Put your finger up in the wind. It is all that has ever really mattered. When it comes time for someone of influence to move along, we have to wait for the right people to coalesce and make clear it's the right move. Don't ever dare to suggest anything prematurely. And don't ever dare to be like the boy who says the emperor has no clothes. You know what's good for you, don't you?
I have observed some past controversies in Morris. You should never state an opinion if it might run counter to what certain big shots are saying or thinking. The time might come when it's OK. Just don't assert yourself prior to that. Here's the deal: you will find that people will not only disagree with you, they will attack you personally. They will make all sorts of suggestions about how you're lacking in intelligence. They will be clannish, looking to make sure that there's an envelope of the right people around them.
The people enforcing the party line use nasty language. They can act like junior high male bullies. I have a long background of experience in Morris. I observed the very persistent controversy over the "cemetery chimes," to name one example.
I have to stress it's just one example, lest people say to me "is that all you've got?"
For a time the sympathizers with the chimes thought there was some sort of religious criterion to be weighed. People then were much more inclined to write letters to the editor than today. So we got the following: are opponents of the chimes "atheists?" You see, the chimes were playing "hymns."
One letter writer talked about her "favorite hymns" which prompted my back shop joking with Jim Morrison at the newspaper. "Favorite hymns?" We laughed. Jim and I have been rather on the agnostic end of things. Actually that's a lie: Jim is a self-admitted non-believer whereas yours truly is at least trying to make good with his faith.
Jim and I laughed because, far from having "favorite hymns," we would find them to be indistinguishable from each other! I remember when Good Shepherd Church got formed as a rebellious act, they reportedly wanted to stick with the old "green" hymnal. These days my eyesight is so bad I wouldn't flip open a hymnal at all, even if I could tell the color. I look for a slide projector image with nice big words up on a screen.
I digress here which I confess I do more often.
A long slog
On the cemetery chimes, of course the controversy was allowed to go on for way too long. Was the city responsible for that misjudgment? I might bring up Jim Morrison again. He was on the cemetery board. Bless his heart, Jim looked at the issue in naked collars-cents terms, saying the chimes were donated, "didn't cost us anything."
I say "bless his heart" but the tone of agreement comes only from my acknowledgment that Jim was being a chip off the old block. Watch every nickel that goes through your business.
My father had the same mindset. A friend told me he was fascinated by how Dad could seemingly memorize every price in the grocery store. Bottom line: it was a legacy of the Great Depression. The Morrison family carried the weight of that too. My father was the youngest of five boys and graduated high school in 1934.
Hey the cemetery chimes eventually disappeared. They had caused so much stress. For a time the "city fathers" of Morris as it were acted like maybe the chimes were OK, or at least tolerable. Ken Hudgson wrote a letter to the editor that scolded the critics of the chimes.
I was surprised that the estimable Mr. (or Dr.) Hodgson could not be a little more sympathetic or empathetic. The cynical or realistic part of me wonders if he was just putting up a defense in line with what "community leaders" thought was appropriate at least for the time being. Sometimes these people seem to be saying in a subtle way "Brian, we understand where you're coming from, but. . ."
OK, what comes after "but?" Hey I've got it: "Don't be so drastic." Well, don't be so drastic for now. But then the time eventually comes.
The chimes just sort of disappeared.
Our school district had an activities director in the late '80s who finally disappeared. The community was finally willing to live with that after a whole lot of dust had been kicked up. When it seemed the dust finally cleared, there was still a boat-rocking statement. It was a group of coaches. It's quaint to think back about how often I popped into the school for regular business but then on the way out I'd stop by Supt. Rettke's office and we'd talk "background." Man, that would never be countenanced today, not by the school administration! Mercy.
I had to weigh if ol' Dennis was being sincere with everything he told me. Regarding the letter signed by several coaches, he referred to it as "that damn letter" and said he had told Mark Torgerson that it almost cost him the boys basketball coaching position. But of course he got it and after one very bumpy season, in which I believe he struggled because of the mess he inherited, I guess he turned out OK. I would have some mild reservations with that judgment. But he turned out better than the girls coach we hired in the mid-1980s.
I'm sure the writers of the edgy letter to the editor wanted Mary Holmberg's signature. They would have had to seek it! So I wonder what she told them. Was the overall school staff still coalescing around the departed person? It appeared there were some holes in the dike. Anyway, life went on as it always does in Morris, once a certain power network decides it wants to be done with a particular matter.
You have to "go along to get along." But I guess I have not honored that dictum. So once again I have fallen into choppy waters. Is it my nature to create problems for myself? What's the matter for contention now? Well I am greatly distressed by the decline of the UMM music department.
The decline in and of itself is really just part of what's going on. In order to patch up the leaks, UMM is now inviting "community" to join in with the official groups/ensembles. U-Crookston has been doing this for a while but I always thought we were better than Crookston. Now we are not.
I am informed that "symphonic winds" is literally dead. Gone. Now it's a group with "comm" in the name for "community." I raise inconvenient questions. Why are UMM music discipline assets being used to support groups that are partly "community" in composition? And why should my family fund which is named for my late parents be applied toward these things, when in fact many of the community people will be from families that are well-off financially?
Those families could get out their checkbooks and I could step aside. My Social Security is not that great. I have bank CDs but you never know when interest rates will go back to near zero. Man, I have been shocked by low interest rates. And Donald Trump is very assertive saying that interest rates need to be pushed down again.
A little relevance
I keep the family fund going because I want to stand for something positive in my otherwise non-descript (to say the least) retirement years. I do not even have a girlfriend with whom to share Valentine's Day. So I spend for the Ralph and Martha Williams Fund for UMM.
A way for me to achieve reasonably high standing in Morris? Ask Sue Dieter if I have reasonably high standing, or if such a thing would ever be within reach for me.
But I try. I now suffer the indignity of finding out that UMM music has declined so far, it can no longer have its own stand-alone groups with those special "UMM students." Students who come from all over. What would Jim Carlson say?
I began discussions on having the Williams Fund shifted to benefit music at the Twin Cities U. I in fact got pretty deep into that with a contact person at the "main campus." Eventually I got word that UMM-centered interests wanted to speak with me. Well of course they did!
I backed off, shut up because in Morris you have to "go along to get along." Vote Trump. Even though Trump got rid of the foreign students at UMM and these foreign students were our "cash cow." The esteemed Michael Lackey explained all this to me.
Lackey also explained something else that I should have learned about long ago: the U of M really is special compared to the state universities. He said this is because of the U's research role. Lackey is the kind of guy who is always on the level with you.
My late father should have explained the U's exclusivity to me long ago. He just never got around to it.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@ yahoo.com
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