Make your bed? Not so fast

We sure have time for reflection these days. An understatement, n'est-ce pas? We see a video of Sean Penn from his home - very disheveled-looking - we are amused and conclude "Sean Penn is all of us now." 

My time spent in public places now is negligible - only what is essential, like a daily trip to our "oasis" Willie's Super Valu - so I don't take care to wear a variety of clothes. I might grab the same clothing items every day. It's just utilitarian, to get by. 

We needn't apply deodorant. Shave on a disciplined timetable? Why? 

Recently I stumbled on a godsend of a "household tips" item: no need to "make your bed" right away in the morning. My, what a sea change from conventional thinking. Historically, if you're a young adult living with people outside your family for the first time, you're at great risk of being upbraided if found to not be making your bed. You should be able to bounce a nickel off it, right? Well, if you're in the barracks in the Marines, yes. Anyone who falls short of the norm might be told "were you born in a barn?" 

It's a fundamental test of maturity, right? "Make your bed." 

Well no, it's really not advisable. The very informed household tips piece I came upon, advised that you should pull your upper sheet and blankets back. Your body has sweat on it. After lying in bed for several hours, try to get your bedding optimally dry. Dry bedding and dry socks are important this time of year to protect your health, I'd argue. 

And this winter more than any, it's paramount to protect one's health. So don't make your bed, defy the norm, be prepared to proclaim you were "born in a barn," I guess. We're in league with the disheveled Sean Penn as we fall into the new reality. 

We are tortured by news of the vaccine rollout, because all we really want to know now is "OK, big news with vaccine but when can I get it?" Some people are by nature hesitant about vaccines. For those of us who are not hesitant, we just want to know when we can get it. 

I'll be a broken record and suggest that the federal government with its vast power and resources, like to run a deficit (unlike states), get fired up and make things happen. But we are such lemmings in our American society of today. I'll say again at the risk of being ad nauseam: the blight of the Trump presidency is right in front of us, right in front of our nose, for us to realize and act upon. 

We can spend three hours watching cable TV news in the morning and absorb an avalanche of disgusting news about Trump and his failings. My statement does not apply to Fox News naturally. Fox is a discordant voice that hampers our movement toward enlightenment. It contributes to the foot-dragging with response to the virus. 

Because Republicans do not believe in a strong interventionist federal government to protect citizens from calamity, i.e. the virus, we can expect that Trump and his regime will be unhelpful. They attempt to throw up a smokescreen by blaming states, especially states with Democratic governors. That's Minnesota. Go ahead and rail at Tim Walz, as I'm sure many Morris area residents are. I have a personal friend in business who casts stones. 

The states of the U.S. are already cash-strapped. 

Hillary Clinton could have led us out of this mess a long time ago. I absolutely don't care that Hillary has qualities that can chafe some. It's beside the point. I have friends who would lump Hillary in with the rapscallions of the world. Good for you - it's beside the point. The point is what a Democratic Party president would have done, once learning of the threat posed by the virus. The president would call for sacrifices that surely would inconvenience us. 

The sacrifices would have had their desired effect - the storm clouds would have slowly abated. And then, a lot of us would still be ticked off about the inconveniences we'd been dealt. Life could have resumed greater normality by now. And we'd take it for granted. 

Many of us are getting a lesson, if we needed one, about the fundamental differences in the two political parties, their values. Trump simply wants people to go to church. That's because Christianity is an opiate that will keep people docile as they hope that God or whoever will take care of everything, so don't bother the government. Don't bother the government to collect taxes, to ensure we'll have basic needs met that cannot be met by private industry. Just tend to your own matters, please. 

"Don't bother us while we tend to the really important business of cutting taxes for the wealthy and stripping regulations to maximize profits and endanger people's health, safety and security. Let business just exploit people. Look the other way please, and it would help if you just went to church please." 

Not that Trump gives a rat's patootie about Christianity, heaven forbid. But he and his ilk have been largely successful. We see this with the plurality of the Christian faith bonding with him in a maddening way. I could pull my hair out over this but it wouldn't go any good. 

In the pandemic I cut my own hair - works better than I expected. But I do look rather like Sean Penn. And I'll throw on the same clothes today as I did yesterday, when I depart soon for "oasis" Willie's to grab my daily breakfast of bagels/coffee from Caribou Coffee. Then I'll return home and join Sean Penn in spirit. 

We're getting so comfortable with this, we hardly notice now the aberrant nature of it all. We have to accept it, as it has gone on a long time and is likely to go on much longer. Our problems will not be solved, because we have a national leader who wants to blame states, especially the Democratic Party governors. Our leader pounds his desk with such protestations during the time he's not on the golf course. 

Maybe a new version of the Bible will be published that has a big color picture of Trump playing golf right at the beginning. Look at that big stomach under his white shirt, and the red cap. That's our symbol now: a man who has fooled so many into thinking he's a leader for Christianity, when it should be transparently clear he thinks only about himself. 

You might say we have made our bed, now we are sleeping in it. Except, it's best that you not make your bed. I am a mere grain of sand on a vast beach with my influence. And I am surrounded by lemmings.

 

My podcast for Dec. 30

The Killoran stage: that's my topic for the 12/30 "Morris Mojo" podcast. I invite you to visit. The stage has become sadly non-used and it ought to be a community issue. Let's get some discussion going. Prod some people? Whatever it takes. Here's the permalink:

https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/The-Killoran-stage-at-park-eociej 

 

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

Government cannot legislate away risk

Amazing the risks we are willing to take sometimes. Anyone who uses a motorcycle is an example. People frustrated with rigid seat belt laws often point out the irony of how we allow motorcycles at all. 

Seat belt is a good example of the "creeping" power of government or bureaucratic authority. The powers-that-be like to tell us we'll be left alone, that we can maintain our freedoms. Then they come up with all sorts of reasons we need to be protected from ourselves. A friend reminded me recently that seat belt laws began with assurances from government that it would never be a primary offense. "Oh my goodness, we'd never do that." 

Well of course they could, and they did. So in a sense I sometimes agree with the libertarian types, maybe even Ron Paul, even though my current inclination is to be Democratic. 

