Morris Eagles baseball finishes 16-6

The above photo shows Jamie Van Kempen batting for the Morris Eagles at Chizek Field vs. Appleton. Photo by B.W.

It was hard to believe that the Morris Eagles' season could end with a single loss after a monumental win streak of ten. Tournaments can sometimes get so complicated with their various tiers, divisions and double-elimination systems, I'm hesitant to write with specificity about them.

Dumont 4, Eagles 0
Unfortunately, when the Eagles took the field to play the Dumont Saints and their feared pitcher Lee Arvold, they were in a position of having to win to advance. No second chances.
The Eagles entered that August 7 game having won ten straight times. But that didn't matter. Ouch. The Eagles' bats were silent in a 4-0 loss. Arnold ruled the day at the Madison diamond. Arvold is a southpaw draftee from the Chokio Coyotes.
Morris came up with only four hits, two of them by Dusty Sauter. On the bright side, Sauter could reflect on an outstanding rookie season that saw him bat a sizzling .422. Dusty led the team with 21 RBIs. He was also busy playing with the Morris American Legion baseball team.
Adam Torkelson was sent to the mound to vie against Arvold and the Saints. Torkelson was a little sub-par in the control department and he allowed a three-run rally in the fifth. The Litchfield native and former UMM Cougar was making his final start wearing the Eagle blue. The next chapter in his life will take him west to Colorado for graduate school. Eagles spokesman Matthew "Silver Squirrel" Carrington thanked Adam heartily for his commitment to the blue cause.
The blue cause had lots of success through the course of the 2010 season. Morris Eagles baseball posted a won-lost mark of 16-6. Too bad the season ended with a relative thud at the Madison diamond. In the long run the good memories will outweigh the bad.
Arvold had shown previous mastery vs. the Eagles. The lefty shut out the blue crew for six innings in a June contest. As for Torkelson, his pitching work spanned four and a third innings and he gave up five hits and three runs (two earned) while walking three batters and hitting two.
Carrington finished up the pitching work and his stint spanned four and two-thirds innings. Carrington set down four Coyote batters on strikes. His other stats included three hits allowed, one run (earned) and one walk.
In addition to Dusty Sauter's two hits, Ross Haugen and Torkelson each had one. The Eagles had two errors while Dumont had one.

Eagles 12, Appleton 10
The story was totally different when the Eagles hosted the Appleton A's on the first day of this month.
What a story on this day!
The situation seemed hopeless when the Eagles fell behind 9-1 after the top of the third inning. But instead of "garbage time" unfolding, the Eagles mounted a memorable comeback. In the end they won this playoff contest 12-10.
This writer was at the game when the Eagles were at their lowest. It truly seemed bleak. But the blue crew began clawing back with a three-run rally in the bottom of the third. The situation got brighter with a five-run outburst in the seventh. That outburst included a blast off Kirby Marquart's bat that struck within a foot of the top of the fence in center. The blast ended up a three-run triple.
The green-clad Appleton A's found some new life to tie the score in the top of the ninth. Too much wind had left their sails, though. The Eagles would make their final decisive statement led by Kirby Marquart.
First, Jamie Van Kempen recorded his fourth hit of the game: a single bounced into right field. The burly Marquart strode to the plate, determined to give the ball a ride again, and give it a ride he did! Marquart connected for a majestic home run to right-center.
"His huge day was a single short of the cycle," spokesman Carrington reported.
Kirby was a cog in the Eagles' never-say-day stance with his three-for-six boxscore numbers with his double, triple, home run and five RBIs.
Van Kempen had his superlative day from the "9 hole." He went four-for-five with two runs-batted-in. Chase Rambow rapped two hits and drove in a run.
Appleton outhit the Eagles 12-11. But Appleton committed a costly five errors to the Eagles' three.
Dusty Sauter scored a run and drove in a run. Ross Haugen went one-for-four and scored a run. Eric Asche recorded an RBI. Craig Knochenmus crossed home plate once. Torkelson went one-for-three with two runs scored.
"Silver Squirrel" Carrington had a run scored. Haugen and Van Kempen each stole two bases. Sauter and Haugen each reached via hit-by-pitch.
Appleton seemed to want to pitch around Sauter who was the recipient of three walks. Torkelson and Carrington each tossed the bat aside and trotted down to first base twice on walks, and Knochenmus reached once this way.
Torkelson looked unsteady on the mound and lasted two and a third innings. He gave up five hits and eight runs (six earned) while walking five batters. Carrington pitched the remaining six and two-thirds innings and was of course the winner. Matthew set down four A's batters on strikes. He allowed seven hits and two runs (earned) while walking two.
References like "Silver Squirrel" in connection with the veteran Carrington will probably ensure that the Eagles coverage on this blog will probably not get linked on the main Eagles website. That linking will likely remain an elusive dream, like getting on the cover of The Rolling Stone.
Matthew is to be commended for continuing his commitment to the most serious side of amateur baseball rather than slowing down to play in the seniors' circuit, not that the latter isn't a nice outlet for a lot of committed players.
"See you next season!" the enthused Carrington said.
The 16-6 won-lost mark of 2010 stokes optimism for when "play ball!" is heard next summer.
Thanks to all the fans too.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Will new "country" Lutheran church fly here?

County Road 5 north of Morris has been striking for its placid air. It's the road that heads out of town where you find Cimaroc Kennels (run by Dan Sayles). It wasn't that long ago, in the scheme of things, that the road got paved. As a dirt road it wasn't that inviting.

It's more inviting now for bicyclists and "Sunday drivers." It also got the attention of a circle of spirituality-oriented people. In September a church building from a different location will be literally moved to along County Road 5 just outside of Morris. It will be quite an undertaking.

