Understanding better the Sam Smith statue

"There will never be anything more interesting than that American Civil War, never."
-Gertrude Stein

It seems strange reflecting on a war fought on American soil. The American Civil War has been remote in time for a very long time now. It ended six years before Morris was even established. The Civil War veterans who are cited in Morris history tended to be up in years by the time they settled here. The one most easily remembered is Samuel Smith, whose memorial at Summit Cemetery (see photo) is easily the most striking one there.
It appears that a wee bit of mythology has crept into the story about how the monument came to be. Smith himself was not at fault for this, and the misunderstanding has nothing to do with his record of service, which was as laudable as that of any Union Civil War veteran.
I think we can chalk it up to the small town tendency of speculation morphing into fact. We can also chalk it up to the Civil War being so remote in time, the facts of the war and its aftermath can get obscured or even obliterated.
Before proceeding further on the subject of the statue, I want to show how easily these mistakes can happen. I'll do this using another Civil War episode.
A magazine like "America's Civil War" fights doggedly to clarify the war's facts through the mists of time. Civil War enthusiasts are in fact known for a near-obsession with having a firm understanding of the facts right down to the minute details. Don't even try to be a Civil War artist unless you can show the belt buckles exactly as they were.
So when historian James O. Hall clarified an important aspect of the Battle of Gettysburg in the 1980s, it was like a tremor among those enthusiasts. It was also heartbreaking because the original story was so appealing. So appealing in fact, that when the definitive movie "Gettysburg" was made in 1993, the clarification was ignored. Poetic license, or sentimentality, won out.
The very first character we see in that movie is a non-uniformed man on horseback. He has a telescope. He instantly exudes an air of adventure. He's a spy! Yes, he's the famous "Harrison the spy" who came to life on the pages of the Pulitzer Prize-winning historical novel by Michael Shaara, "The Killer Angels."
Ken Burns was inspired by this book to do his noted TV documentary on the war. Personally I'd have to cite it as the best book I've ever read.
Shaara did the best he could following the known facts of the time about the battle. "The Killer Angels" came out in 1974. A writer couldn't help but feel captivated by someone like Harrison, who was believed to have been a professional stage actor. A Shakespearean actor, no less.
In the movie he is played engagingly by Cooper Huckabee, a rustic character actor. His time onscreen is limited but he sticks with you.
Harrison the spy worked for General James Longstreet of the Confederate ("reb") cause. General Robert E. Lee seemed almost reluctant to accept the words of "an actor," but he did. He almost had to, because his chief cavalry scout Jeb Stuart was off on a goose chase.
Longstreet was played in the movie by Tom Berenger, and Lee by Martin Sheen. People with a southern slant on things have assailed Sheen's performance and gushed over Robert Duvall's portrayal in a later movie ("Gods and Generals"). How ridiculous! Sheen was brilliant, showing the conflicted nature of this general at this point in the war - brilliant but at the same time weary and almost defeatist.
Longstreet and Harrison had true rapport.
But Harrison was hardly a pro stage actor. It turns out that he was confused with James Harrison who was performing in Richmond, Virginia, at that time. James Harrison had a nightly gig at the New Richmond Theater while Harrison was out plying his cloak-and-dagger trade in the Suffolk, Virginia, and Goldsboro, North Carolina, areas.
Lest there be any doubt, commuting was no-go.
The name coincidence isn't enough to explain how the two individuals would be confused. Here the story takes an interesting twist. Harrison the spy, whose full name was Henry T. Harrison, went onstage as a one-time proposition, prodded by a $50 bet! He played Lago the Villain in Shakespeare's Othello. The date was Sept. 10, 1863, which would have been two months after the Gettysburg battle.
An account at the time suggested that Harrison the spy was "fortified by drink" onstage. But he must have won the bet.
In the theater of war he had true impact. He arrived in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, with news that the Union army had crossed the Potomac and was in Frederick, Maryland. The Confederate Army was spread out and so it was vulnerable. Longstreet and Lee acted on Harrison's word which may have saved the Army of Northern Virgina from being destroyed piecemeal.
Ron Maxwell made the 1993 movie "Gettysburg" and appeared to be aware of the historical clarification that had been made about Harrison. Maxwell correctly identifies the spy as Henry T. Harrison and not James Harrison. But Maxwell couldn't bear making Harrison the movie character a more pedestrian sort than a professional actor. So he took the myth and ran with it!
At the end of the movie, where little thumbnails are presented of what the characters did in subsequent years, we learn that Harrison returned to the stage to play Shakespeare.
Hardly. The evidence shows that Henry T. Harrison "led a very private life and avoided notoriety," according to an historical account.
Maybe the original myth can be seen as a "white lie," because there is a tiny shred of truth about Harrison (the spy) acting.
Likewise, the misconception that many Morrissites have held about the Sam Smith statue is innocuous. The mythology here is that Smith, who was born with the last name Zimmerman but changed it due to war circumstances, "posed" for the sculpture of the First Minnesota Memorial statue in Gettysburg.
The Morris newspaper followed this storyline in a 1991 feature article. I didn't write it.
Thanks to some very exhaustive research by Thomas Rice, and made available to me by Melissa Yauk at the Morris Public Library, we learn that the Morris statue followed the Gettysburg statue in its basic design but it was sculpted as a separate venture. Sam wanted it on his gravesite as a tribute to his comrades and a reminder of the grand commitment and sacrifices they had all made.
A more striking memorial design could not possibly be conceived.
There is no documentation of any "posing" by Smith or anyone else. Rice's research is convincing. I have returned this material to Ms. Yauk at our library and I'm sure she could make it available to you.
The posing story seemed plausible at one time so it took on a life of its own, as small town stories tend to do. It's captivating but we ought to know that it isn't grounded in fact.
(I'm smiling here as I remember the scene in the movie "Airplane" where the Robert Hays character, lying on a military hospital bed, kills time by painting a picture with the help of a model who poses in a war combat scene. "Take five," the Hays character says. And the model, sounding irritated, says "thanks." In case you aren't aware, this was a comedy.)
The legend of Smith as artist's model is captivating like the "Shakespearean actor" who sneaked around in advance of the Union army. We can enjoy the myth-making and artistic license that weave a more compelling picture than what the sterile facts would tell us, unearthed through time.
Those facts are gospel to hardcore Civil War enthusiasts. The mythology helps spin epic movies and create small town legends.
Smith's story can stand on its own just with the sterile facts. Let's draw a line between that and the myth-making.
Here's a salute to you, Samuel Smith, devotee to the Union, RIP.