Someone told me the Morris mayor got a seat belt ticket. I had to laugh at that. The mayor is someone who told me a year ago that he was "almost glad" the newspaper ran its front page article scaring the hell out of us about how "the water softener police were coming," in effect. He said the community would really have to be committed to cutting down its salt usage. 

Are you all sure we aren't just satisfying the ego of some state bureaucrat who's trying to show off about how "pollution" can be reduced? Chloride in the river? Is it that big a problem? You all ought to know how bureaucrats can get carried away on such matters. 

And even if some concern is warranted, is Morris sharing the burden of adjustment with other communities on the Pomme de Terre River? I have spent the last year not even knowing if I have addressed my own personal water situation properly. I got a rude awakening as I approached this: awakening to the confusion or conflict between certain parties. I assumed, naively I guess, I could approach the City of Morris and get some orderly directions on how to proceed. I got anything but. 

"Two city council members have disconnected their softeners." That is not orderly advice. Aren't there more than two on the city council? 

 

Who could have imagined?

It is scary to realize how we cannot predict the future. For example, if I were to return to the time of my youth, the 1970s, and inform that 50 years hence there would be no talk at all about having a Sesquicentennial celebration in Morris, can you imagine the reaction? The Morris Centennial of 1971 was grand and huge. So, nothing in 2021? 

We are distracted with the pandemic, yes, but I doubt there'd be any talk or interest anyway, just based on my sense of things. Consider: we were allowing our once-grand Prairie Pioneer Days to die on the vine. First it retreated to fall, then it got cut down to one day. One day? For PR reasons alone, couldn't it have been left at two days, just to save ourselves embarrassment in the eyes of other communities? 

Rae Yost joked in her newspaper article that the name should maybe be changed to Prairie Pioneer Day. I congratulate her on that. It's the sort of thing I would have written back in the days when I tested the "red lines" for propriety. I had that trait because of having cut my writer's teeth during the 1960s. First it was up to "the press" to fight the government's lies to the American people about the Vietnam war. And then, Watergate. Enough said. 

My, what a tangled web we weave. 

So, I return to the Morris of my youth, the 1970s, and I begin to tell people of things to come. Seat belt law will be rigid and unyielding. You'd be pulled over by a squad car with flashing lights, subjected to the humiliation of all that, if you're casually driving through town, or as a friend explained to me, driving from one parking lot to another downtown. "No mercy," as the dude in "Karate Kid" said. 

My, the folks of 1970s Morris would be in shock. Would we even want to be alive in 2021? Well of course we would - nobody would ever think that (to paraphrase Robert Stack at the end of "Airplane"). But what a sea change we'd have to contemplate as the future loomed. 

My goodness, try telling people what cigarettes were going to cost 50 years hence! And then tell them that many people would choose continuing to buy them. Have you ever been in line to pay for something at Casey's? So many people still ask for cigarettes. Nothing better to spend your money on? 

A popular movie of the '70s, "All the President's Men," showed Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein lighting up a smoke anywhere and everywhere, finally to the annoyance of Robert Redford. I think Hoffman was lighting up in an elevator when Redford said "is there any place you don't smoke?" 

Try telling people of the '70s that 50 years hence, smoking is prohibited in restaurants and bars! Don't even think about lighting up! Many of us were always annoyed some by cigarette smoke but we accepted the reality of that. That is, up to a few years ago. 

The government or bureaucracy can never erase all the risks we accept. I personally have adjusted to the risk amidst us of distracted driving. I show greater alertness as a pedestrian or if on bike. 

On Sunday I was driving from McDonald's after getting a burger and noticed something which perhaps in a vein of levity I could suggest is a distracted driving hazard. I suggested this to a friend in an email later in the day. And, what was this "distraction?" It is a prominent billboard with a picture of a woman who many men would characterize as quite "good looking." And this I must share with some caution, due to a new red line in our society about "objectification of women." 

There's something else we could point out to the (Neanderthal) world of my youth: you'll have to move on from the "wolf whistle culture," the culture of the Dean Martin 1960s TV show. As with smoking, we used to just accept such attitudes and entertainment. If forced to think about it, we'd have to realize that any time you describe certain women as "good looking," you're implying that certain other women are not. It should have been plain as the nose on your face. 

For the record, there is a billboard on the north end of Atlantic Avenue, close to McDonald's, that shows a woman who in dated culture would be described as a "10." If you don't realize it's dated, update your brain. 

I joked with a friend that the picture might be a distracted driving hazard as it might divert the attention of certain men. Can you all accept this in a vein of levity? Maybe not. I will be 66 next month and you must understand about people like me: we do not see lack of seat belt as a cardinal sin, we revere the "36-24-36" women, and we accept that some people want to smoke around us: cigarettes, cigars, maybe even pipes. 

But my, our world goes through changes. And I'd be totally happy to conform on the water treatment thing, if I could find City of Morris people, staff and/or council, who didn't have their heads totally up their butts on this. How unforgivable.

 

Addendum: Ah, objectification of women, a relic in large part. Reminds me of when my best friend in college leaned over toward me just as class was starting one day, noticeable enough to maybe get reprimanded by the teacher, so I felt my friend must have something very important to say. What he said was: "Brian, why don't you write an article about all the wide-ass chicks on campus." 

 

My podcast for Dec. 28

Yes it's post-Christmas, try to keep your cheer. Oh it's harder this year due to circumstances, right? We were at least spared the "derecho" of August here in Morris. My podcast for today shares from a Christmas message I got from a friend in Cedar Rapids IA. He filled me in on the severity of the "derecho" storm of August. Storm didn't get the media attention it should have. The storm was right out of hell. I invite you to listen:

https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/The-August-derecho--Cedar-Rapids-IA-eo9ui6 

Is this the ideal of a "good looking" woman? In my opinion yes, but that's just me. She's Deb, on billboard too. This isn't the same picture as on billboard.

 

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

Clouds over our Christmas Eve, 2020

The pandemic, the shutdown, the president's pardon spree and the onslaught of Old Man Winter. How much resilience do we have? 