Surely there will be gawkers. (". . .and stop calling me Shirley.")

I doubt that the basic complexion of County Road 5 will change much. The new church (which I've seen before) has a definite "country church" look. In this sense it will complement the surroundings. It remains to be seen, obviously, how many people the new church will attract. Will cars be streaming to and from the place on a regular basis? Will it find its "legs" or struggle in terms of getting support?

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that Morris needs a new church like it needs a hole in the head. Everyone is free to do what they want and spend money as they wish, or course. The quantity of existing churches in the Morris area seems not to be a problem. There are certainly open pews in the church where I attend. From what I hear it's not an isolated deficiency.

So the idea of a new church being planted just outside of Morris strikes me as kind of a "shot across the bow." It must represent a set of ideas that its promoters feel are not adequately represented by the existing churches. I gather that the new church is being promoted by what I would call Lutheran traditionalists.

The ELCA has been inching forward into the 21st Century and this creates issues. Social issues are at the contentious focal point. There is pressure to tweak gender reference language in church literature, and to open the door wider to the gay community.

The forces of modernity seem always to win in these things.
Now, I can't speak with authority on matters of religion or theology - please muffle your laughter here - but I do understand small town dynamics and human nature, I think. If a career in newspapering doesn't teach you about human nature, nothing will.

Anything that smacks of rebellion in a small town is risky, regardless of any irresistible logic that appears to be behind it. You're naive if you think you can be bold, step on toes and come out looking clean and virtuous. You'll be dirty and with baggage. Even if a cause succeeds, there will be bodies strewn along the way (figuratively speaking).

There was a traumatic controversy in this town in about 1988 that even I couldn't emerge unscathed from. And it seems the dirty hands can never be cleansed. It is my assessment that the Lutheran churches in Morris cannot withstand the siphoning off of an appreciable number of members. And more importantly, they cannot withstand the loss of the money that those souls would contribute.
I'll quote my friend Glen Helberg here again: "Money talks and bulls--t walks."

There has to be some significant money behind the moving of that church building to the "Hufford neighborhood" north of Morris. That money could do a lot of good going through established church channels. Instead it's targeted to what I would call this "rebellion," this rejection of the existing network of Lutheran churches.

The church I attend is making extraordinary pleas for money and I assume the people beyond those pleas aren't lying. I have joked in the past that there's kind of a "cry wolf" quality to these pleas. But right now I'll take them at their word.

I wasn't going to name the church but I'm a journalist and journalists don't feel comfortable suppressing information. My church is First Lutheran and it recently bid farewell to its top pastor. The No. 2 person, Ali Boomershine, has done what I feel is a terrific job since. Let's move her up the "depth chart."

These perceived forces of modernity in the ELCA aren't distracting or bothering me. Of course, I'm not Mr. Spirituality but I'm typical of many churchgoers.

I didn't attend church for most of my adult life because I considered church to be part of the "establishment" web of institutions that seemed to collectively sit on its hands during the Viet Nam War. It fell into "irrelevance" to use the parlance of my generation when young.

I'm slowly getting over that now. Suggestions of rebellion in a small town usually end up that way: suggestions. In the case of the new church, it appears from all indications that it's past the talking stage and it's really headed here.

If it succeeds it will have bad consequences for the existing ELCA churches. But we're all assuming that those existing churches will just sit back and take the adversity. Institutions are more fluid than that.
The existing churches will strive to make accommodations for the "traditionalists." They will put a welcome mat out for them. And they will have the advantage of being well established with their systems and infrastructure.

The new church will have to confront a whole list of things to be set up - logistics - some of which maybe haven't been anticipated yet. I had a conversation with one of these individuals and I asked if the new church had a website. He responded that he wasn't sure but indicated that, well, that was something that would have to be done. I did a basic Google search and found no evidence yet. So add this task to your list, guys.

Morris doesn't need more churches, it needs more industry. The ELCA is trying to keep pace with our contemporary wold. Efforts like this by the mainstream usually win out in the end.
And personally I'd like to see County Road 5 stay as untouched and pristine in its surroundings as possible.

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

morris mn - This site is seven months old!

We can take pride in two giant wind turbines churning away on the east edge of our community. They provide a majestic backdrop in this photo. The photo was taken from the "spur" along the bicycle path on the west side of Pomme de Terre River. The turbines are an object of pride for the University of Minnesota-Morris (UMM) and the West Central Research and Outreach Center, not to mention the whole community. (B.W. photo)

This site had its start in the dead of winter. It was New Year's Eve, not by design but by coincidence. I had been encouraged to do this by a lifelong Morrissite acquaintance who said it wouldn't be as difficult as I seemed to suspect.

I didn't own a computer and wasn't planning on getting one. It has been on the corner of my mind, but there is a cost factor along with a confusion factor. A computer seems to have endless possibilities but that's the problem: learning to harness all of them.
Another big consideration is the rapid path to obsolescence for all of that stuff. It was bad enough being active in photography, where obsolescence was a constant annoyance. And this stuff costs real money!
When I was a kid, buying a reasonably fancy 35mm camera (something other than a Kodak Instamatic) might have been considered a one-time purchase. As the years went on, the new generations of cameras (with "must-have" developments like auto-focus) came on the scene at a frantic pace. And then we arrived at digital cameras, which wiped out the whole previous model for picture-taking.
Digital cameras were primitive at the start, which meant - guess what? - that the whole process of "new generations" was going to start churning again. Where do people get the money for this?
We're told that we're in the grips of a serious recession. But look at the big league baseball parks - quite full of humanity, even though the total pricetag for a family might be $200.
So I guess people can keep stocking up on all the tech stuff. Discard a digital camera and get a new one. Get a new computer. Or move on to a laptop, or why not a netbook?
I can't keep up with it. And I'm sort of attached to my money so I don't want to part with it. So I use the resources at our local public library and senior citizens center. The Morris Public Library has six computer stations along with Wi-fi. I don't have a laptop so I use one of the six computers, where on any given day you'll find some interesting people situated. I'm sure they have different needs and different dreams.
Sometimes they are immersed in what they are doing and sometimes they're talkative. Some play games and some seek news.
The chief librarian is Melissa Yauk who is quite in command and insightful. I overheard her say recently that the library computers were set for an "upgrade." There is always potential for an upgrade with this stuff. I sometimes see Ms. Yauk wearing a very wide-brim hat which I suspect might have a story behind it.
I asked Karen Berget once if we'd ever reach an end point with all this technology (i.e. where we had progressed as far as we could) and she laughed and said "no."