Click on the link below to read part 2 of my thoughts/reflections on the Sam Smith statue.

http://ilovemorris73.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-on-sam-smith-rip-and-his-monument.html

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

A night of music revival, tragedy in 2007

The above photo includes your blog host, Brian Williams, at left, with a fellow concert goer and a musician on August 1, 2007, at the Minnesota Music Cafe in St. Paul, "where the food's great and the music's cooking." At right is Del Sarlette of Sarlettes Music in Morris. When you write out a check there, be precise and don't write "Sartell's Music" or "Starlite Music," and don't use an apostrophe. It's "Sarlettes Music." At center in photo is G.G. Shinn who was once lead singer for the jazz-rock fusion group "Chase." The band had a reunion concert on this night, the same night as the I-35W bridge fell into the Mississippi River. The "squirrel" in photo was obviously put there as a computer trick when this was a fad, by Del. You also see an old album jacket that featured Shinn when he was getting started in music. This album was put out in 1968 for "Putt-Putt Golf Courses of America." G.G. was astonished and pleased when he saw we brought this obscure collector's item with us. His exact words were "where the hell did you get that?" and he proceeded to place a warm autograph note on it.

I can remember a time when you'd periodically hear that "big bands are coming back." Well, big bands have never really left. College jazz bands keep playing those dated "charts." Ballroom dancing will continue having its niche in the wide dance universe. None of it will be forgotten, but the Glenn Miller era has receded into history just like the heyday of the sport of boxing.
Boxing still exists naturally. But when was the last time we waited with breathless anticipation for a big heavyweight bout? A bout only on "closed circuit television?"
Perhaps the curtain was closed when Mike Tyson bit an opponent's ear off. (In wrestling they at least fake that.) Or maybe when sports medicine began telling us that boxing's participants were almost literally getting their brains beat out.
So boxing is most definitely marginalized in today's sports entertainment culture.
What about big bands? In the 1970s there was a small group of bands that young people everywhere flocked to see. You didn't dance to these bands, you listened to them.
Bill Chase advanced the sound to appeal to younger ears, better than anyone. Chase's band was nine members strong so it was surely "big." But few people would have referred to his group as a "big band." It seemed like a rock band.
Technically it was jazz-rock fusion.
It is mind-boggling to wonder where Chase's immense creative impulses would have taken him, had he lived. He died in a plane crash in our state of Minnesota. He was working on the group's fourth album at the time.
Bill Chase and band members were en route to the Jackson County Fair in southern Minnesota. The crash victims included Chase, age 39, and fellow musicians Wally Yohn (keyboard), Walter Clark (drums) and John Emma (guitar).
Chase had burst on the national scene in 1971. Perhaps if I cite the group's biggest hit, it will ring familiar. "Get It On" with the cascading trumpet section lines was on that seminal first album. It became the group's signature tune, and arrangements of it were played by school musical groups everywhere including here in Morris. Director John Woell had his musicians play "Get It On" at the old elementary auditorium.
"Get It On" spent 13 weeks on the charts. The band was nominated for the Best New Artist Grammy but got edged by Carly Simon who was just coming into her own.
The second album from Chase, "Ennea," came out in 1972. "Ennea" is the Greek word for "nine," the number of musicians in Chase's band. The whole band was pictured on the cover and they had very sober expressions. Is that why the album wasn't as successful? I don't know but I felt that artistically it was outstanding.
One whole side of this album was a "concept" piece (like what Jethro Tull was known for at that time) with tunes that segued one to the other. The old term for this is "medley." One critique said the concept stuff wasn't radio-friendly enough.
I loved it. In 1974 the group issued "Pure Music" which drove more into the field of jazz. In spite of that, Variety Magazine called this album "their most commercial." There was no reprise of the "Get It On" impact, though.
The fourth album never made it into pressing. We'll never know if Bill Chase could have reached those coveted chart positions again, or just be satisfied putting out artistically stimulating material.
