches to his crowd - he has been presented as a boon. Kubek was a relic. Maybe he was sort of a stooge or an instrument of a status quo that was represented by writers Dick Young and Jim Ogle. Their time had come and gone just like Lawrence Welk.
Today we live in an age of "conflict resolution." There seemed little of that sort of thing in the '60s. But conflict can be good if light shines on the desired way forward.
It seems uncool to think of people like Kubek as regressive today. This is the age of the "Greatest Generation" for WWII which I guess wipes out the generation gap. But the schisms were real and uncomfortable in the '60s - we can too easily forget. I have not forgotten. Paul Harvey, our nation doesn't turn its lonely eyes to you. Hail the Smothers Brothers.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

It's not Walden but it's our biking trail

Took my little church devotional booklet with me on a bike ride on Wednesday. It's small so I could tuck it in my back pocket. Our community is blessed by the biking/walking trail system to the east. It did not exist in my growing-up years. There has been a proposal to extend it out to the golf course. A city official informs me that a grant application for this did not win approval. It's disappointing and especially so under our new lifestyle with the pandemic restrictions.
We are homebound and so limited in what we can do. I go out to the trails and notice people who seem to be carrying themselves with a look of peace. So logical: an escape into a quiet or semi-wild setting. You would think that nothing was up in our world. In reality we are quite transformed - we are cutting our own hair, for example, and soon will not care less about how we look with our hair. Just keep it conveniently short, period.
I shave less often, not that I set an example with this practice anyway. Someone gave me a hint at church coffee once about how my stubble was objectionable. Then recently I call up a news article on the (outstanding) radio station website and I see a photo of JUDGE Charlie Glasrud with a notoriously unshaven face, and it isn't even a designed beard.
On Tuesday I made a rather substantial bank deposit - substantial by my standards - and had to stand outside at the drive-up window. The transaction was involved enough that I couldn't sit there in my car, but I was not invited inside. I stood there in the chilly mid-morning air, and light rain was coming down intermittently. There was an overhang so I was not literally getting wet. Still I felt I was projecting a forlorn image as I stood there.
All of this is getting aggravating.
It is heartening to visit Willie's Super Valu and sense an environment pretty close to normal. There's an understanding you don't walk up to someone and talk to them, not even to say hello. Exchanging a simple hello would be therapeutic for someone like me who lives alone.
I have my church devotional booklet but I can't attend church. Just as discouraging was that when I arrived at a bench to read my booklet Wednesday, I discovered that it was past-date. I'd need a new one. My church is First Lutheran which is aligned with a synod considered politically liberal. It's a shame us people have to be on the defensive these days. Seems we're on the retreat, to an extent, as the Trump-oriented conservative or reactionary (or ignorant) churches pick up steam and pick up money.
I hear the new steeple at Good Shepherd cost (number withheld in case it's not precise). Not sure that expense benefits humanity in any significant way.
The reactionary side of our culture behaves so strangely now. Like the Ohio state representative who said he can't wear a mask because it contradicts God's will or something like that. Well, nothing much surprises me these days. So I'm hardly surprised by the Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who compared stay-at-home directives with the Japanese internment camps of World War II.
Seems asinine on the face of it. Of course I always try to understand other people's arguments. So I suspect the justice would assert that the internment camps were an abomination, which certainly represents mainstream judgment now. Acceptable? The now-classic movie "Karate Kid" reflects in CW regarding that.
Oh my goodness, the camps definitely presented uncomfortable issues and questions, in spades. My late father who was by nature a non-prejudiced person would not be so quick to indict FDR. The other side of the coin on this issue is that in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, when we certainly didn't know how the war would turn out, it was legitimate to not have 100 percent confidence in the ethnic Japanese living in America, especially on the West Coast.
Even if we had felt confident of winning the conflict, we could not have predicted the atomic bomb which shortened matters and prevented the implementation of "Operation Downfall" which would have been the land invasion of Japan. I might not be here today if the massive invasion had happened.
War is ugly and not always fair to say the least. Japan was pulverized to an extent where as time passed, we felt concern about the people's welfare there. General MacArthur helped fundamentally restructure and re-direct the country. Japanese spokesmen articulated remorse. But, what if they had won? I'll drop the subject there.
 