Salute to 4-H

Sharon Ehlers of the Morris Public Library staff is someone who I associate with 4-H. She and husband Doug have been pillars with Stevens County 4-H and I was delighted to have my own long-time association through media work.

I'll be thinking about Stevens County 4-H when I visit the fair this coming week. These days my fair experience consists of going to the rest cottage area and, well, resting - sitting on a bench and watching the people go by.

Everyone comes to the fair. There are no socio-economic divisions.

I have had zero contact with Stevens County 4-H since my days in the "dead tree" newspaper industry. I miss the association (with 4-H, not the "dead tree" industry which is deservedly being run into the ground by the Internet).

Speaking of that industry, since there is a major boycott of the Target chain of stores, due to that company's big financial push behind Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, maybe the boycott should extend to newspapers that include the weekly Target advertising circular. Sounds reasonable to me.

Salute to countryside

I have some special rapport with Tammy Smith of the library staff because we both reside amidst the pastoral, peaceful country north of Morris. Tammy lives along County Road 5, where her family's dune buggy is a sight that might greet you. I live on Northridge Drive which is a short jaunt from getting on County Road 5.
You will stamp yourself as a true Morrissite if you call County Road 5 "Yankee Ridge Road." We once had a contest for naming the neighborhood where I live, and one of the nominations was "Rebel Ridge." Another, I might add, was "Snob Hill." The irreverent suggestions lost out to Northridge Drive.
I am surprised that Northridge Drive has not been paved all the way to County Road 5.
Anyone who feels stressed out should hop on a bicycle and get on County Road 5 going north. There's no better therapy. Eventually you'll reach the intersection with County Road 18 and you can go east to Pomme de Terre Lake (or is it Perkins Lake?). Official county maps use the "Perkins Lake" name. But when you arrive at the public access there you'll see a big sign welcoming you to "Pomme de Terre Lake."
I once brought this confusion to the attention of a Stevens County Historical Society staffer. But I'm not sure any probing or clarification has been done. I know that "Perkins" was a prominent name out there. But that's not the point. The lake should have an agreed-upon name.
The Pomme de Terre West neighborhood, on the shores of the lake in question, might be another candidate for the "Snob Hill" name. Just teasing, people, but this is a neighborhood that seems to appreciate a feeling of seclusion. It's understandable in this world of connectedness built up through new media and tech.
Media writer Jeff Jarvis observed recently that whereas privacy was once the norm, and we had to take pains or pay to achieve connectedness, today connectedness is free and plentiful and we must take pains to achieve privacy! So a secluded residence along the peaceful Pomme de Terre Lake shore seems like quite the prescription.
The road leading out there is a washboard-like dirt road not consistent with the quality of the neighborhood. There's a dead end eventually that isn't designed for easy turnarounds. The Pomme de Terre (Perkins?) Lake access is a stone's throw away but there's no connection.
In the past I have parked my bike at the access and walked through a couple blocks of weeds, undaunted, to come out on the dead end and then enjoy a stroll along this attractive neighborhood. I actually didn't want to subject my bike (a low-end Huffy) to the "washboard" that was presented via the direct route (coming off Highway 59 North).
The powers that be threw a curve at me last spring when they repaired a barbed wire fence at the access. Previously an opening had been carved out, suggesting that other people like me wanted unfettered movement in the area. I can get over the fence with some exertion, and take care with the crotch of your trousers!
Everyone should get a glimpse of the Pomme de Terre West neighborhood sometime.
Just to the north you'll find Luther Crest West, which was once known as Perkins Resort. The defunct Perkins Resort had a roller rink that was absolutely legendary. Many young couples found each other there. I have heard that swimming in the lake was common then. The water must have been cleaner.
Even today, though, water recreation is common there: fishing, along with kids getting pulled on inner tubes behind boats. I have often suggested to people that the Pomme de Terre Lake chain is one of the most overlooked resources of the Morris area.

morris mn - getting the accent going
I am proud of how my website, "I Love Morris," has developed in the seven months since its origination (on New Year's Eve, when I always watch a DVD of a 1954 Jack Benny New Year's TV special).
We're in the dead of summer now. Reflecting, I think this site has been an eye-opening experience in terms of all the ways it can be enhanced, even without owning a computer.
Inserting my own photos has been a big step forward. I still take photos on a 35mm (non-digital) camera. The photos are put on a CD.
There's one big unresolved question: How big an audience do I want? There are at least a handful of people who visit regularly. I appreciate that, you guys, but I'm totally unsure of how many people might have stumbled onto the site beyond that.
I was hoping that search engines would facilitate. I have discovered, though, that search engines only connect people to specific posts on my site and not directly to the site itself.
I'm hoping that people are sophisticated enough to make the leap to getting directly to the site (to see the current post etc.).
If you're reading this because of linking to this post, and want to go directly to the site, I'll make it easy: Just click on the line below!

http://www.ilovemorris73.blogspot.com/

The "73" denotes my year of graduation from Morris High School (not Morris Area, just Morris).
I was hoping there might be a "viral effect" attracting high school sports fans to some of the youth sports coverage here. But I'm disappointed to have discovered this apparently hasn't happened.
My late friend Delmar Holdgrafer, who left a void with his death that hasn't yet been filled in the Morris area, had a favorite saying: "Patience brings all things."
These are words I ought to heed as I continue trying to sharpen "I Love Morris."
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

St. Cloud has become cosmopolitan city

Skalicky Plaza, built in 2000, adorns the St. Cloud State University campus. (Ted Sherarts photo)

When Coborn's first came to town here in Morris MN, I felt like I was seeing an old friend.