Fast-forward to 2007. So much time had gone by since the heyday of the group "Chase." But there are still plenty of trumpet devotees who remember those cascading trumpet lines and rock-style intensity of the group.
In August of 2007, fans gathered at the Minnesota Music Cafe in St. Paul for a revival. "Alumni" of the Chase band were to be featured onstage along with other musicians in this event co-billed as a "trumpet summit."
The date was August 1, 2007. Something else of significance happened that evening. The I-35W Mississippi River bridge fell into the river. Yours truly and my companion for the concert began hearing reports on the bridge tragedy on the radio as we wound through the Twin Cities en route. The bridge was not on our route.
It sounded bad but we weren't sure just how bad. As time went on the enormity sank in. We called our respective homes from the parking area next to the Minnesota Music Cafe to say we were OK. My companion was Del Sarlette of Sarlettes Music in Morris. We both chose the trumpet as our "ax" when young.
We both attended concerts of some of the big traveling big bands in the 1970s. We heard the likes of Maynard Ferguson, Buddy Rich, Stan Kenton and Woody Herman, all of whom are deceased now. There were other young Morris musicians besides Del and me who were equally attracted to those sounds. Certainly I'd forget some names if I attempted listing, but let's throw out Steve Schaub and Tom Garberick as card-carrying members. Tom's dad Doug was a jazz patriarch here.
Those concerts seemed like true "events." Those bands had a sound that gave the foundation for Chase, who really tailored it for the particular young ears of the time.
I recall that Chase played in Morris once. I wasn't there. According to Morris legend, a huge portion of the crowd left after intermission, not necessarily because the music wasn't good but because it was too loud!
That could be a problem in those days. The youth really demanded that their music be loud. You were a prude if you didn't appreciate this. Today some of those boomers might wish they had kept the volume lower. Increasingly they might find themselves asking people to repeat things.
Del and I entered the Minnesota Music Cafe and found the surroundings to be pleasant enough. Just imagine a much larger Met Lounge. I had given the heads-up to an old high school classmate, Mike Eul, a trumpet player too, and was delighted to see him there in a party of three.
When we saw the stage all set up for the band, we felt an adrenalin rush like what we experienced when arriving at the old St. Paul Prom Ballroom for a Ferguson concert.
Just in case the music would be real loud, we sat along a bar counter a healthy distance from the stage.
This trumpet summit included Eric Miyashiro, who can deliver a sound much like Maynard Ferguson (RIP) himself. Or Chase. And it was Miyashiro's sound that we heard first as this reunion concert began. He played alone as the intro to "Open Up Wide." Pretty soon all the trumpet players were in action. The sound was totally loyal to the original group sound and the spirit behind it.
We could watch TV screens that had continuous live coverage of the bridge collapse. But the music went on.
The nostalgia really set in when vocalist G.G. Shinn joined in. Shinn has a singing voice that typified a whole breed of jazz-rock singers inspired by the group Blood, Sweat and Tears. Kenny Rogers fit right in. These singers sounded restless and energized with their sometimes gravelly intonations.
Shinn started in on the "Aphrodite" section of the mythology concept piece (from "Ennea") and it was spellbinding
Today Shinn operates a nightclub in Louisiana. I hope the oil spill hasn't dimmed his fortunes.
One by one the Chase reunion group played tunes from the all-too-brief heyday of "Chase."
The evening ended with the climactic "Get It On."
It would have been a joyous night had the bridge tragedy not cast a pall. In the back of my mind was the creepy feeling that this reunion concert for a band leader whose life ended so violently and suddenly, coincided with the bridge collapse. But it's foolish to believe in a hex.
I thought of my own mortality as I realized the odds weren't that far-fetched for Del and me to have crossed that bridge at the fateful time. Perhaps we would have gone down, survived and then performed some heroic act that would have gotten us on the Larry King show. (We're into a little levity here.)
Reportedly there is another Chase reunion event, "Chase Revisited II," planned for Boston, MA. We hope the sound lives on.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly 73@yahoo.com