We watch RBG's health
The Wisconsin justice is a Federalist Society type. Trump will continue appointing these people to the highest court when the opportunity is presented. Need I mention the precarious health state of Ruth Bader Ginsberg?
The word is probably going out among the right wing now about how they shouldn't "root" for RBG's death, because this could finally "cross a line" for this crowd, however I don't think it would cross a line. Those people have wide latitude and countenance things that would not be considered in polite society 20 years ago. In the pre-digital age, we had a "gatekeeper" media system that didn't give credence to a lot of the right wing stuff which ended up relegated to those pathetic little pamphlets you'd see given out at county fairs.
The electronic media has been very generous with the righties. Those people spout invective or whatever you want to call it. It splashes out there like from Laura Ingraham and then we have to react seriously, to waste our precious efforts.
Right wing pronouncements are emotional in nature. My side by contrast weighs fact and reason as with climate science. What if we find out that the pandemic and possible future pandemics are due to climate change? Huh? What if?
The current virus is showing itself to be unpredictable. Apparently it has "mutated." There are now apparent manifestations showing up in kids. The military is now turning away people who have had the virus?
Let's make a comparison between today and the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor. We don't know what the heck is going to happen. (I could have used an alternate word to "heck" but I'm not like Donald Trump.)
 
Addendum: The bank I reference today is in Stevens County but not in Morris. I have had to remove money from Morris banks because of CD interest rate considerations.
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Our precious biking/walking trail, Morris MN

We moderate emotions after a vicious war

My late father Ralph E. Williams is at right in distinct uniform. He was lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific theater of WWII. Wouldn't it be wonderful to know the names and hometowns of all the other guys in photo? Thanks to Del Sarlette for scanning photo.

An amusing story re. Dad related in an email from my cousin Bob Williams of Anoka:
I remember your dad coming to our Glenwood (MN) house in his uniform when my brother and I were young. I was two and Tom was about eight. When we saw him at the door, one of us yelled "Bum!" and slammed the door shut. We had a hobo jungle nearby in those days and the hobos often came to the door to beg for food. My mom finally let him in.
 
Mad Magazine did a satire on WWII movies once, suggesting that as the years advance after a major war, "the enemy" becomes less sinister and more relatable. The enemy seems to command empathy. Perhaps it's in the spirit of "we're all just pawns on a chessboard, really." The sinister strings just got pulled by some mysterious malevolent souls who weaved their way into power.
The impulse to humanize our enemies is understandable somewhat. We do not relish having our thoughts buried in unbridled hatred, the kind of hatred that dehumanizes the foe. Dehumanizing is fine at the time of war because it makes the act of killing less painful. In WWII we saw terms like "Japs" and "Nips" trotted out for the Japanese. When the war was still fresh in our memory, such language was even palatable in war-based entertainment. Oh yes we were entertained by all the war flicks. And on TV too!
A friend tells me there's a reason we only rarely see "McHale's Navy" re-runs. The show which really followed the template for mainstream TV comedy included references to the "Nips." While such talk hardly raised eyebrows in an earlier time, the hatred seems steadily less palatable as time goes on. I suppose Rodney King articulated the spirit when he said "Why can't we all just get along?" Indeed we cannot.
My father was in the "Greatest Generation" which itself is kind of a fable. One day he was in music education and then very rapidly had to transition to Naval officer. He was in charge of a crew that guarded a merchant chip, an oil tanker. When he designed our home in the early 1960s, he chose an art print for display that had a profile of a ship in the distance, a ship that he said looked just like the ship he served.
Toward war's end he was transferred to the USS Appalachian. Our family was invited to their reunions through the years but we did not attend. The organization mailed us a commemorative ashtray with the name of the vessel. A commemorative ashtray! Now there's a dated memento. Ashtrays were an expected part of our surroundings when the WWII generation was in its prime.
I have read that cigarette companies in the war years made their product available for free to servicemen. Shall I even state the obvious suspicion that a motive was to get the guys "hooked?" I don't remember my father ever smoking cigarettes although I recall some cigars and pipe-smoking.
He recalled his war experiences only occasionally. He did not get involved in service organizations like the VFW and Legion in town, and I wish he had. Perhaps I could have talked him into it, had I been inclined that way.
My father had vivid memories of what Japan was like in the ashes of the aftermath of conflict. He shared as follows for a local newspaper profile of him once:
 
In November 1945, my ship stopped in Japan for a day. I took the electric train into Tokyo. For 20 miles, between the port and the city, there were no houses standing. But there were thousands of tepees made of corrugated tin, with a column of smoke rising from each one. I took a long walk through Tokyo in the dark. In every doorway, there were homeless families - mothers, fathers and children, sleeping in the entrances.
 