"Coborn's!" It's where a St. Cloud State University student could go to write out a check for cash. No ATMs then. There was a Coborn's store just a few blocks from the SCSU campus, in between the campus and Division Street (the "main drag").
In my last two years at St. Cloud, I had a very modest sleeping room at a private residence in the northeast part of that central Minnesota city. I passed by Coborn's every day, walking to and from campus.
I also walked over the Mississippi River on the old DeSoto Bridge. That's the bridge that St. Cloud had to replace when inspections were stepped up in the wake of the Twin Cities bridge disaster. When I first heard the old bridge was coming down, I thought "wow, that will cause traffic mayhem there."
I gather that it turned out to be not quite that bad. I visited there because of a family medical situation and found that the re-routing was quite easy to accept. Today I hear that the new bridge is quite state of the art and pedestrian-friendly, with pausing areas where you can simply observe the majesty of the river.
St. Cloud is quite the resilient city. It's interesting coming from Morris, a town in which we always seem concerned about our future viability with population and the economy, to St. Cloud, which is worried about whether it can adjust fast enough to growth!
One might feel envy toward St. Cloud. But then there's the old saying "bigger isn't necessarily better." We want viability and at least some growth for Morris (or - let's be honest - a stanching of the decline) but we truly like the "small town" attributes of relative safety and quiet.
We have an Economic Improvement Commission because, well, we're just supposed to aspire to growth. We'd seem weird if we didn't.
There's a common joke around Morris these days that the people involved with "economic improvement" must be sitting on their hands. Indeed, the casual observer might well think we're becoming less like St. Cloud and more like Mayberry.
But I know there are many parents who are delighted to send their kids to the U of M-Morris precisely because Morris seems Mayberry-esque.
I remember covering the UMM Homecoming parade one year and jotting down names of young people on a float. A young man who said he was from St. Cloud had a last name that rang familiar from my college memories. I asked him if his father was the speech teacher from SCSU.
"Yes," he answered.
(I should note here that whenever I took down names of UMM students for photo captions, I liked getting hometowns because it was neat to see where all these young people came from. I could add that the Morris newspaper today will cover a big event like Prairie Pioneer Days and not even bother with captions for the full-page photo spread.)
Did the SCSU speech teacher like having his son attend college in a slower-paced community? That might have been one reason. Certain academic qualities might have been another. I didn't ask.
People will claim there are highly specific reasons for choosing one college over another, but I feel it's a little more impulsive. Any academic institution, even a community college, can challenge and enrich you.
At this stage of my life I trumpet the learning opportunities available online and have grown skeptical of the traditional bricks-and-mortar campus model. It's the kind of analysis heard from Governor Tim Pawlenty on The Daily Show.
My generation was completely plugged into the old model.
I was the opposite of that young man in the parade float, because I grew up in Morris and attended college in St. Cloud. I grew up hearing all the "elite" rhetoric about UMM, how only the cream of the crop would attend here, and I felt intimidated by it.
It was sort of nice "getting lost" in St. Cloud for a few years.
I have heard that St. Cloud State University has a reputation of being somewhat cold and impersonal. I was lucky because I never found that to be true in my own experiences.
My luck even continued when I visited "the old campus" in 2006 for Homecoming. I was there for the early-morning 5K run but wasn't sure exactly where it would start. A student working the front desk at a dormitory saw me outside apparently looking confused, and came out to see if she could help. I got directed properly.
I have always heard that St. Cloud is a little cold to non-Catholics. I think this is a fading stereotype just like the one about St. Cloud being an enclave of Germans. Like any area that is booming economically, the population is becoming steadily more diverse.
When I made that visit for the medical situation - my mother had a heart attack and today she's fine - I had to smile when I noticed an old building that was a hippie hangout when I was in college, which had become a Somali Grocery Store. The hippie hangout was the East Bank Bar and Cafe. (The owner growled at me once when I said "bar and grill.")
It didn't seem a very happy place. Today the building is emblematic of St. Cloud's evolution. Congratulations!
Cities develop stereotypes of course. I never sensed any prejudice toward non-Catholics. But it's not as if I were a Lutheran, I was an agnostic! Today I'm a Lutheran back in the mainstream.
I had Catholic friends when I was a kid who took me to "Catholic bingo." I later learned I wasn't eligible to be served communion at a Catholic funeral. I asked those friends about why I was welcome for one and not the other.
"We'll always take your money!" one said.
Interestingly, my landlords at the house where I spent much of my St. Cloud experience were a classic German Catholic couple - retired farmers. I had a wonderful relationship with them and looking back, I wish I had continued the friendship.
They had an adult son with developmental issues, but I was never fazed or distracted by that. Most likely this firmed up our bond.