I knew we were likely to hear of "mutant strains" of the virus. And now it's happening. So I'll repeat my theory that the crisis is orchestrated by extraterrestrials as a way of suppressing the human race - exterminating it ultimately - because of what we have caused with climate change. Do the ETs sense we are killing the planet? We have already seen a movie about this: "The Day the Earth Stood Still," the Keanu Reeves version. 

The facts might be right in front of us. Fallible as we are as human beings, we sometimes can't see the forest for the trees. 

Let's say the human race survives: project yourself 50 years into the future and imagine some retrospective interviews. Everyone will have become so much smarter, or least they'll sound that way. People will look back on how the Republican Party of the USA wore such blinders through the ascent and presidency of Donald Trump. 

People will wonder how it was allowed to happen. Was it all the machinations by one flawed human being named Trump? We're all flawed because God created us with sin. But one man alone shouldn't be able to cause so much harmful disruption. Of course he had enablers. 

And at present, true to form, the president is turning on people who have tried to bend over backwards for him. So 50 years from now, us Americans - provided the nation still exists - will be inspecting our navels, as it were. (It's "navels" not "navals.") We'll act so much smarter. 

We grew up with no equivocation about who Hitler was and what he did. It is so universally assumed. But one man alone cannot rise and inflict so much harm. It is true that these narcissistic souls exercise a particular talent for getting a network around them. In Trump's case it's the Republican Party. Mitch McConnell is learning as I write this that Trump may set the whole barn ablaze just out of bitterness, bitterness over his apparent loss in the election. 

And Trump doesn't give a rip about damaged lives in the wake of all this. Look at all the criminal types he has surrounded himself with. He bestows pardons for them now, as I write this, and you certainly don't think he's doing this out of any benevolence or forgiveness. 

There's an understanding or CW that pardons are to be exercised in a certain way, based on sound principle. Such understandings or unwritten rules were developed on the assumption that the nation would elect basically ethical people. Hopefully we can get a new regime in power that will codify certain values, so it's no longer just an "understanding." The guard rails must be real. The power to pardon may have to be modified/reined in. 

Better yet, we should elect people to high office who are totally motivated by the ideals of public service. Instead we have gotten a mob boss president. He uses his endless tweets and frivolous lawsuits to intimidate. The suits can just buy time in some cases, allowing him to in fact win by just being able to conceal, as with his tax returns. Appeal, appeal, appeal. He should have walked away from his businesses completely when becoming president. 

Being president is a unique and cherished honor, enough to consume your attention, really for the rest of your life. President of the United States! Why do you need to stay involved in businesses (or scams)? 

Trump is extremely embittered at present. Heaven knows the additional damage he is prepared to do. He knows what awaits him when/if he's forced to leave office. Take the sexual assault lawsuit he faces where the accuser is seeking a DNA test. What if Trump is found culpable? How could he deal with the stain of that - so to speak - the rest of his life? 

Other legal repercussions are likely coming. New York state is the crux of it. 

If the facts are allowed to come out, we'll learn what we should have known all along, that Trump is cut from the same bolt of cloth as his shady associates. The pardoned ones along with the non-pardoned soul Michael Cohen. It's easy to sense that Cohen at present is desperately trying to tell the truth about everything. He won't get any sort of pardon. You play ball with Trump, you'll get a pardon. 

McConnell, by Jim Carrey

Shall we blame the Republicans or simply blame the masses of people who have empowered them? Isn't it true that political people in the final analysis always act to follow the wishes of the people? So it's the American people who have written the prescription, perhaps, for their own demise. Perhaps the demise of our country. And, because of our shocking negligence with climate change, maybe the demise of the human race due to intervention by the extraterrestrials. 

People will poke fun at me for saying that. What if I am right? 

What a Christmas for 2020: We're isolated, cold, and profoundly worried about what Trump will do over the next three weeks. Provoke an international incident? There's serious talk that Trump's network of supporters will try to sabotage Biden so as to open the door for Trump's triumphant return as an autocratic leader in 2024. 

If Biden is successfully sabotaged, we could see widespread suffering among Americans. Are the Trump supporters willing to pay any price, to make any sacrifice in order to see to it that their hero or savior gets back on top?

We look back today at the German people of the mid-20th Century as being so shockingly clueless. We all know German people and they are not stupid. They can be brilliant. So, what happened? And, what is now happening in our America of 2020? 

I will be 66 years old next month and I just want to live a happy and stable next four years. If Biden gets some credit for that, so what?

 

My Christmas Eve podcast

I invite you to visit my "Morris Mojo" podcast on this December 24, Xmas Eve Day. We're digging out after a pretty severe storm here in Morris MN. Problem was mainly wind, fortunately not that much snow. Here is the permalink:

https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/Storm-abates-for-Christmas-Eve-eo6qrc 

 

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

More Jim Carrey insightfulness

 

 

Week of Christmas is here, all hail!

Marley was dead, that's for sure. There, now I have a little touch of Charles Dickens in my writing here. I once checked out the original "A Christmas Carol" from our Morris Public Library, presented exactly the way Dickens wrote it. It seemed like a foreign language. Amazing how our language is fluid. Change can happen so slowly, we don't even notice it. 

I have read that Dickens served to prop up Christmas after the holiday had been fading some. What a different sort of Christmas we are having in 2020. We feel varying degrees of isolation. We have been deprived of the grand public events, both religious and secular, that we have always taken for granted. I grew up an only child so maybe I can deal with isolation better than most. 

I had immediate family up until three years ago. It's a sea change as I try to absorb and maybe project the Christmas spirit. My neighborhood of Northridge Drive might start getting a reputation for Christmas lights. We are well positioned for this, located as we are across from the Shopko highway. In the past we have made no special mark. There's a new family on the street that is making a Chevy Chase-like commitment. 

I felt pressure to hike my own effort. So the Williams place has become rather colorful too with lights. I guess the LED lights mean negligible cost. Why not have fun? Anything to counteract the dreariness of the shutdown for the pandemic. 

Where would we be without Willie's Super Valu, not only as a source for our quite essential food (including krumkake!) but as an oasis to experience just a taste of normal social contact. I feel sorry for the restaurants. 