Al Michaels' gambling reference a faux pas

Al Michaels

NBC hyped the Sunday night Vikings game by focusing on Brett Favre. No amount of hype can really package a pre-season NFL game effectively. Most of the people who tune in to pre-season games are just starved for football. That circle includes me.
Pre-season games give us a frame of reference. Until Sunday night, though, I never realized that these games attract a fair amount of gambling interest. This revelation came at the very end of the Vikings' contest at San Francisco. I was watching live, which indicates just how football-starved I am (that I would watch this yawner to the end).
By the usual standard there was nothing dramatic about the ending. When I say "usual standard," I'm talking about how the typical fan watches - the healthy, proper perspective. There is another perspective in the shadows though. It's the way gamblers watch these things. And I listened in disbelief as the game's broadcast voices, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, acknowledged that perspective, boisterously in fact. Michaels got it started so he's the one with explaining to do.
Let's sketch out the background: The 49ers led by three points with nine seconds left. But if you had bet on the Minnesota Vikings, you were feeling good because the game's "pointspread" was 3.5 with the 49ers favored. Thus if the game ended with the score 13-10, the Vikes' bettors could collect.
But on the game's final play, rookie quarterback Joe Webb dropped back to pass but couldn't get the ball away. He also couldn't get out of the end zone. Safety. Two more points for San Francisco.
Absolutely no big deal, right? That's what I was thinking. Not Al Michaels in the NBC broadcast booth, though.
I really don't think Michaels was going to say anything to give away the gambling angle. Instead he slipped and did something that reminded me of a scene in "Mutiny on the Bounty" (Marlon Brando).
Michaels laughed.
We all think laughter brings joy but sometimes you have to explain its meaning. Laughter can be denigrating, fun-poking or irreverent in an improper way. In the movie, a ship hand chuckles about something involving the ship's commander and he fails to explain himself adequately, and is punished harshly.
When Al Michaels delivered his burst of laughter, it seemed out of place because nothing on the screen seemed to prompt this. I was instantly curious.
Michaels probably realized that the laughing might be misunderstood, as being directed at the awkwardness of a rookie quarterback (an African-American) getting sacked in the end zone. So he had to give an explanation even if he would fare no better than that ship hand in the movie.
By disclosing gambling interests, I think Michaels ran the risk of getting in trouble with the powers that be. Michaels was in the booth with Cris Collinsworth, the old Cincinnatti receiver. They are both proven announcers but even their talent was a stretch for selling a game in which Favre played just one series of downs.
Immediately after the game-ending safety, Michaels laughed and then said to his broadcasting compatriot: "You know why I'm laughing, don't you?"
(Well, I didn't, and I apologize for seeming like a prude. - BW)
Collinsworth: "Yeah."
Michaels: "Of course you do, Collinsworth. There are some people happy and some not so happy."
Seriously, this is very uncool. The NFL wants a firm line drawn between the sport and the people who gamble on it.
And I should add that I'm really not a prude. I used to put down sports bets in Las Vegas during my occasional jaunts there. I prided myself on my gambling approach. Rather than having to sweat and think at the blackjack tables, or manage piles of chips in other games, I placed a few well-thought-out sports bets and would then spend time poolside or in the cocktail lounge. Several hours later I would check back.
Everyone has their own approach.
So while I place no taboo on sports gambling, I feel strongly that this is a world apart from the real games. And no one would agree more wholeheartedly with me on this than Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, or his counterparts in other sports.
How big a deal is this? It's so big that baseball found it appropriate to clamp down on Pete Rose in such a way that the game's all-time hit leader would never get in the Hall of Fame.
Anyone with some experience in sports gambling understands that punishment completely. Why? Because once you place money on a game, you view that game from a completely different perspective from those who just want to enjoy the game. One of my companions to Las Vegas (an old high school classmate) once said "have you noticed that when you bet on a (baseball) game, it feels like your life savings are riding on every pitch?"
Sports gamblers know this all too well. Some popular advice is that when you bet on a game, don't watch it! A safety at the very end can cause a complete reversal of fortunes.
Fans who watch games for the "right" reasons can resent the intrusion of comments related to gambling. I don't blame them.
It has been years since I placed a sports bet, and I really don't care about that shadowy world of gambling anymore. So when Michaels felt he had to accent that angle at game's end Sunday, I was taken aback and resented it.
It took a couple of seconds for it to sink in. Because I just couldn't believe it.
I read the next day that "Al Michaels will usually reference the pointspread during telecasts."
But simply referencing the pointspread in a sober way isn't a cardinal sin, because the spread tells you something about how the teams compare.
But laughing and talking about how "some people are happy" crosses the line.
I wonder if Goodell contacted NBC executives in the wake of this. I suspect so. I even wondered if some harsh punishment could be meted out vs. Michaels. Collinsworth only got involved after Michaels dragged him into it.
Maybe there is a bigger question here: What kind of loser bets on NFL pre-season games?
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Whither football at St. Cloud State University?