My monthly rent was very reasonable, a figure that today would be unheard of. I was just a college kid so my demands weren't very great.
Lutherans did have their bastion in St. Cloud and there was a Lutheran church just down the street from my apartment. I'm ashamed to say I never attended a service there. On many weekends I came "home" to Morris. But I didn't attend church here either.
My old boss Jim Morrison says our generation never really took to church-going. We're dragging ourselves into that fold now. The passing years are impressing on us our mortality.
As young people we saw churches as part of that whole web we called "the establishment," which we thought was staid and unresponsive in a world moving forward on so many fronts like socio-economic, racial and gender empowerment. And relief from war, primarily.
Close your eyes and think what it would have been like if the iconic Billy Graham had called a press conference and made a sudden, bold statement calling for the U.S. to withdraw from Viet Nam! Think of the difference this could have made.
Graham could have endeared himself to the boomers forever (and in the long run, to everyone).
But the boomers were just "kids" at that time. We didn't have money. Yet. Yup, that makes the difference.
Graham had to hold his place in the firmament of "establishment" leaders. I hope that when he meets his maker, he can defend this. Perhaps he'll be assigned a room with Dick Nixon.
St. Cloud State U was a pretty left-of-center place in the 1970s. Prescriptions from the left seemed logical to us. Many professors were all too happy to lead us around by the nose with this.
I remember when the daughter of then-president Gerald Ford came to the SCSU campus to campaign for her father. The campus newspaper responded with a big blank block of space on the editorial page with a smart-aleck sentence at the top: "Below are highlights of the speech given by Susan Ford at SCS."
(Back then the "SCS" initials were typical because the "university" title hadn't yet been adopted. It was "college" then, and "SCSC" didn't quite roll off the tongue. It became a "university" when I was still a student.)
Gerald Ford was no Dick Nixon. He seemed to be a fundamentally good man who was in a tangle of post-war disillusionment and stagflation. Remember those pathetic "Whip Inflation Now" buttons?
Ford pardoned Nixon and that hurt him, but would we really have wanted it any other way? I mean, the powers that be clearly had Nixon by the balls anyway. He could just be deposited in the dumpster of history with other scoundrels.
Jimmy Carter was our president for my last two years at St. Cloud State. My landlords seemed captivated by him. A lot of us were, because he was unquestionably a nice, sincere and reverent man. We got a reprieve from the rat f--king of the Nixon years (the term associated with winning politically at all costs).
I'll be prejudiced here and say that Carter was a slow-moving and slow-thinking southerner, too much of an idle philosopher.
We were finally out of Viet Nam but our economy had seemed to become unhinged. What I remember most is that life seemed to move oh so slowly.
If you could accept the economic realities, it really wasn't such a bad time to be alive. I had a barely-serviceable apartment but it seemed wonderful to me. People weren't worried about identity theft and we didn't wake up in the morning concerned about how the S&P Futures were behaving.
People weren't nearly so defensive or paranoid as they are prone to being today. Parents would let their kids play outside unsupervised. Were there dangers? Yes, and pretty much the same dangers as exist today. But the media weren't inclined to sensationalize a lot of the bad things that happened.
Stories like the Scott Peterson murder case were handled on a regional basis - more toned down in quality. No Nancy Grace back then to express outrage.
We need to be vigilant vs. those dangers, no doubt, but we must not retreat into a cocoon either. Too much of the cocoon-like behavior is happening now: people never answering their phone, taking messages instead, for example.
Late in my newspaper career I was becoming troubled by how insulated people were becoming.
Whereas people once almost seemed flattered when contacted by "the newspaper," they were quite contrary toward the end.
I really wouldn't care that much but my job depended on people being a little more gregarious and responsive.
Eventually the rigors of the job, particularly under chain ownership - ugh - were unacceptable. I felt like one of those guys rowing in a Viking-like boat. I'm sure it's the same if you work for Jiffy Lube. You have to generate those numbers. You worship at the profit altar.
It makes me wax nostalgic for the Carter years when we seemed quite content with a more relaxed pace of life. Call it a "malaise" if you want but we had our share of good times (not including the "Smoky and the Bandit" movies).
St. Cloud seemed big in the '70s and it was stretching its legs, buoyed by its designation as an "All American City." A lot of us SCSU students thought that a bit dorky. We also didn't take too seriously the U.S. Bicentennial. We were too bitter about some of the more downbeat aspects of U.S. life then.
We found disco. I remember the Persian Club in St. Cloud having a dance floor with the big rotating ball projecting light.
Disco was a chapter that came and went. Ditto the Carter presidency. It all seems ancient now while St. Cloud continues stretching its legs, more diverse and cosmopolitan than ever I'm sure.
It's a terrific place. A part of me never left there. And the nostalgia goes beyond being able to cash a check at Coborn's.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Sound the trumpets, football is near!

