i love morris: "Makers" fest spells promise for Morris summer

Sunday, July 11, 2021

"Makers" fest spells promise for Morris summer

Morris Community Band plays outside of museum (Del Sarlette photo)

The spokesman for the jazz trio said it all on Saturday. He was delighted with the turnout at East Side Park for the new arts festival. He noted that Morris might seem challenged in summertime, as UMM students are generally gone and many people retreat to the lakes.

"But not everyone!" he proclaimed. Amen.

The conventional wisdom about the now-defunct summer version of Prairie Pioneer Days, the only one I ever cared about, is that it faded because too many of our community's leaders were "lake people." They retreated to their coveted lake spots. Yes, and while many of them do this, others may be economically limited or they just don't mind staying in Morris in summer. Don't underestimate the latter, seriously. Yes, seriously.

Morris need not be viewed as a tumbleweed place in summer. Some of our most prominent residents may write it off that way, privately, but it's part myth.

(Advisory: don't go driving around the old Sunwood Inn.)

Things slow down, without a doubt. UMM obviously becomes less active. Morris has always had to live with an image of not offering lakes-based recreation. But should the lakes really be the raison d'etre for our summer months? There, I spelled it "raison" and not "raisin." It is not a breakfast cereal. Were I to spell a word wrong, many of my old detractors in this community would pounce on me.

I was an adversary of the public school teachers union in the 1980s and a little beyond. Teachers behave themselves much better nowadays - I'm not even aware of any issues. They are not a "power bloc" with defensiveness and thumb-nosing.

Glass half-full (at least)

Criticize me if you want but I actually have my heart in Morris in summertime. I enjoy the biking/walking trail. It's too bad a grant application got refused for extending the trail out to the golf course. Go out to the trail on any day, you'll probably befriend other people's dogs. Oh, and the people themselves! You may come upon Sharon Martin with "Goldy."

Donnie Eich and I once had a little conversation where we agreed that we were not "lake people," did not really understand the allure of the lakes. An awful lot of local people do respond to the allure. But those who don't got a hearty greeting and acknowledgement from the fellow who spoke for the jazz trio Saturday afternoon at East Side Park.

What a miracle to see something actually happening at the Killoran stage, normally a big hulking presence at the park with no purpose for about 99.8 percent of the year, and I may be generous about the other .2.

So, is there hope now? Most surely there is. There is truly hope for the revival of a midsummer community gathering in Morris. Truly, the Makers Art Festival for 2021 might be a precursor to a revival of the old Prairie Pioneer Days but with a new name. The "old" PPD survives in vestigial form during the fall at the fairgrounds. I haven't bothered to attend that one.

So, the disinterest of the lake people was no doubt a factor in the old PPD fading. I might suggest one other factor. Maybe the "ribfest" was getting too dominant, getting too much attention, and you know how small town jealousies can be. I tied that event to a particular local church that I consider to be out of the mainstream. I don't know what attracts people to that church but it's a free country.

I wish people would just choose a mainstream Protestant church, as these churches need our help and support now.

Uh-oh, I just dissed the Catholics. Well, maybe the Catholic Church could drop its requirement of celibacy for priests. It's too bad our legal system can't get involved with that.

I really should compliment the people who were behind ribfest because, after all, they showed the ideal enterprise toward making an event successful. This group of people is highly motivated in all that they do - I just wish they'd blend in with the rest of us better. It's a free country so that's my opinion. I could diss the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans too. I'm an equal opportunity critic I guess.

I'm just a Norwegian Lutheran, but hey, I say "hooray" for all the Hispanics who really helped make the "Makers" fest a resounding success! What an enriching element in our community. They also support the sport of soccer which I have personally viewed on the south end of the public school campus. We'd be so much better off promoting soccer over softball. Participants get so much more exercise.

I recently took a walk through the east end of our public school grounds and I noticed four ballfields. The best one or two of them could easily be spruced up to where they could be the equal of the new project east of the UMM campus. From the standpoint of the fan viewing experience, no field could be worse than the new Holmberg Field. You couldn't design it any worse. Amazing.

And our school board voted just a couple weeks ago to release another $220,000 for the so-called "softball complex." They could have voted no and made much better use of the money. It's not their money anyway. It's OPM, other people's money. So much easier to spend that.

I bumped into a very well-known Morris person Saturday, long-time acquaintance of mine, broached the softball project and he unhesitatingly said "I don't think they thought that out very well."

I gather this is a common opinion. So why is everyone stepping aside and letting it continue? Maybe too many people are "at the lake" and not paying attention.

The jazz trio of which I write is the "Components Jazz Trio," artistically excellent. It is led by Bill Engebretson, drummer. The Morris Community Band played in the evening outside of the Stevens County Museum. When was the last time this group played from the Killoran stage? The stage was built precisely with this type of group in mind, don't you know?

All of Saturday was like a shock to my system: all the socializing around so many people, a total withdrawal from our weird "pandemic year." I will advise: the virus may not be done with us yet. Look out for fall when the air becomes cooler and drier, and look out for new variants. The unvaccinated share of the population could become the biggest problem, and in large part these are Republicans. They watch Fox News.