At first my only real commitment was going to be my annual original Christmas song. My song was posted on schedule right after Thanksgiving. Quite topical: "A Social Distance Christmas." Nice built-in rhyme! A friend tells me that perchance the song has an uncalled for political touch. Music writers can be subversive. I didn't need Pete Seeger to sing this, I just suggested that more upbeat days are ahead with Biden/Harris. "Now with Biden we can hope." My alternate non-partisan line that I weighed: "Red, blue, we can always hope." 

Some residents in Morris might resent even hearing the word "blue." It has gotten that bad here in our outstate Minnesota community. I cannot get to Willie's without seeing a couple of Trump-Pence signs still along the Shopko highway. I turn left into town by Subway/Pizza Hut. There's a Trump sign between Subway and Greeley Plumbing. The responsible party must like being associated with losers. I would hope that Morris does not. 

There's another Trump sign in front of a private business to the east of that. I'm quite sure I know who is responsible for that sign. Much as the Trump supporters can chafe on me, I have been a long-time friend of many. Not sure what has gotten into so many of them. The private business owner to whom I allude, is someone who did me a favor once: he got me a seat in a crowded Morris Area concert hall for a spring choir concert which I would suggest should have been divided into two nights. It was the concert where Barb Wilts was honored on occasion of her retirement. 

I don't forget favors like this. I'd like to give the guy a gentle nudge and suggest he ingest some holiday grog to maybe adjust his political feelings. 

The death throes of the Trump administration - actually he's just president for the Trump Organization - hovers over our 2020 Christmas. I see a headline on "Mediaite" that reads: "CNN's John Harwood explains why 'absolutely lunatic stuff' is being discussed in the White House: 'the president himself is a kook.' " 

So, the Pope is Catholic, in effect. We read a news item that should have been stuffed in our brains long ago. "Let daddy do his work," "Dr. Evil" said to his son "Scott." We are all letting Trump continue to do his work or perform his shtick as if he's a crazy uncle we just understand. Cute to write about this. But of course the presidency confers incredible power even if we sort of dismiss the guy. That's why I personally feel scared. 

Like I said, I grew up as an only child and maybe that's why I tend to think quite independently. I smile as I notice the headline next to the one just discussed: "Former Trump justice department lawyer says she's 'haunted' by her work in confessional NYT op-ed: 'We were complicit.' " I'm amused in an "I told you so" way. That's because maybe 3-4 months ago, in my occasional correspondence with John Zeigler - yes, he does answer me - I predicted that a number of former Trump insiders would come forward and say: "I knew it was a disaster all along but I didn't want to say anything." 

I also predicted a mountain of books coming out, fulfilled as well. But that's rather a no-brainer. We'll be waiting with bated breath for the Kellyanne Conway book, being touted as a "tell all." But wasn't she a front-line Trump sycophant? It was "Alice Through the Looking Glass," IMHO due to her husband George and daughter Claudia being so contrary to Trump. Good God, couldn't Trump have been suspicious, if he had any potential for rational thought in his head? 

God bless teen Claudia especially, for "a little child shall lead them." 

I imagine the circle of people around Trump have as much sincerity in their relationships as. . . Well, they have no sincerity. Complete the analogy as you wish. 

Here's the next headline from "Mediaite": "Maggie Haberman raises alarm over Trump's 'screaming' oval office meeting with Sidney Powell." Powell is of course the nutcase lawyer. Raises alarm? Really? Haberman writes for the New York Times. She has been criticized in the past for being too restrained in her reporting. Well, I'm an old-timer who came out of Watergate, and us folks hardly know the meaning of "reserved." The tempest over the Vietnam war also cultivated us, weaned us into the media landscape. We've never changed. 

I was never known for being restrained even when writing for the Morris newspaper. It got treacherous at times. Some would say it was foolhardy. It's a path I chose and I continue to navigate. 

Why would a New York Times writer be restrained? She wants to maintain her position obviously. It's "looking out for number one" and in the case of Haberman, she walked a fine line so as not to tempt Trump into an insulting "tweet." Far afield as Trump gets - that's sanitizing it - his tweets can have real power. Kudos to Jim Acosta for surviving. It takes real savvy, a real instinct. 

Another darker reason for the restraint by Haberman and others is the "gravy train" for the media, in terms of just getting eyeballs for all the coverage and analysis of the ridiculous circus. Ziegler has suggested that a top reason for Trump getting the Republican nomination was the media's grave fear that a Clinton-Bush race (Hillary and Jeb) would be incurably boring. 

But look how dangerous these impulses become. We have arrived at talk about martial law and a military coup. Such talk has reached the corridors of the White House and it's no joke. I suppose Trump continues to have the power to jettison all sorts of people around him who would respond sensibly and veto such talk. 

Meanwhile, Fox News inundates us with talk daily about Eric Swalwell and Hunter Biden. 

Compare this media universe to the far more rational universe of Watergate times, pre-digital. The kooks got thrown out. Today they can stand at the forefront, getting our attention. Trends happen slowly just like with the English language since Dickens' times. The trend from the gatekeeper media to the wild west of today - Newsmax - has been gradual. 

We can read the original "A Christmas Carol," or at least try to, and be surprised. The wild west media with Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo could lead to more than just surprise. We have already experienced suffering and death from the pandemic that is beyond what would have been seen with either Hillary or Jeb. We need this realization to sink in more. 

"Marley was dead, that's for sure." Ernest Hemingway had some "rules for writers," one of which was to always use positive language. Well, looks like Dickens crossed that line. I suspect Hemingway was a great writer not because he developed rules, but because he just had talent.

 

The best wisdom for Christmas

I suggest that if you call up just one church-based video from YouTube, you listen to a ten-minute post by Rev. Ken Ranos of Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church of Indianapolis IN. He beats anything I can write. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ5PBWdj6Jw 

 

My podcast for Dec. 21

The focus is on Christmas for my "Morris Mojo" podcast. The headline is "If only in my dreams," from the beloved old Christmas song. Think of the families who have lost loved ones to coronavirus. Think of the grieving, and how they can now only imagine their departed loved one with them for Christmas.

https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/If-only-in-my-dreams-eo3abo

 

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

Christmas tries bubbling to the surface

Christmas is famously supposed to transcend everything. There's the famous World War II incident where soldiers on both sides ended up at the home of a woman who insisted that because of Christmas, there be no conflict. Linda Hamilton played the role of the woman in a dramatization. A German soldier who had rudimentary medical training sewed up a wound. At the end of it all, the soldiers headed back to their respective "lines." 