Did St. Cloud State get carried away getting "new toys" during the good economic times? I remember a local conservative individual, now deceased, who said "we all like nice things." A public entity like a college has no trouble coming up with shopping lists for "nice things" if the money appears to be there. The advocates for these "nice things" then argue that these things are actually essential.
St. Cloud State University has added some nice attributes since my graduation there in the late 1970s. Those growth spasms might have been beyond what was truly reasonable. So an air of discomort has set in now.
When a school allows its name to get out there in the state's chief media with a proposal so drastic as cutting football, well. . .
You can read between the lines and conclude there are some budget issues causing cutthroat-like conflict and turf battles. Academia can get unpleasant that way.
There will be a certain element there now equating the college president to Attila the Hun. I don't have to be there to know this. Regardless of what the facts are, it's a horrible public relations black eye for this asinine proposal of cutting football to get headline treatment in front of the state's citizenry.
In case you don't know, St. Cloud State has a football stadium that was built just six years ago. In fact, Husky country has an athletic complex of buildings that could be described as opulent. I feel like an old geezer recalling the days when the fitness-conscious people on campus jogged laps at the bottom level of Halenbeck Hall. These were mere hallways that were never designed for that purpose. We joggers learned how many laps were a mile.
Reflecting on it now, I think this would be disallowed today for liability reasons. Joggers tearing around a corner could be a hazard. I witnessed at least one scolding incident because of this.
"Run single file!" someone yelled.
We were a tight community (us joggers) back then, in the days when "aerobics" was an unfamiliar term for most people.
Such quaint times.
Today St. Cloud State can undoubtedly feel pride in its sprawling athletic digs. First I was awestruck by the fieldhouse they added. Then came the celebrated hockey arena, the football stadium and a meandering biking-walking-running trail along the Mississippi River. All of these were most certainly "nice things" when they came into being. Let's throw in the new SCSU library which is palatial in its own right.
But then the economy changed. The party was over. Wall Street didn't bestow riches as if by magic anymore. Austerity has crept into the picture along with another factor that I frequently cite on this blog: the spectre of tech and the new media which may begin to start tearing down the whole traditional bricks and mortar higher education model.
Might this be a "perfect storm?"
No less a person than Governor Tim Pawlenty, who rarely gets kudos from this writer, said on The Daily Show that young people might start flocking to the Internet to get the knowledge they need to plot out the rest of their lives.
I expected to see this process proceed on a subtle basis. But with the headline trumpeting SCSU's possible elimination of football, maybe it won't be so subtle. Of course, one must ask how realistic this possibility is. Want to lay odds on it?
My instinct tells me we're seeing political posturing with this grim announcement. The pain caused by impending austerity must be pretty bad if we've reached this state.
Cutting football? At a major state university with a still-new football field? I can just imagine the tempest in campus circles, even among the non-football fans. Because, the proposal smacks of panic! And it will hurt the institution even if it turns out to have been empty posturing. Football recruiting will take a blow as SCSU will be perceived as on the margin.
Across-the-board fundraising could take a hit. Like it or not, many donors find athletics to be the most viable basis for their giving. It has an emotional or sentimental pull. It probably means a lot more for alumni than for current students. It's symbolic. People connect to their alma mater through sports reporting in the state's news media.
