Another day along East 7th Street

Rode bike home this afternoon with senior lunch in my  backpack. Saw a new "Trump" flag, a nice large one, flapping conspicuously from a flagpole along East 7th Street. The street is an important artery in Morris. It was once the main entry to town from the east - did you know that?
The nature of that part of town was once different. The presence of the school defined that in large part. The expansive playground for time immemorial (it seemed) was where we'd see pre-season football practice this time of year. East Seventh had a neighborhood grocery store, the Dairy Queen and a good old-fashioned drive-in eating place. The DQ lasted long enough for Erv Krosch to be involved through part of its history.
If Prairie Pioneer Days is ever restored, maybe it could be called "Pylin Days," named for the drive-in. Think "American Graffiti." I came out quite fine as a customer of the old Stark's Grocery, as the baseball cards I bought there were re-sold years later. At the start they cost a nickel a pack. Green packages in 1964, as I recall. The small ice cream cone at the DQ was a nickel, the "large" size a dime!
Wouldn't you love to see your money go a little further these days? We don't hear much about inflation these days. Not sure why the awareness or worry isn't greater. The subject is capable of getting our attention, as it surely did in the 1970s. That decade is receding into the mists of time, not that we don't still see the "Smokey and the Bandit" movies on TV.
Michael Kinsley has written that "inflation comes along once every generation." This op-ed was long ago but it's vivid in my memory. Kinsley pointed out that inflation flares up and causes a panic, as well it should. Paul Volcker had a way of rolling up his sleeves for "putting out the fire." He'd raise interest rates by a whole point!
I was impressionable and young when inflation hovered and seemed hopelessly persistent. Volcker took charge and warned us about a recession as a consequence. Maybe the recession was why we got "Smokey and the Bandit" movies, cynical and lacking taste. Kinsley observed that once inflation wanes, we forget too quickly. So the problem is that we let our guard down. It's human nature to celebrate better times while forgetting about the specter of bad things.
Was inflation a direct consequence of the Vietnam war? What a twin serving of prominent news themes as I was growing up: war and inflation. I could add that the "hangover" of the Vietnam war was a phenomenon itself. Is there any more humiliating thing from U.S. history than the "fall of Saigon," desperate people clinging to helicopters on rooftops, helicopters being pushed off ships into the water?
Didn't we have a Republican president from 1968 to 1976? We had two of course because the first one got thrown off his horse, as it were. He got a pardon from his successor, a preview of what we're seeing now with Trump kneecapping the legal system to ensure certain people won't "talk." Roger Stone "knew stuff." He'll stay quiet now.
I'll be watching a lot of the Weather Channel because of the news media's obligation to cover the Republican convention. The coverage will have to be done with a modicum of respect. I do sense overall in the media, a heightened sense of the need to "deconstruct" Trump and be far less willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Trump and his people browbeat the media into making Hillary's emails seem just as big a scandal as anything Trump was involved in. Jeffrey Toobin has expressed regret about that. But look at the consequence: we have had four years of Trump as president, a man devoid of a basic caring sense toward anybody. The media was aware of this way back but was hesitant to "look behind the curtain" to see the extent to which the emperor had no clothes.
I look through headlines on the Drudge Report and Yahoo News this morning, and it is slowly becoming a litany of expose-type stuff about Trump and his people. We read and read and read. But to what end? I have seen more than one Trump flag around Morris. There's a lawn sign out by where I live. One property on East 7th has a very prominent "We All Matter" display, a variant on "All Lives Matter," commonly seen as a rebuttal to Black Lives Matter.
BLM is a totally legitimate assertion. We all know what it means, that its basis has merit. Why fight that? Consider the news out of Kenosha WI today.
 
Drift toward the GOP
Our congressional district seems to be tilting ever more "red." There is talk that Minnesota is close to becoming a red state. I guess the Dakotas are spilling over. Western Minnesota must reflect that mindset more than the east with its big urban presence. And why resent the big cities? That's where the people are.
I could pick any number of news items this week as examples of how Trump is menacing the fabric of our nation. Here's a good one: President Trump told an interviewer that he wants law enforcement officers at polling places. Trump said "we're going to have sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement, and we're going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody, and attorney generals."
Sheriffs? Really? Could I expect to see the Stevens County sheriff or deputies at polling places on election day? Really? The president is pledging that. He didn't say "maybe." Can Trump direct people like our Stevens County sheriff and deputies to be present at poll locations? Really?
I would like to see Marshall at our radio station get a quote from our sheriff about this. Does the sheriff expect to be pressed into duty for this? How would he conduct himself? What would he do? Arrest suspected "fraudsters?" Isn't this rather absurd?
But Trump has done and said one absurd thing after another. He'll never "cross a line" to become untenable as president in the eyes of so many of our Stevens County residents. They worship him. Well, that is their right. Maybe they idolize Jerry Falwell Jr. too. I'll excuse myself, if you don't mind.
 
My podcast today
I invite you to visit my "Morris Mojo" podcast for 8/24, entitled "outdoors at Faith Lutheran" 'cause I went "across the tracks" to Faith for Sunday's outdoor service. No, I'm not leaving First Lutheran. But I wanted to catch up with some friends I have at the "enemy" (just joking) church. I'm so glad I did. My podcast touches on spiritual matters and how the ELCA strives to cope. The permalink:
https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/Outdoors-at-Faith-Luth-eijugt
 
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com