WWI gave us a similar brotherhood-is-everything moment. Collin Raye had a country music song about this a few years ago. 

The vignettes pose the question: why could not the Christmas spirit pervade our lives well beyond the boundaries of the holiday season? We ask, we shrug, we go back to accepting our mortal reality, n'est-ce pas? 

Swords into plowshares? I grew up during the nightmare of Vietnam. We sought a bright spirit with the annual Bob Hope TV Christmas specials from Vietnam. There he was with his golf club and his shtick which might have been helpful in WWII. Vietnam was so different and yet the older people wanted us to behave as if we supported the "war effort" like in the '40s. 

Bob Hope brought out nubile women who at the time, through a sexist lens, were supposed to get the men salivating. I don't think anyone used the word "misogyny" then. You'd go scurrying to the dictionary, a print dictionary. The word is used in a very constructive way today, to scold and to point a way forward. 

The Hope specials failed if their intent was to make us look aside from the horrors of that war. Their attempts at escape were eerily off-base. Consider the Vietnam war, a horrendous pain, a blight on our nation's history, and yet there was Bob Hope, his golf club, with Raquel Welch in front of a sea of servicemen. The camera panned around and caught random servicemen laughing vigorously at the jokes. 

The Hope specials just disappeared at a certain point. No admitting of what a folly the war had been. The shtick just disappeared, and then eventually we got the scenes from the fall of Saigon, the people clinging to helicopters to get the hell out of there, helicopters being pushed off ships to make room for more of those fleeing. It is fortunate that the scenes are preserved on video. Also nice to see the video of the Hope specials preserved so we can absorb the times. 

Meanwhile away from the whole war milieu, we had such innocent and happy annual Christmas specials on TV for us boomer kids to enjoy. Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Perry Como. The guys had talent but they were clinging to a dated age. It was a patriarchal society. Certainly the door was not open for non-whites the same way as for whites. The impression of racial harmony was superficial, really just orchestrated. 

No one wished to admit any racial animus. The reality lurked in the background. We have a president yet today who talked about "good people on both sides" of the Charlottesville thing. Coupled with the pandemic, it really is hard absorbing the holiday spirit. I'd argue we are largely pretending. Going through the motions? To be frank, yes. I'm just trying to call a spade a spade. 

I have personally held my own with at least pretending: look at the lights out in front of my house on Northridge Drive. Frankly we've had a "keeping up with the Joneses" challenge in our cheery neighborhood. In our case it's the House family, not Jones, really setting the standard. They are new residents and they really set an example with holiday decorations. So, they can be cited in my own commitment of making a stride or two forward. (Has the "Joneses" expression become dated/obsolete? Are kids exposed to it? Has it gone the way of the "dunce cap?")

 

Looming concern

I cannot get into a truly elevated mood - impossible - until we can be sure that Trump leaves the White House. The odds seem high now he will in fact be forced to leave, but I'm just not so sure. We have an attorney general who is having to bail with just a month left of the Trump thing. Why? One month at the end of a lame duck period? He can't just tough it out? To do his job? What is he so scared of? What is he afraid might be coming down the pike? 

This is a man, William Barr, who has gone way out of his way to accommodate Trump. And now even he can't take it any more? What will Trump do in Barr's absence? Will Trump insert someone in league with the kind of people who came to surround Hitler? You think it can't happen? The great Sinclair Lewis, of course from Sauk Centre MN, wrote a book called "It Can't Happen Here." (The point being, it can.)

There is a giant "welcome sign to Morris" out by the highway in between Subway and Greeley Plumbing. I say it's a welcome sign to Morris because it seems to reflect this community's general feeling. It's so prominent, noticed by so many people. The sign reads "Trump-Pence." The people responsible for the sign haven't given up on behalf of their autocratic leader yet. 

Who owns that land? The city? Greeley Plumbing? Some Apostolics? Some questions should be asked.

 

Addendum: Regarding the ushering of people of color into TV, I'm reminded of Elston Howard being Jimmy Dean's guest for the black and white TV show. Howard was the first player of color with the Yankees. He should not have been the first, the first should have been Vic Power. Problem with Vic, was that he did not have a restrained or conservative enough personality (subservient?) to suit the powers that be. He could be flamboyant - he could be original. He didn't understand racism because he was from Puerto Rico, he was not from the Southern U.S. 

Vic of course came to our Minnesota Twins and was our team MVP in 1962 when we finished second behind the Yankees. He would "sweep" his glove after making many catches at first base. Some say that was hot-dogging but he saw it as practical technique. He is remembered as one of the best fielding first basemen of all time. 

Howard? The player/author Jim Bouton originally portrayed the guy as sort of an uncle Tom, then in later years when he mellowed or saw things more fairly, he did a turnaround. Howard was a fine player and person.

 

My podcast for December 19

So, Christmas is nearly here. My "Morris Mojo" podcast for this December 19 advises that our current restrictions are for the purpose of trying to keep us at home. Just don't be tempted to circulate. It's painful but something we must accept, for now. You might be visited by an angel of the Lord for Christmas. Please visit my "Morris Mojo" and thanks:

https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/Heeding-the-restrictions-eo12et 

 

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

 

Enid Grindland: the time comes for all of us

(echo press image)

We have a sample of Enid Grindland's rosemaling in our house. I say "we" and "our" even though I reside here alone. The soul of the whole family continues to reside here. That includes our dogs: "Misty, Heidi and Sandy." 

The Grindlands were an important element in family: They presided at First Lutheran Church. Enid's husband Cliff was pastor. They came here in 1960 which was ten years before the main Lutheran synods even allowed female pastors. It's amazing to realize that the step forward came so late. How could Lutheran churches even survive today without women in true leadership positions? 

Imagine you're in the 1960s again. Imagine that the idea of a female pastor was completely off the table. Imagine that the suggestion of female eligibility was controversial. It should remind you of something. It should remind you of the more recent controversy involving the eligibility of gay people. The tempest did subside but not without a cost of people splintering off. 

