American resilience has always paid off, right? Can we count on the past always setting the upbeat example? The year 1961 was watershed here in Morris. Really for all of Minnesota too. So many ways we might contrast life then with today. Well, the cost of bread was 23 cents for a pound in 1960. And that was up from 12 cents in 1950.
I'm thinking of the year 1961 specifically because of the impact felt. For the first time us Minnesotans had top-tier pro sports teams to cheer for! Can you imagine life without that? Maybe my generation of the boomers was proliferating in numbers to the extent that the need for more entertainment was obvious. And of course the boomers' potential cried out.
Baseball moved west when the practicality of air travel pushed for this. Previous to the page-turning new age of baseball, "a trip west" meant St. Louis or Chicago. It was the habitual way of thinking. And we'd like to think that surely Minneapolis and St. Paul were well-enough developed to support the top tier. But the economy was not ready. If it had been ready, surely the enterprising owners would have moved out here.
Interesting how we got the Twins and Vikings in the same year. So just think: before that we were really bereft. Of course we had sports. I have gathered that U of M football was the really big deal. And it was super-competitive through the early 1960s. We had quarterback Sandy Stephens. Rose Bowl trips. All of that seems rather faded history now, doesn't it? Because, the Vikings really supplanted the Gophs.
The quality of TV technology with the super color picture paved the way for football to become the obsession. "Color" programs were announced on NBC with the peacock, remember? This was satirized in the original "Police Squad" TV show. "In color." Well, it really was a big deal once.
The football Gophers became like an afterthought for quite a few years. We could not conceive of the Rose Bowls any more. We watched as Nebraska, Michigan, Penn State and others somehow found the formula to excel. And I was puzzled. Isn't Minnesota a more prosperous state than Nebraska?
I don't think we felt the need. Well, we had the Vikings. Nebraska certainly didn't have that!
Metropolitan Stadium was built to attract big league baseball. The Vikings were "the other tenant." Bud Grant was certainly on record commenting on that.
I wrinkle my forehead because Met Stadium was such a breakthrough when it was built. Yet only a couple decades later, it had to be abandoned. It was literally left abandoned and to totally decay.
As a little kid my father told me about the Minneapolis "Millers." It was the top-notch minor league baseball team in Minneapolis. While St. Paul had the "Saints." Dad directed the Apollo Male Chorus of Minneapolis through part of the '50s.
I still wonder what the atmosphere of "Nicollet Park" was like. It was the Millers' home before Met Stadium came to be. Was it a special experience to be there? The great WCCO TV newscaster Dave Moore thought it was. Maybe he courted someone there once. I have never noticed much gushing about the place, generally speaking.
St. Paul had "Lexington Park" for a long time, located close go the old Prom Center which eventually got close to my heart. It's gone now, having gotten out of the way for progress.
And what of life in our Morris for the year 1961? The new UMM went into the first spring of its existence. However, no graduation yet. The first graduation would not happen until 1964. I remember being out on the campus mall that night. There were no "hills" on the mall in UMM's early days. Thus, kids would get out there to fly kites in the spring. A friend and I have joked about the "hippie" kids doing that.
Prior to the hippies or the protesters we had the "beatniks." The boomers started exhibiting their counterculture. We didn't want to fit into the old mold. We must have found fault with some of those values. The Vietnam war was certainly not our idea. Quite to the contrary. The grand WWII generation got fooled on that one. Those people should have seen that Vietnam was nothing like the worldwide crisis that drew us in, in the 1940s.
Our UMM has now had such a long history. So long, we should accept the institution's viability into the long-term future, right? But it's never so simple.
We're all thinking about graduation because that's what is coming up this weekend out on campus. I would surely never miss it. There's a brunch at the dining hall earlier in the day. I will watch with interest to see if the total amount of humanity on the mall is large enough to retain optimism.
I'm told there will be an instrumental ensemble. Well that's a step up from having no band at all. My, for so many years we took the band for granted at graduation. I never dreamt this could fade away.
Is it possible that UMM will take on a new mission for its future? Recently many of us have had to feel concern over the attacks on "DEI" coming from the most powerful people in Washington D.C. UMM has basically been branding itself with "DEI." Whatever works, I root for it. I do feel there is substantial cause for concern.
But on graduation day we should feel overcome with joy. I just hope there's a good turnout of "humanity."
I spent kindergarten as a little kid at East Elementary in Morris. UMM was finding its legs. And then for the next three years, I attended school at "Longfellow" which today houses offices for St. Francis Health Services, or at least that's my understanding. It's across from Faith Lutheran.
"Longfellow" was where my third grade teacher informed us in such a somber manner about JFK's assassination. The kaleidoscope of history moves onward. We hope UMM can open routinely for business next fall. But I don't know.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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