I have never looked forward to football season so much in my life. We know the Minnesota Vikings will be interesting regardless of what the won-lost record says. We will get reacquainted with our "old friend" the HHH Metrodome, where the Minnesota Vikings are now the only big-time tenant.

The Dome motif is becoming very Vikings-specific with lots of purple around, according to what I've read.

The Metrodome was such a reliable rock for Minnesota sports fans over the past era. It has life left in it, as we'll be very clearly reminded when the Vikings take to the artificial turf there for the new campaign.

It's nice to see the Dome still viable. The decibel level will soar there again.
Lately it's the aggravation level that has risen among Vikings fans, due to the predictable ambivalence of their quarterback. Green Bay felt this circus had become too distracting. Minnesota took a chance on this Mississippi boy and he took us for an interesting ride last season. Of course, he was surrounded by superior talent.
He failed to dispose of a so-so Chicago Bears team late in the season, and for that we saw home field advantage slip away for the duration of the playoffs. That probably cost us a Super Bowl berth.

Brett Favre eventually threw one of his trademark "what was he thinking?" interceptions against the Saints in New Orleans, and this gave us a hangover for the off-season.

Experts have said that Favre had his best-ever season last year. I would say that the NFL has been continually tweaking the rules to encourage more of a passing game. Not just more passing but passing of more of a crowd-pleasing kind, with receivers hit in stride as they sprint downfield. Not the under-the-coverage stuff.

The astute Favre saw these developments and figured he could punch down on the accelerator, which he definitely did. He had the receivers and the line to make it all work, defying what his age might have suggested.

Kurt Warner capped off his NFL career with spectacular passing numbers, taking advantage of the game's more wide-open direction. Warner, an NFL senior citizen like Favre, battled Aaron Rodgers in the playoffs in a game epitomizing the new NFL look of frequent passing.

Warner's Cardinals and Rodgers' Packers battled in a pinball type of playoff battle. Back and forth and fast and furious. Entertaining, yes, but too much of a good thing?

Passing can get cheapened just like Barry Bonds cheapened home runs. The NFL is a precious entertainment product competing for the entertainment dollar in a most crowded universe of attractions. Not even the NFL can take its success for granted. So the game's architects are delicately managing the product to deal with the short attention span created by our limitless new media universe.

In the old days, Curt Gowdy could describe a dull NFL game with frequent off-tackle runs, and everyone just went home at the end of the day and picked up their paychecks. No one can afford that anymore. The NFL is looking closely at pre-season games as being a liability. Which they are. The most exciting thing about the Vikings' pre-season games will be to see when or if Brett Favre shows up for them.

There has even been talk that Favre could bypass the early portion of the real season, giving his apparently injured ankle more time to heal. This would be quite a drastic accommodation. Should we then root for the Vikings to lose so the door stays open for Favre? Oh, of course not.
But if Tarvaris Jackson catches fire, the way I think he can, how can you risk interrupting the momentum? It's all so distracting and disrupting. And Favre seems to be the only athlete capable of demanding that accommodation.
There is only one way that all of this will be worth it: if the Vikings win the Super Bowl. Anything short of that, and the season fades into obscurity. The odds are long.

What about those "rodents?"

The U of M Gophers are a distant second in terms of attracting the interest of Minnesota's fandom. Last year the novelty of a new stadium wasn't enough to attract the kind of student body support that the U expected. That's a very disappointing sign.

I have written before on this site that Division I football in Minnesota would benefit from an in-state rivalry. I have wondered if it might be practical for St. Cloud State to take the kind of steps we've seen with NDSU of Fargo. Any better suggestions?

The Gophers - "our beloved rodents," as scribe Patrick Reusse has long called them - will be the target for negative recruiting now because of the potential for playing in cold weather games up here. The Gophers sought the Metrodome in the first place to overcome this. Life can be perplexing.
Many season forecasts have the Gophers finishing at the bottom of the conference. People of my generation (boomers) have gotten gray or silver-haired waiting for the U of M football team to do something truly special. Lou Holtz gave us a glimmer of hope. But after that it was back into the abyss where we are now with coach Tim Brewster, another here-today-gone-tomorrow spoke in the wheel (i.e. a future answer to a trivia question).

In another month or so we'll all be mesmerized by the Vikings. It will be a joy to watch ESPN Sportscenter on Monday again.

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

A look inside our old school is harrowing

What's to become of this? Our old school was once the object of our affection and abuzz with activity in Morris. Today it's blight. (B.W. photo)

I had the very rare opportunity to go inside our old abandoned school on Saturday. It wasn't something I really wanted to do. Some high school classmates of mine were in town, and one of them had the connections to arrange for this "urban explorer" experience.

I had tried talking them out of it, arguing that such a visit could only be miserable and troubling, such was the highly deteriorated condition of the old patchwork of buildings. But their curiosity was strong and couldn't be discouraged.
A friendly Morris police officer opened the door of the 1914 building for us. What we saw inside was even worse than what I expected. I'm not sure Indiana Jones would be up for a thorough exploration. Surely he would want to leave and implore city officials to apply the wrecking ball immediately if not sooner.
Come to think of it, how did the City of Morris come to own this mess? Why would they possibly want it? Whatever the answers, it's their problem now. The city's problems are everyone's problems who live here.
If you think this monstrous abandoned structure is demoralizing for the community, you're lucky you're just viewing it from the outside.

How to describe the inside? It's challenging. Perhaps a movie company could come here and film a vampire or slasher movie.
I became concerned that breathing the air might have health issues even for the short duration of our tour. Pigeons flap around inside the old auditorium. Goodness knows what other life forms might've wedged inside. Bats are nocturnal so we wouldn't have seen them. I'd bet they're "hanging around" though.
These life forms are surely accompanied by their excrement. It's hard to imagine conditions getting worse but I imagine they will as time goes by and the city just sits on its hands.
At the conclusion of our Saturday visit, as I breathed a sigh of relief and got to breathe the outside air again, I had to conclude that the demolition task was urgent, regardless of any financial realities facing the City of Morris.