A scene from movie "Emperor"
All this re-enters my mind now that I have watched "Emperor," the 2012 movie about the decision on whether to execute Japan's emperor. I don't recall the movie getting well-known. It wasn't about fighting toward victory because victory was already done. Any suspense there is disposed of.
The movie shows us scenes of Tokyo in rubble just like my late father Ralph described. He was struck by the humbled demeanor of the Japanese people - apparently no risk for our servicemen to circulate. So, any belligerent inclination was virtually crushed.
Perhaps it would be good to read about the "rape of Nanking" before you watch this movie. I think your perspective would be put on a more realistic level. A mere handful of militarists could not have done all the heinous things that the Empire of Japan did. Mankind's dark forces can come out all too easily. Mad Magazine did a service when showing how a touch of revisionist history, to make the enemy seem "relatable" as human beings - and after all we all have weaknesses - comes through after the passage of time.
We have emotional distance from the grotesque reality of war. Most of us have befriended Asian people. It would seem perverse to call them "Nips." But actor Ernest Borgnine certainly did in "McHale's Navy."
The U.S. had to kill indiscriminately at the end of the war via the A-bombs. Why be so hard on the Japan civilian population? Well, I suppose because we saw the Japan menace as going far beyond a simple group of "militarists." The movie "Emperor" needed an obvious villain to hang out there and we see this in unsubtle terms: "Tojo." Oh he was a real villain. First he's shown in the cowardly act of trying to take his own life, which he fails at. His demeanor is totally sullen as he hardly says a word, and then he is hanged.
We can dust off our hands after that and proclaim "justice," right? The problem I have is that after that, the remaining suspicious characters in Japan's power structure are treated way too much as the "complicated human beings" that Hollywood likes to dispense on us. Again, a reminder about the Mad Magazine satire (from the 1960s): The satire concluded with a prediction of how the Japanese belligerents would be portrayed by Hollywood many years hence. The typical Imperial officer would "look like Tab Hunter only he'll have much straighter teeth," the cartoon panel said.
Satirists cut to the chase so nicely. Similarly, the German people were increasingly coming across as having been manipulated by "Nazi masters." Again, we all have German friends today, right? Let's gloss over a few things.

I haven't yet mentioned that Tommy Lee Jones plays General MacArthur in "Emperor." I don't think he will displace Gregory Peck in our memory of Hollywood portrayals. Peck's movie showed us the serious business of Japanese post-war reconstruction. It was substantive, showing us how the general tapped totally "liberal" political policies to wipe out any vestiges of Japan's aggressive ways. The women can vote! Workers can have unions! Wow. 
The Tommy Lee Jones portrayal is, shall we say, pretty superficial. The biggest takeaway is that the general was a vain and showboating person who liked to delegate. My father said that when MacArthur ran for president, he flopped because the American people feared he would just get us in another big war. Memorial Day speeches aside, we just don't need wars. My father was so lucky to survive.

Remembering those who fell
A Stevens County native named Floyd Lange was not so fortunate in the Pacific war. The war's end was so close when the USS Luce on which Lange served, was struck and sunk by a Kamikaze plane. The Lange family is interwoven with the Kramers and when I finally saw a picture of Floyd, he struck me as fitting right in with the Kramer boys of Morris in my childhood.
So tragic for a life to end that way. So much better to avoid war and make unnecessary the Memorial Day speeches. I have always had mixed feelings about Memorial Day and Veterans Day speeches. They remind us of conflict too much and could stoke jingoism. Obviously we all remember the sacrifices of people like Floyd Lange. We honor the service of my father who went on to continue a distinguished music career after the war. He founded the music department at our University of Minnesota-Morris.
The campus sits sadly idle now because of the pandemic of 2020.
Tommy Lee Jones was only the second most important actor in "Emperor." When first seeing Matthew Fox in the beginning scenes, I thought to myself "I've seen this guy in another movie." Doesn't it drive you nuts when you have this feeling and you cannot immediately pin down the other movie? What a sigh of relief when it comes back to you. Fox was the assistant coach in the movie "We Are Marshall." His character had to be talked into returning to the football team after the fatal plane accident.
In "Emperor," Fox plays Brigadier General Bonner Fellers who answers to MacArthur. There is a sub-plot with a love interest, a Japanese girl, and it reminds me of a similar sub-plot in the 1960s movie "Midway." A review states that the romance is "cliched" but hey, aren't all romances (LOL)?
I suppose Fox does OK in his role. To the extent that the U.S. was merciful toward certain Japanese leaders like the emperor, I would say it was only because it was in U.S. interests. We had to keep Japan's morale somewhat intact lest the "Communists" moved in. The Commies were the ultimate boogeymen through my growing-up years. They were cited to defend the Vietnam war. Absolutely hellish and tragic.
"Emperor" is worth seeing. It will not enter the ranks of war classics. I am more likely to remember Tommy Lee Jones from other roles. Gregory Peck is still MacArthur in my mind.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Dad had mustache when in Navy!