The mainstream Lutheran organization at present is stressed. Predictions are dire, backed by real evidence. The dissenters peeled off and now we find them in places like the church out north of town by the dog kennel. A friend and I call it the "dog kennel church." What an unnecessary schism that developed. But if the dissenters were so absolutely rock-ribbed, so unwilling to modify their views and be more accepting, a mending is probably nigh impossible. 

Enid Grindland became known for her rosemaling. She discovered the art in a trip to Norway in 1970. That's the year I was confirmed. My peers and I were at the heart of the boomer generation. So many of us! We were arranged in rows at the front of the sanctuary for our official photo. I could not grasp the significance of confirmation at the time. Like nearly all - make that all - of my youthful activities, it was simply arranged by my parents. I supplied no impetus of my own, felt no incentive of my own, saw no direct reward on my own. 

Such things were a rite of growing up. You might say I went through the motions. I'd guess many of my peers did likewise, though they might not be so forthcoming to admit it. It was the salad days for First Lutheran Church in Morris. We were as conservative and mainstream as you'd want, clearly "the establishment" as my generation would say. 

Jim Morrison recalled with me how our generation never took to churchgoing. This isn't to say we didn't get dolled-up quite often to attend. But we were sort of on a leash. We were following expectations. The various habits encouraged by our parents did not seem to have a positive effect on us. So many of us drifted toward amoral or self-destructive behavior as the '60s gave way to the '70s. I have no qualms recalling this. 

My old peers would say I lack adequate grounding to comment: they'd say I was obviously too naive and protected. You know what? Sometimes the quiet and naive kids, the kids subjected to teasing, soak in more about their environment than anyone else. I was over-sheltered but it was a blessing, just in terms of protecting my health. I heard stories about kids who fell to the depths, then pulled themselves up by "discovering" Christian faith. As if they hadn't been exposed to that all along. 

The parents of the boomers had overcome so much. They took none of their blessings for granted once the clouds of the Depression and WWII passed. And then they showered blessings on their own children, as if this was some sort of ticket to happiness. Who can blame them for thinking that? Little did they know they were actually inculcating a strange void of unhappiness, illogical though that was. Maybe it's a lesson in how happiness is seductive but elusive? 

I was never impressed by stories of how some of my peers plunged to the depths with drug use or other vices/bad judgment, and then they "found God" or "found Christ" and were rescued. Christianity should be discovered as something besides a way to get yourself pulled out of a hole. 

At the very present, Christianity is a means to latch yourself onto right wing politics. To get yourself latched to Donald Trump and Mike Pence, men about whom I doubt Christ would say much if anything positive. These are men who went out of their way to suggest "herd immunity" as a way to get past the pandemic, i.e. to accept the needless loss of so many lives. The government wouldn't have to be bothered with doing anything drastic. Republicans never want the government to do drastic things to simply help people. "Herd immunity" was so convenient for them. 

 

Enid was a double-major

I remember Enid Grindland complimenting my trumpet playing after an Easter Sunday service in '71 or '72. I appreciate the comment more now that I learn she was a music education major at Concordia College-Moorhead. She actually had a double major, her other being English. Wow! And I'm a writer too, so I feel kin with Enid. 

I should say "felt" kin with Enid. You see, Enid Grindland left us for the next life on November 25 at the age of 92. So blessed to have a long life just like my parents who reached 96 and 93. My mother almost made age 94. 

The patriarchal Clifford Grindland left this life in 2009 and I was able to take my parents to his funeral in Alexandria. Kind of a shame his funeral couldn't be in Morris. My father had discontinued driving and his cognitive skills were slipping. I'm not sure if he could place Enid but I remember her saying to us "it's so nice to see you here." Fortunately my parents had an adult child who could get them around to such important things. 

Many Lutheran clergy were at the funeral. I was pleased to shake hands with Rev. Dean Larson. I'm not sure Dean had the best opinion of me, back in his tenure here, just based on his rubbing shoulders with certain congregation members. Ahem. But he had a big nice smile and an agreeable look in his eyes. Rev. Todd Mattson was at the funeral. Todd is remembered as the pastor who really energized the youth and was thus lionized by their parents, some of whom got a little too big for their breeches. Parents of adolescents can lose their grip on reality. I know from vast experience. 

 

Not so naive?

I remember getting reacquainted with several people with whom I had spent time in the summer of 1973. I was immature at that earlier time, I'm sure perceived as almost comically naive, but what's fascinating is this: when we got reacquainted, they approached me as if they could sense I had seen and known everything, as if I could pierce the pretensions and stupidity of some of my drug and alcohol-addled peers, and I suppose a couple more vices could be thrown in. 

Truly it is sordid to recall all that. I think those old associates of mine realized I was a keen observer. Remember that I became a journalist, and still am a journalist. That mantle in life is the epitome of being an observer. 

Enid Grindland, RIP. Maybe the echoes of my old trumpet playing will be heard in heaven. (I remember the late Rick Yerigan saying "do you have to thrust your pelvis?") 

I remember that as a child, my peers and I often did not sit in the pews with our parents. We sat with each other, maybe in a "cluster." I remember one Easter as I sat next to friend Brian Henjum, we saw some of our friends enter the sanctuary dressed in suits/ties, guys who we hardly ever saw in church. "I haven't seen those clowns in church since last Easter," Brian chirped.

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

The real abomination: Kushner's behavior

Jared Kushner

It is a gloomy Tuesday leading up to Christmas. The sky is overcast and the wind is brisk. The temperature is typical for mid-December. It's hard to look forward to Christmas in a time with such limitations and anxiety. We can pray that Trump's antics between now and the inauguration will be little more than outrageous "entertainment," rather blending in with Saturday Night Live skits. 

I love the new skit about "Newsmax Sports." The guys argued that the Jets are really the best team in the NFL. And Trump is arguing. . .well, what is he really arguing? Whatever happened to our preference for classy behavior by public figures? Whatever happened to simple decorum? And yet so many of the local people who like to wear Christianity on their sleeves talk up Trump, to this very day. 