Even if it takes some kind of one-time special assessment of the city's residents, it's absolutely necessary. I'd be happy to pay my share.
Would Riley Brothers be prevented from doing it? If so, that's too bad but it's necessary anyway. We'd have to contract from outside. Riley Brothers probably hasn't extricated itself from the consequences of its legal bump in the road.
Back when the community was weighing the new school referendum, there was much talk that Riley Brothers could simply take over the old school property, handle demolition and plan some sort of redevelopment of that sprawling property that includes the playgrounds and football field.
That might have been the best plan. But then the talk of "re-use" began swirling. Wasn't a committee set up for that? Yeah, that'll guarantee success: set up a committee.
The committee, which I suspect is defunct now, should have taken the "tour" we had on Saturday. It practically made me sick. I wouldn't want to live within two blocks of that crumbling old Titanic of a structure. At least the Titanic (ship) is under water - out of sight and out of mind. No bats or pigeons or God knows what else in the Titanic.
Various re-use proposals were bandied about. I recall "apartments for artists." And "business incubator." These were perfect suggestions from people who probably spent too much time in college classrooms. It was this ilk that I suspect spawned the later talk of a "green community."
I have written a previous post about how the green community is like "Harvey" in the 1950 movie of the same name - our "imaginary friend." Formal plans have been developed that have even won an award, and been on display at the Morris Public Library.
It's intriguing until you realize that it's no more real than Jimmy Stewart's big rabbit companion friend. I feel like shaking you all by the shoulders and saying "look, this property is empty and blighted and there's nothing more you can say about it at this time!"
The property must cost the city something to oversee - lawn mowing to be sure. And insurance?
The economy was humming back when the flurry of changes happened - leaving the old school (and football field) and building all the new stuff. People must have just assumed that the vacated property would be disposed in an appropriate manner.
The best-laid plan of mice and men can get screwed up, though. Now we have a monumental chunk of blight in the grand old residential core of Morris. That school and the surrounding grounds were once a joyous focal point of the Morris community.
I was in junior high when "split shifts" were implemented to accommodate the burgeoning baby boomer population of youth. Split shifts were a signal to the community that something had to be done. It wasn't even enough to have a detached elementary school like Longfellow on the west side of town (an office building today).
We boomers were overwhelming the available resources. But getting a new school referendum passed was more difficult then, than today. It was sort of like pulling teeth, but finally a proposal got pushed through and we got our new high school.
The new school was just for grades 10-12 at the start. There were still plenty of kids to fill the old school. Surely it was hard to envision the grand old school simply being abandoned.
Exterior photos of the old school were proudly displayed in Morris High School yearbooks up through the late 1960s. People from that time would faint if they could see what I saw Saturday.
As a pure matter of principle, it's profoundly sad to see the complete, miserable disintegration of buildings and property that once were the objects of pride and tender loving care.
I don't care how necessary the changes were. The old buildings are clearly beyond salvage now and if left to degrade much longer, will be an increasing embarrassment to Morris. All of this is just a stone's throw from the UMM campus. It's unacceptable.

I saw what appeared to be gang graffiti on a blackboard.
The grand old residential core of east Morris deserves better than this. The houses there, along with most of the houses in west Morris, are suffering by comparison to the new houses, many of the "starter mansion" kind (or "McMansion") that tend to be built on the eastern fringe.
Let's face it, a lot of our houses are getting old - the kind of houses our family lived in when first coming to Morris in the early 1960s. Cozy yes but not immune to the effects of passing time.
How often to you see any of these houses actually being razed and replaced by something new? Pretty rare I'd say.
Yes, people can live very comfortably in these old houses. We can only hope that the more modest old houses age more gracefully than our old edifice of a school.
I could be drastic and ask if we're seeing a slow abandonment of the core central parts of Morris. Remember parking meters? I do. Parking downtown was a valued and limited commodity at one time. Eventually it became impractical to charge for it anymore. The "big box" stores which see no advantage to a central location took care of that. Our version is Pamida (which was called Gibson's at the start and changed the whole retail landscape here).
Businesses realized it's no big deal for people to drive to the outskirts of town, or slightly beyond (or all the way to Alexandria), where they could conveniently park for free in expansive parking lots carved out of fields.
"Downtown" suddenly lost its magic.

Main street of Morris still looks nice but it's not abuzz with the kind of social activity it once was. The women would go shopping while their husbands went to the pool hall.
Now I have to wonder if even churchgoing is going to migrate to the outskirts, following the Wal-Mart model. There is a sign along County Road 5 going north from Morris, just beyond Dan Sayles' dog kennels, proclaiming that a new church is coming. A Lutheran church.
My God, I thought, Morris needs a new church like it needs a hole in the head. Morris seems to have too many churches now, and at least one (mine) is making desperation pleas of financial adversity.

I suppose a church just outside of town can harness the Wal-Mart principles, one of which is convenient parking (created out of those wide open spaces). No need to consider parallel parking along a curb.
The increasing proportion of seniors in our population makes the easy parking more attractive. As wonderful as our senior citizens center is in Morris, it is not parking-friendly. Just as we once trashed parking meters, we're moving away from a willingness to find parking in a typically urban setting.
It will be interesting to see if this new church attracts people who don't want to deal with the urban logistics. It would seem the existing churches in Morris are in no position to have members siphoned off. So I can't imagine what all the consequences will be, but there's a looming concern that a deterioration of the older parts of Morris might accelerate.
Stevens County government is of course bucking the trend by building the Mother of All Courthouses - a move I opposed all along. It certainly appears to be more than a renovation.
And what if the new jail had gotten the thumbs-up? One can only wonder. (And then we'd see signs in the vicinity saying "do not pick up hitchhikers.")
One thing is absolutely certain: the old school complex has to come down and very soon. Whatever it takes.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