St. Cloud State has had a parallel experience to Morris with its football facilities. The Huskies used to play at Selke Field which was slightly off-campus and comparable to our old Coombe Field with its neighborhood setting. Fans could crowd around in standing clusters.
The powers that be seem to have turned thumbs down on that model for school football competition. SCSU now has Husky Stadium which is a larger version of our Big Cat Stadium.
The new model seems sterile and confining. These stadiums seem as though they were built only for the serious football watchers.
Will this design be proven sound in the long run?
The new football stadium for the Huskies doesn't seem to have propped up that school's athletic budget. I have read that the hockey team makes money but it's the exception. I took one peek inside the hockey center in 2006 and thought "my God, this is Nirvana."
But has my venerable alma mater expanded beyond its means? Football is just part of the budgetary wrangling we see there now. There are three proposals to reorganize academic affairs. An online news source reported July 30 that "it's been a rough past week for a couple dozen faculty members at SCSU."
Indeed, SCSU sent out 26 layoff notices on the same day, to "some unfortunate non-tenured staffers," the report reads.
Earl H. Potter III, the school's president, might need some sleep aids. The school is striving to escape a $13 million hole. It aims to shed 80-90 positions by the start of the new school year. It's desperately hoping to tap retirements in doing this. Some of the layoff notices could be withdrawn.
But football on the chopping block? Potter says he should have a decision made by the end of October. Personally I think the moon is more likely to fall out of the sky than for St. Cloud State to cut football. So why they would allow this proposal to go public is beyond me. It points to some disarray, and the person at the top ultimately answers for this.
This current weekend is "move-in weekend" at SCSU, a term that I don't recall ever hearing in the ancient times when I walked the campus. Giving it a name, of course, means giving students an excuse to carry on "celebrating" with the kinds of foolishness that have come to be associated, unfortunately, with SCSU.
I have read that some of the famous ebullience for Homecoming has been transferred to move-in weekend. I'm not sure it's been transferred. I think it's an addition!
The infamy of SCSU's Homecoming has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because, now the media contact law enforcement there annually to get the poop on Homecoming excessiveness. Indeed we're a fun-loving crowd, us Husky-ites.
I attended one game at the Husky football stadium in 2006. I didn't realize until I got seated that I was looking at two 0-4 football teams that day: SCSU and Mankato State. So the stands weren't as full as they might have been.
Some Mankato fans walked past me during the game looking for a more central seating location due to feeling the wind. I sense that this can also be a problem at Big Cat Stadium in Morris.
It wasn't a wasted afternoon but I definitely did not develop warm feelings toward the SCSU venue.
I probably had warmer feelings toward those hallways at Halenbeck Hall where the little fraternity of joggers on campus - the barriers came down between students and faculty - plied their hobby.
The new SCSU football season will begin on September 4 at Augustana College. The Huskies are picked by Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) coaches to finish third in conference and second in the league's North Division.
The University of Minnesota-Morris Cougars used to be in the NSIC. The Cougars used to be able to defeat St. Cloud State. I was at Selke Field in 1980, working in the news media (and right down on the sidelines) when this happened. Eventually the landscape changed pretty drastically and UMM went through an excruciating dry spell in football.
But UMM might have the last laugh because football appears certain to at least survive here.
But is it really on the chopping block at SCSU?
I would suggest that the moon is more likely to fall out of the sky.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

