A friend suggested I visit a Mother's Day buffet to honor my late mother. Well, it would be a pleasure and honor. So of course I did. That's two buffet-style meals in two days. Sunday was Mother's Day of course. On Saturday the occasion was UMM graduation with the day's schedule including all-you-can-eat at the dining hall. I attend there for both graduation and Homecoming, re-affirming my connection to the place.
The connection is about entirely through family. Many people have long considered me to be little more than Ralph and Martha Williams' son. Obviously I made the rounds as a newspaper representative for many years, actually 27 years. When Mom got the Martelle Award at the UMM graduation, Jack Imholte was at the microphone and all he could say about me was that I had played in the "Morris community band!"
I was present with my camera for the newspaper. Mom getting the award made it a priority. She ran the campus post office. She was not directly a UMM employee, rather she was Civil Service.
My father was the music man. His image and reputation get revived whenever his musical compositions are performed. And wouldn't you know, one such occasion happened this past Monday night at the public school concert hall. After all these years the concert hall still makes an impression with its sterling quality, really its opulence. I attend concerts there often, really just for band.
I had a disappointing experience the last time I went there for a choir concert. This was the Barb Wilts retirement concert. A picture of her was projected up on a screen. And as I recall the concert included a whole lot of grades. This led to my problem. I arrived maybe ten minutes before the concert. Man the place was packed! I was rather stunned. Then I got rather humiliated as my attempts to find a seat were met with the comment "these seats are saved."
What's with so many seats being "saved" for music concerts?
When I heard this remark again for the recent grades 5-8 band concert, I got a break. Initially this person gave me the old refrain "these seats are saved" and I stood there mute for a moment, showing disapproval. But the very nice band mom then offered me the seat on the other side of her. I ended up enjoying the concert very much.
I'll finish my story about the Barb Wilts retirement concert: After getting frustrated 3-4 times, I stood in the aisle making a gesture of frustration and I was spotted by someone I knew who was sitting higher up. He knew of a seat I could use. So bless him.
Ice cream and music
Let's move to the present. This past Monday was the big annual spring ice cream band concert. And a feature is that for an hour prior to the concert, various soloists and ensembles are featured in the cafeteria area. A joyous event, yes, as are all the spring events that culminate in graduation.
I'll be getting one graduation card this year but it's for someone at the Herman school. My Herman friend has educated me on the difference between "Border West" and "Wheaton." As a young person I took in some football games involving the tried-and-true "Herman Panthers." Cyrus High School also had the "Panthers" nickname. The Herman kids today go between "Border West" and "Wheaton" in their sports involvement.
I graduated from Morris when it was "Morris High School" without the word "Area." At least we're still "Morris." I would like to see the "Morris" name return by itself someday. Then we could go back to singing the school song as it was intended by its composer, Bob Schaefer. The fans would chant "M-H-S" in the opening section. Today it's four initials for reasons that must still be relevant. I might demur.
And of course it's "MACA" for sports. Man, I can remember when it was a pretty heavy lift to get Chokio-Alberta to fully join us, to fully join in and have their hearts in it. The C-A community must have suddenly made a collective resolution. I wrote countless articles for the Morris newspaper about C-A sports. Got rather attached too, I might add. The days of Neal Hofland coaching the football Spartans are fading into the past. He has become well-established in Morris as an assistant.
As the numbers diminished, C-A tried adjusting with, shall we say, fits and starts. So we saw some short-lived combos. Like, CACG for boys basketball. Was it the "Thunder?" I wrote articles on that. Later we had CAHN for football. "Chokio-Alberta-Herman-Norcross." I well-remember that. I would guess people over there to the west of us were stubborn about a full pairing with Morris. I would guess things even got emotional. Oh, I've been around the block a fair number of times. Today it's one big happy family? That's what I gather.
And look how awesome the baseball and softball teams are this spring.
I believe C-A still has its own band. So, everything happens at the Chokio building now? So much was in Alberta once. I covered so many Homecoming coronations and pep rallies in Alberta.
Legend has it the Alberta location had to be abandoned because it was too close to Morris. The state figured that if the building was going to be that close to Morris, the kids might as well go to Morris.
A drag for Morris
Here's an important asterisk to add for all recollections about past pairing/combo proposals: for a long time the small high schools resisted greatly any thoughts of coupling with Morris because of a negative impression of the Morris school, particularly its extracurricular. The small schools sensed that Morris extracurricular was handled "like an extension of phy ed class," to quote a high-standing friend of mine at the time.
My own observations from working at the paper was that my friend's analysis was dead-on. It took time but I think Morris got things straightened out. I will always feel it could have been done faster. We had an ossified and cynical teaching staff. A fire hose needed to be taken to that. And that took time. I think a new breed of school administrators came on the scene that were trained to be true no-nonsense managers with the manager mentality.
I was disappointed by only one thing Monday. Whereas in the past we'd get a nice bowl of ice cream, maybe three scoops, along with a choice among maybe four toppings, well this year we were served a small plastic cup of ice cream only! There was a basket for free-will offerings.
I was happy to pay for the greater quantity of ice cream!
But what a concert it was to close out the academic year! And of course a super bonus was that the bands played a composition by my late father, "Testament of Nations." But I'm happy to attend anytime, not just when Dad's work is on the program. I showed my appreciation by exchanging a hug with Wanda after the concert.
I enjoyed my Mother's Day buffet at DeToy's Restaurant. Why would I go anyplace else? The other places have prices that have launched into orbit. Ridiculous.
The weekend featured of course the UMM graduation. My reflections on that are on my companion blog "Morris of Course." I invite you to read with this link:
My late parents having some leaf-raking fun at our residence on Northridge Drive. You might remember their names were Ralph and Martha.
Addendum: The late Chuck Spohr would have loved the MAHS band concert and the trumpet playing of his grandson, Charlie Hanson. We lost Chuck not long ago.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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