"Futurism" is really faux academic discipline

Back in my high school years I heard that St. Cloud was projected to be on the western edge of "megalopolis." I haven't heard that term in years. Perhaps it has gone the way of "quadraphonic."
I gather that "megalopolis" sprang from futurism, a discipline that I don't think ever made it into the mainstream of academia. It has always sort of hovered out there. There are teachers who I'm sure have made a gig out of it. But it's arguably not about science because by definition it involves guesswork.
We're all futurists in a sense. We need to try to anticipate the future in order to adapt to it. But if we really knew where the future was taking us, we'd be there now! We were mesmerized by computers 20 years ago but those seem like caveman times now.
"Megalopolis" was the idea of a basically uninterrupted chain of development from the Midwest to the east coast. A continuous city.
We out here in Morris would be beyond its reach, and for that we could probably be thankful. UMM would continue to be known as that small "jewel in the crown" that gives young people a safe, quiet and relatively distraction-free setting in which to develop themselves.
Many people in metropolitan environs find Morris so refreshing. They send their children to UMM with peace of mind and they trumpet the strengths of our liberal arts institution.
I remember hearing about a visiting clinician for the UMM Jazz Festival who chose to walk back to his motel from a post-concert house party. Rides were readily available. He turned them down and just wanted to walk. He was from Houston, if I remember right, and he told people that where he lived, you could never take a leisurely stroll at night with a feeling of safety. He relished the idea of doing it here.
It's a classic story that should be filed away with Morris attributes.
The concept of "crime" in Morris goes littler further than being caught without your seat belt on. That's being turned into a real racket, I should note, but it will probably dissipate as the public gets steadily pissed. Which reminds me of how "public urination" used to be a charge frequently reported.
The urination annoyance goes back to when drinking in public was much more socially approved of than today. The beating down of social drinking has been one of the most significant phenomena of the last 40 years.
A social scientist appeared on C-Span once who did his research by watching old "Match Game" episodes. This was a daytime game show hosted through much of its heyday by the late Gene Rayburn, one of whose trademarks was the long microphone holder (like a long wand).
Rayburn engaged in vapid banter with contestants. It was typical TV fare in the 1970s like the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson - TV fare you could consume without ever learning anything. But the social scientist found old episodes of The Match Game quite instructive.
The idea in this show, in case you're too young to remember, was to fill in the blank in a phrase and hope for matches from a panel. The manner in which people filled in the blanks said much about our culture, values and priorities at the time.
The scientist gave a fascinating example. Rayburn challenged his contestants with "half (blank)."
How would you fill that in? A contestant suggested "half drunk." Of course there was a smattering of laughter from the studio audience. Getting drunk was funny back then. Comedian Ray Stevens once put out an album called "Shriners Convention" that poked fun at what was probably the epitome of the alcohol-friendly culture. Not that Shriners weren't doing some wonderful things at the same time.
"Half (blank)". . .
The social scientist, upon hearing the "drunk" offering, was skeptical of how this contestant would fare.
"My reaction was, oh, that's a little odd, and I don't think anyone will match that."
His words were from a present-day perspective. But through the lens of the 1970s, "drunk" was quite the fashionable response. The contestant did well matching the panel.
Today the idea of finding entertainment by consuming alcohol has lost so much ground, it's stigmatized. I'm not sure the futurists could ever have predicted this direction.
I'm not sure futurists can ever really help us with their forecasts. What became of "megalopolis?"
Anyone familiar with St. Cloud knows that city has been through boom times. I don't think anything can stop it, not a bridge replacement (which they've been through) or a severe recession. I attended college there when the pocket calculator was considered the epitome of tech advancement.
The campus had what I thought was a wonderful library (called the Learning Resources Center or LRC), but it has since been replaced by what I would call The Mother of all Libraries. I observed it when I was back for Homecoming in 2006.
I don't think SCSU promotes Homecoming too vigorously because they practically have to call out the National Guard the way it is, such is the reputation for ebullience shown by the student body for that annual calendar highlight.
I learned that the old library (or LRC) had been remodeled to house the business school.
The irony is that college libraries, once considered a prime reason why we needed so many educational institutions dotting the landscape, are headed to obsolescence. The online world is taking over. We would all benefit by just stepping aside and letting it take over to fulfill its obvious destiny, and to benefit society and our economy.
But there are legacy interests that are going to stand in the way for a long time. What will become of these college libraries if they fade into obsolescence? Perhaps they could be converted into indoor miniature golf courses.
But seriously, there will be advocates for the old legacy models, people with a vested financial interest in trying to perpetuate those models, who are going to cause trouble, like a dog tugging at your pants legs.
Our established body of copyright law is like that. Copyright law isn't suited at all for the new era we're into. "Copyright" should be pretty well restricted to works that have true creative merit and not spread around to basic information sharing.
Of course, lawyers have to make a living. The young digital generation of today will likely insist on a loosening of those laws, if you'll permit me to be a futurist.
St. Cloud State is the opposite of UMM in so many respects. It has no reservations about striving to be big. Or about trying, really, to be all things to all people.
Whereas, UMM has seen its confined size as a virtue, giving students a greater sense of identity and likely greater attention.
I remember a retiring UMM professor who spoke at commencement and seemed to me to take a slap at state colleges (or universities), not with naming them but by (to me) clear implication. His theme was that UMM put quality over quantity.
I don't doubt that the University of Minnesota-Morris does that, and it's something to trumpet, no doubt. But St. Cloud State would argue that it provides "opportunity." You venture into a discipline and the door is open for the proper enrichment and a degree that can hopefully open doors, but the initiative is largely up to you. You have to take the reins. Go ahead and be a self-starter.
St. Cloud State has produced countless grads who have exemplary resumes from their adult lives. But there is a popular put-down of that school as being lowbrow and party-oriented. I remember a former UMM chancellor who voiced that stereotype. I don't blame him because he's an advocate for UMM.
But stereotypes are just that - superficial and sometimes harsh.
I'm sure there are far fewer bars within easy walking distance of the SCSU campus today (than when I was there, and how would I be so knowledgeable about this topic?).
Our culture has changed but SCSU students, I'm sure, are still fun-loving.
What shape will our colleges and youth culture have in the future as the digital frontier advances? I truly suspect that the changes would be massive, even threatening the very existence of campuses as we've known them.
But I can't be sure. Futurism is never exact. It's like throwing darts. Especially at the end of celebrating an SCSU Homecoming.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com