The mixed bag we feel holding a job

John F. Kennedy was once making his campaign rounds at a blue collar bastion - let's say it was a mine - and stuck out his hand to greet the common folk. Kennedy was a Democrat so this was his element. But he also carried with him a reputation of being aristocratic. He was from a "blue blood" family.
There was a memorable exchange where a miner seemed initially standoffish.
"I heard that you've never worked a day in your life," the miner said to JFK.
The politician paused for a moment and then said "you know, I suppose that's right."
Whereupon the miner smiled, stuck out his hand and said "well, you're not missing anything."
There is a growing feeling in America that work is a miserable proposition. We can ponder the old famous quote: "The majority of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
As a working person you stay quiet because you don't want to be a whiner. Your pride might prevent you from venting around friends or family.
People will say "I love my job" but they would quit in a heartbeat if they won the lottery.
I once read where lottery winners begin to get an odd feeling of social isolation which can actually bring sadness. Sad? When you're set for life? The problem is that most people have to work in order to make money to live. When you win the lottery you're not like them anymore.
Many lottery winners have had working class friends all their lives. They don't mix well with blue bloods. But if given the choice, we'd take the lottery.
Friendships in the workplace can themselves seem odd. Back when the Gannett (newspaper) company was laying off lots of people, where was a blog where people could vent, and I came across a typical lament: "My former co-workers aren't my friends anymore. I thought they were my friends." (I paraphrase.)
I'm reminded of 1960s baseball pitcher Jim Bouton writing about when he was cut from the roster of a team. I don't have to paraphrase here because the quote is vivid: "I felt a wall, invisible but real, forming around me."
I have been unemployed for just over four years and have felt my own share of isolation. Occasionally I get a pleasant surprise when someone with whom I associated (through work) befriends me.
I'm not talking about co-workers, with whom there's an unavoidable curtain, but members of the general public. Like a car salesman with whom I once dealt on a weekly basis.
I was walking home along Columbia Avenue one day, on the north end of Morris, when he pulled up beside me. Car salesmen are perhaps the most perceptive and intuitive of people. It's a natural inclination for people who seek top dollar in sales.
As a custom, you (the prospective customer) have to try to hold your own.
But my basic feeling about car salesmen is favorable. I admire their unfailing insights about human nature.
And this was no ordinary car salesman. It was Tony O'Keefe, who is no longer with us. This fleeting encounter with Mr. O'Keefe was the last I ever had with him. I'm so thankful it happened.
We engaged in the usual friendly talk and through the course of it, he asked about my employment status if any. Projecting a feeling of guilt - car salesmen don't miss anything - I said no, I wasn't working. Tony in effect shrugged. He said "well, do you have to work?"
I said "well, at this stage of my life, no." He smiled and said "well, don't," showing candor just like that miner did with JFK. "You don't work unless you have to."
It struck like a thud when I heard that Tony passed away. I couldn't imagine anyone else at his desk at Morris Auto Plaza.
There was such a huge crowd around Pedersen Funeral Home for the visitation, I couldn't get in. But it really didn't matter because, as my cousin Tom Williams, who has clergy credentials, would say: "Tony is gone. This is just a body."
I knew I'd see other family members in due course and keep up my friendship with them. Such as Tony's father Mike, who can be found along the counter at DeToy's Restaurant very early in the morning when the darkness is thick outside.
Mike was a stalwart car salesman for Arvid Beyer and then for the company that succeeded Arvid. When Mike departed from the latter, I'm not convinced he was fully prepared to do so. Many of us move on from jobs through a kind of gray area. Maybe we should attribute it all to sheer fate.
Yes, the world of work is truly a mixed bag. We try to like it. We say we like it. We act like we're friends with co-workers. But is it all just a charade? We work because we have to, as Tony pointed out using his inborn sage nature. (Car salesmen are born and not made?)
The huge leaps in technology have made the working world tougher. This is because so much of the tedium that was once associated with work has been eliminated.
So what's left? What's left is the work that requires judgment, analysis and education. A lot of people at the margins of society are being left behind.
At age 55 I'm just too old to make a lot of the adjustments. So I'm not sure what lies ahead. But I'm hardly alone. White males in their 50s have been hit hard by the recession.
Women who complain about historically being paid less should be thankful. By accepting lower pay they have a greater likelihood of keeping their jobs.
I normally abhor Bill O'Reilly of Fox News but he was right on, when saying "gone are the days when you could get a job by just showing up."
Work today requires specific skills. Again I'm concerned about people at the margins of society.
Here I must credit another deceased individual who was well-known in Stevens County: Erland Charles. Charles was known as a perceptive and articulate person and was once a delegate to a national political convention. We were sitting at the now-defunct Hardee's Restaurant one morning.
Everything I just wrote about the troubles coming for the so-called "marginal people" was basically just a paraphrase of what Erland told me. He acknowledged that technology has its obvious upside. Why do you think we develop it?
But. . . "You have to manage it," Erland said, "and a lot of people aren't going to be able to cut it. Look around this restaurant (at people who might face that difficulty)."
People up in years with limited education or obsolete skills, are going to face a tough road. I'm riding the same freight car as them.
When I was a kid we'd joke about how being a "carry out boy" was a last-resort type of job. We might call them "flunky" jobs. Let's retire that term because today, any job has demands that had better get your attention.
And besides, grocery stores are taking a hard look at whether they should even continue carry-out. They have to compete with Wal-Mart.
So you'd better be darn thankful for a job like that. And even those "checkout gals" in grocery stores had better watch their backs. Because tech could wipe out their positions eventually. Reportedly this is already starting to happen.
Are all these people going to be able to land on their feet doing something else? This is precisely what Mr. Charles was worried about.
All of these developments are chipping away at the storied "middle class" in America, that wonderful institution put in place in the years following WWII - a world of manageable and generally easy-to-comprehend job requirements.
Today it's a frenetic world that causes people like Steven Slater (the flight attendant) to become unhinged. The Slater incident should be a wakeup call to the issues I'm presenting in this blog post.
What kind of world, truly, are we headed into?
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Harvin, Rice and Favre: what outcome?