I noticed when I drove into town this morning, a big "Trump-Pence" sign along the highway close to Greeley Pluming. Not saying Greeley is responsible. They may well not be. But it's a signal that you're really out into the hinterlands where Trump love is felt. I'm disgusted but it is futile to fight this. The election is over, guys. You can talk about Trump's outrageousness on any given day but it becomes like saying the Pope is Catholic. 

If the "Access Hollywood" tape was not disqualifying with its outrageousness, what better exhibit could be put forward? Well, there are lots of candidates to be sure. If you are a public figure and show any reservations toward Trump and his crowd around him, prepare to be lambasted from the White House. Prepare for a "tweet." 

What's new today? What's new from the big bully pulpit which Trump will occupy until mid-January? Trump is promoting a tweet from Lin Wood that two Georgia Republican officials "will soon be going to jail." It's such an intense threat, I mean to throw around language like that. Again, decorum. What has become of so many of us? 

For Trump to promote such an argument is "a big deal," according to a Mediate piece by Colby Hall. 

And of course it is. But we get dragged through so many "big deals" involving Trump acting unpresidential, we are numb. We are desensitized. And it is profoundly dangerous. 

I see it as dangerous primarily because the desensitizing effect might cause us to overlook consequences of great import. And on this front I reflect back to Jared Kushner's behavior early in the pandemic. 

I have suggested previously that Kushner might eventually be put on trial on some sort of "crimes against humanity" charge. It is amazing this episode sort of came and went on our radar screen. It is burnished in my memory and consciousness. 

Am I really such an outlier in my reaction to this? Am I immune to a certain virus going around, a virus infecting people's brains to where they insist on keeping their big royal blue "Trump-Pence" signs on public display? 

Let's see, what were Kushner's credentials for holding a high post? He's a senior advisor to the president. His background includes being an investor and real estate developer. A newspaper publisher too? I'd be more impressed if he put himself forward as a former newspaper writer. I suppose it helps that Kushner is married to Ivanka Trump, do you suppose? He took over management of his father's real estate company after his father was convicted and incarcerated for fraud. He later bought Observer Media, publisher of the New York Observer. 

He must really have a feeling for what the common people are feeling, right? He has stayed active in his business interests even since joining the White House, and sometimes has even profited on policy proposals he has pushed. And yet all we hear about on Fox News or Newsmax is Hunter Biden. If only we really had "Newsmax Sports" as an alternative. We hear echoes of "Baghdad Bob." 

And how about Kayleigh McEnany? Isn't she a piece of work? I think she's being ignored now. 

 

Kellyanne and Claudia

Is Kellyanne Conway really signed to write a "tell all?" Will she really turn on her former bosses, as the "tell all" term implies? The publisher knows of course that the book will not sell like hotcakes unless it's an expose type of portrait of the big hot mess of the Trump administration. 

Trump might have been suspicious of Conway, based on the constant anti-Trump messaging from her husband George. And better yet, the Trump skeptic daughter of the couple, Claudia! Way to go, Claudia. Someday you'll be portrayed as a hero in a Trump-based movie. Indeed, "and a little child will lead them." (Isaiah 11:6)

Better we follow the children than the local Apostolic Christians. When Kushner could be found guilty of a "crime against humanity." It's crystal clear from a July 31 headline. It's from "Business Insider": "Kushner's coronavirus team shied away from a national strategy, believing that the virus was hitting Democratic states hardest and that they could blame governors." 

It was March and early April when Kushner gathered a team to devise a nationwide coronavirus testing plan. A public health expert in regular contact with the team told Vanity Fair that " 'the political folks' thought a nationwide response was a bad political move." 

At the time, "Business Insider" reported, "outbreaks were worst in Democratic-voting states and cities. The source suggested that some close to Kushner thought it was best to hold back and blame governors." 

I remember Laura Ingraham of Fox News following the script perfectly, as she said her aim was to hold "Cuomo and de Blasio accountable." 

The White House disputed the Vanity Fair account. Well, what would you expect them to say? They lie like a rug. (I was going to write "sieve" but that's for leaks.) 

Kushner's plan was indeed dropped in favor of a mainly state-by-state response. Since then, cases in fact surged on both sides of the political divide. So I'm astonished: do the Trump sympathizers like those who swarm around in our Morris MN area really want people to die, as a means of gaining leverage for the red staters? It appears so. 

And so with this in mind, how can we really find joy as Christmas nears? I can only pretend I'm doing a good job but it's more in a crossing-my-fingers spirit. Crossing fingers until the Trump madness passes, abates. And then, maybe we'll have people in power who can put Kushner on trial for a "crime against humanity."

 

My podcast for Dec. 15

My we're halfway through December, on the home stretch toward Christmas, so I begin my "Morris Mojo" podcast by reciting "At Christmas," poem by Martha Cluxton. I express the hope that once the Bidens get established, we might hear them recite " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas." The link to today's podcast:

https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/Bidens-will-improve-tone-enrqdr 

 

Kushner, by Jim Carrey

Dusting off some lyrics

Kushner's name is in some song lyrics I wrote shortly after the Trump administration began. I discovered this as I shuffled through papers in the household. We might at the time have been inclined toward "light" lyrics or poetry on the subject. A reality TV star as president. But I sensed at the time, as the lyrics show, that foreboding things likely lay ahead. Peruse these words:

 

"He Never Thought He Would Win"

by Brian Williams

 

Eight years came and went for "Mister O"

He was suave and classy, don't you know

Never one to show misogyny

He took care of us so faithfully

Now we say hello to Mr. Trump

So much like a bear with boxing gloves

Did he really plan this in advance?

It was like a sudden avalanche

CHORUS:

He never thought he would win

But now he's our president

Though he bragged a bunch

I just had a hunch

He never thought he would win

I thought Russia was our enemy

In the Cold War it was plain to see

You can't trust the Russians, we were told

Maybe it's a sign I'm growing old

So in touch with Mr. Vladimir

We might think that it was awful weird

Still we gave our nod to Mr. Trump

Now we wonder what we've went and done

(repeat chorus)

Jared Kushner is the son-in-law

He got power from Ivanka's pa

Donald Jr. has entitlement

They all understood what victory meant

On his way to being No. 1

Our new leader had a lightning tongue

He gave speeches that could knock 'em dead

If he only knew what lay ahead

(repeat chorus)

  

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

Andy Williams specials bathed us in Christmas

Nothing projects "1960s" more than an Andy Williams TV Christmas special. We can recall so many wholesome nuggets from the decade. It was way pre-digital. We had a shared culture. You might discuss a popular network TV show with someone "at the water cooler." I remember in high school, "Night Gallery" was the kind of show inspiring next-day fodder for discussion. That show was basically a continuation of "The Twilight Zone." 