Ralph E. Williams, lieutenant USN

Soothing effect, now, of "Wear Sunscreen"

We all must be wondering in the recesses of our minds if the worst is yet to come. Following our innate nature, we just want to get through the immediate day, and if we do, we'll ponder if our even keel will just continue, somehow. We can repress the more panicky thoughts.
I am probably more aware of the dire scenarios than most people - just my nature. People who envision the worst outcomes do a favor: helping us prepare/anticipate.
In the short term we'll become more austere. It's natural but also a departure from our home base norms. Such as, having your hair cut by an appropriate professional. It has become a little harder in our Morris MN community anyway with the departure of Dave Evenson.
What a significant change: no more barber with the barber pole in a community of 5000. We see the reality and move on. Dave told me once there was a time when it was against the law for a woman to cut a man's hair. The town barber was an institution in Norman Rockwell's America. We couldn't imagine any departure from this. Until it happened, at which point we do what we always do: persist with life day-by-day and making practical decisions accordingly.
As severe as the current pandemic is, we get up each morning and simply do what we need to do. The day before us is our priority. It's in the recesses of our minds how drastic our whole American landscape might change long-term. Politicians will say the crisis will be handled in short order. What else could they possibly say? We pay them to be heartened by the future. Herbert Hoover proclaimed in 1930 that the dark clouds would abate. What else could he say?
Republicans are less likely than Democrats to give us the hard truths about the lasting effects of crises. Democrats acknowledge the purpose of government in a more fundamental way, asserting its presence as something leading us out of an abyss. Because surely, an abyss is already where we have fallen.
What fountain of wisdom might we tap? Even if it's just a few intangibles you are looking for? My mind conjures up the "Wear Sunscreen" speech. It's an exhibit from the early days of the Internet, as we became fascinated with things going "viral."
So at present we must cut our own hair. From the "Wear Sunscreen" speech: "Don't mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85." Cutting your own hair simply to keep looking civilized seems optimally healthy, right? You might say organic or primal. We aren't seeking to modify or manipulate our hair so as to keep up with a certain "look" on the cover of a women's magazine. We'll keep our hair short to be civilized and sanitary, not to try to abide by certain whimsical standards.
So with time, as professional hair cutting is no-go, we'll get used to seeing each other with the homemade jobs. And will we care? I think not at all. I find I even regret not doing this more all through my life, to attack certain "offending" strands of hair that had gotten too long. Heavens, I could certainly have postponed haircuts. But I wouldn't be able to see barber Dave as often.
He was like the shoeshine character in the 1980s TV sitcom "Police Squad" in which Leslie Nielsen would get all the neighborhood "scoops" (well, gossip) from the shoeshine. But, only after he peeled out some large cash denominations and gave it to the guy.
So I decided to review the whole "Wear Sunscreen" speech from 1997. There is other fodder there that relates to our current circumstances. The circumstances are prompting many of us, I'll argue, to reflect more across the breadth of our lives, almost as if we are grappling with our mortality, which we are! They say that when we die, our lives flash in front of us just prior. Now as we see the number of virus victims and we see our comfortable norms for day to day living just vanish, I think we are inclined to look over the long breadth of our lives. How much time did we really waste in college?
So consider the following passage from "Wear Sunscreen":
 
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
 
Gee, so I may have looked fabulous? We all ought to think that way. I recently had opportunity to see a video of a TV show I had the privilege of being on, in 1973. Suddenly I was reminded of how I had a nice "part" in my hair, to the right. I'm thinking it really looked nice. I used a hair blower (bought at the old Messner Drug) to try to get "the dry look." Omigod, men do you remember "the dry look?" That took over after the Brylcreem hair grease days. We were so manipulated by fads and trends and surely we allowed ourselves to get manipulated by cigarette TV commercials. We're so embarrassed by that, I'm sure, we're loathe to admit it, n'est-ce pas?
At some point I abandoned the part in my hair and just started combing it straight back. Laziness? I don't remember. I looked so trim and healthy in the TV show in the spring of 1973, when I was a senior at Morris High School. My graduation photo was a duplicate of how I appeared on TV, all the way down to my maroon sport coat.
I was playing the trumpet on TV. This video is now on YouTube, posted by Del Sarlette who's in the video too with father Walt.
The "Wear Sunscreen" speech impresses me more now than when it was current. True wisdom behaves like that. It became the subject for urban legend as it became attributed to Kurt Vonnegut who supposedly gave it as a graduation speech. Totally untrue. Vonnegut would comment that he would be proud to have delivered it. I urge you to call it up and read the whole thing - it will have a soothing effect on you.
"But trust me on the sunscreen."
"Wear sunscreen" had the alternate title "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young." Let us honor here its true author, Mary Schmich, who wrote it as a hypothetical graduation speech.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com