In elementary school I found the boys rather transfixed by "Bonanza." Such westerns were a staple, really to excess. We all had to adapt to the deliberate "de-ruralization" of entertainment TV by the end of the decade. But the Andy Williams Christmas specials encapsulated the innocent side of the '60s. They reflected the best in our nature, their "white bread" quality notwithstanding. 

You had "one shot" at watching a show like this. It would surely not be re-run. Imagine that. So it was an "event." It was "appointment TV." The fact it was special served to really buoy the Christmas feeling among us all. I consider the Andy Williams show the best example. 

We looked forward to a standard cast around him. His parents got applause as soon as they entered the picture: such wholesome people. They seemed rather aged at the time, would be considered grandparent-like today. People my age sometimes remark how middle-age people of an earlier time just seemed older. Was it fashion? Health factors? Andy was joined by his brothers for part of the show. They sang wonderfully together. 

Andy Williams, then-wife Claudine Longet

Andy's wife Claudine was at her most charming in the mid-1960s. She had a fall from grace later. (Remember the notorious "Saturday Night Live" bit that had her "accidentally" shooting several snow skiers? The show had to apologize for "any misunderstanding" about the bit being satirical.) 

Oh, and then we saw the Osmond family with Donny as the little one. Many of us had a permanent conception of Donny as the little one. 

 

With golf club in hand

In a completely separate category, we can consider the Bob Hope Christmas specials of the 1960s. All of this can be sampled today thanks to YouTube of course. The Hope specials were a troubling window into the disaster of the Vietnam war. These were not like USO shows during World War II, a war in which we were part of the grand Allied victory. Was the older generation of Americans just expecting a repeat of the WWII glory? 

There is nothing nostalgic about war. If it's necessary, it must be done. The Vietnam war was not necessary. The U.S. lost. Just sample some scenes and news reports from the fall of Saigon. As outrageous as I consider Donald Trump, I'm sure he would not countenance war escalation as Lyndon Johnson did. 

Johnson could be remembered with great reverence today. Among my generation, he's pretty much the opposite. As for civil rights strides, I'm not sure the forces weren't strong enough for that regardless of who the president was. 

Trump says he wants to get us out of endless overseas wars. But then he goes and calls U.S. servicemen "losers" and "suckers." Politicians had decorum in the 1960s. The standard basically held until Trump came along. Public pronouncements were civil and tried summoning the best spirits within us. If Trump apologists/sycophants are actually nostalgic for an America of a previous time, why can't they be more respectful of decorum? Huh? Why not? 

The 1960s also gave us the wonderful Don Knotts movies, wholesome and genuinely funny. Knotts you'll remember leaped into fame through "Andy Griffith."

Right in the middle of the decade, 1965, was when Minnesota kids my age, mostly boys, were transfixed by the pennant-winning year of the Minnesota Twins. The team had just gotten started here in 1961. My goodness! Before that, I guess you really could say we were a "cold Omaha." The term, let me remind, used to be trotted out in Minnesota by the likes of Sid Hartman to implore how we needed a new stadium or a team would leave, leaving us a "cold Omaha." (The Gophers wouldn't leave of course.) 

Actually before the Twins and Vikings started in 1961, the Gopher football team was the big-time sports thing. 

I was ten years old in 1965. I of course soaked up a lot of the popular entertainment. The Christmas shows were an annual staple - "one shot" at watching these. Plan your bathroom beforehand. Amazing how we can see them again all these years later on YouTube. 

So 1965 was particularly entrancing for kids in Minnesota, no doubt. Why on earth was it necessary for the U.S. to rapidly increase its military forces in South Vietnam? The South had been losing the war to the "communist" Viet Cong. Well, yawn, any conflict is sad certainly but why was it our business to send so many fuzzy-cheeked young men over to those jungles to die? My Williams family had a family friend who was a victim of friendly fire in 1966. We attended his funeral in Brainerd. 

My late first cousin Norman of California won the Bronze Star for his service. We're proud I'm sure but how wonderful if he had never had to go over there, if he could have just lived a normal life. 

The U.S. began bombing North Vietnam in March of 1965. It was called "Operation Rolling Thunder." The U.S. Army and Marines began ground operations to ferret out and defeat the communist forces. Sounds horrifying enough on paper. The reality defied description, except to say it was hell. "You asked me, I didn't ask you," Rambo shouted at Troutman in the closing scenes of "First Blood." 

The movie has become a classic but I have always been bothered by how the sheriff never showed any remorse about anything he did. I kept waiting for it. "First Blood" was art in cinema - the sequels were comic books. 

November of '65 saw the U.S. and the People's Army of Vietnam meet head-on for the first time in the battle of laDrang. Both sides claimed victory. What an abomination. And while this bloody tragedy was unfolding, us kids back home were watching fare like the Andy Williams Christmas special. The Dean Martin Christmas special. The Don Knotts movies. (Morris native Twig Webster loved the "way to go Luther" line from "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken." 

My late father was a huge fan of Don Knotts. I think his favorite movie was "The Reluctant Astronaut." We just needed to beat our swords into plowshares. Or, be inspired by the simple innocence and joy of the Andy Williams Christmas special. Why could not that have set the tone entirely?

 

It's a shame because Spider accomplished so much in his life. Claudine accomplished only two things, marrying Andy Williams and getting away with murder.

- Steve Sabich, brother of Spider Sabich 

 

My podcast: nostalgia

Maybe nostalgia is a nice way of dealing with our current troubling circumstances of the pandemic of 2020. So I focus on the Minnesota Twins of 1965, the year we won the pennant! I also recall accomplishments of our World Series opponent, those Los Angeles Dodgers. Take a step back in time:

https://anchor.fm/brian-williams596/episodes/1965-Minnesota-Twins-enndam

 

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