I wish Percy Harvin's biggest problem was that he listens to too much country music. That way he'd be having heartaches instead of headaches. The mercurial wide receiver finally arrived for pre-season today (Monday) after taking what seemed like a sabbatical because of the death of a family member.
The Vikings organization has gained more sensitivity on these matters. That's because of their experience with Troy Williamson.
The organization learned greater empathy because of Williamson. Vikings fans would have had greater empathy for the man had he proven better at catching the football. Seriously though we grieve with anyone who has lost a loved one.
Back to the present and the Harvin subject: Reports have surfaced that his problem with migraines, which came to our attention last season, have re-surfaced. It's a supreme letdown for Minnesota Vikings fans.
Long-time NFL fans know, however, that it's too much to expect for your nucleus of key players to show up without incident or complication and proceed to follow the winning script.
We have another complication with another key Vikings receiver: Sidney Rice. This much we know: Rice has a hip problem. The extent of it is the huge question.
Rice, who had his breakout season last year and built special chemistry with QB Brett Favre, will arguably be underpaid for the coming season. Few pro athletes will shrug and accept that state of affairs. It's possible that a sweetening of the pot for Rice, contract-wise, will speed up the healing of that hip. Or make Rice more willing to play with a minor problem.
A problem like Rice's can be expected with a team like the Vikings, coming off a season with such a superb won-lost record. A lot of individuals had to excel for that kind of record to be achieved. It's unlikely that all of those individuals will subsequently find their contracts to be adequate. The "show me the money" refrain starts.
The NFL isn't dynasty-friendly anymore. The best teams usually catch lightning in a bottle with a mix of proven players and young surprises. Keeping a nucleus together for an extended time is a headache just like Harvin's.
The issues with Harvin and Rice create a third, much more sensational problem. Will Brett Favre feel enticed to come back if his two top wide receivers have huge question marks hovering over them?
Favre is not the kind of player who can just join any NFL team and inject the winning ingredient. He does has savvy and the kind of intangibles that one associates with "talent." We saw that at the end of the San Francisco game last year.
But he is very far up in age now. More than ever he needs that solid nucleus around him.
It's one reason he found the Vikings appealing to begin with. Without Harvin and Rice, it appears the Vikes would have a most pedestrian group of receivers. Frankly I wonder if Favre would consider coming back at all.
On Saturday the Vikings played their first pre-season game. A couple of weeks ago I actually took the trouble to watch part of the Hall of Fame Game - the annual start-of-season exhibition. For starved football fans, these season debut games are irresistible despite the fact that they're like drinking weak hot chocolate. It's interesting that the NFL, which is probably the premier pro sports league, begins and ends each season with such tepid attractions: the Hall of Fame Game and the Pro Bowl.
I had greater than usual interest in the Hall of Fame Game this year because it included the Dallas Cowboys, the favorite team of my waitress Felicia at DeToy's Restaurant in Morris. I need to stay well-versed on the Cowboys or I might get scolded by her.
Getting a Vikings fan to be interested in the Cowboys is a special challenge. Fans of my generation (boomers) have some unpleasant memories of purple conquests vs. Dallas. Tom Landry and that infernal hat of his - can you imagine a young coach wearing a hat like that? - is burned into the purple consciousness as a nemesis.
The "immaculate reception" gave us a hangover that may have lasted until our baseball Twins won the World Series in 1987. The Twins solved a lot with that success. The Vikes had lost four Super Bowls and the Twins lost the 1965 World Series. The '87 World Series just seemed to make things right.
Although I feel sorry for Harmon Killebrew.
Coach Landry and his retro hat gave way to Jimmy Johnson, whose picture could appear next to the word "feisty" in the dictionary. (Or course, print dictionaries are dying just like the Yellow Pages thanks to the Internet.)
Johnson might have the same hairstylist as Rod Blagojevich. He fits in perfectly today with those game-day panelists on TV who discuss highlights in a way that seems so free-flowing and spontaneous but which I'm sure is painstakingly crafted.
Terry Bradshaw is a master at that, although the older he gets, the more he reminds me of the Peter Boyle character in "Young Frankenstein."
Howie Long is the straight man.
Bill Parcells appeared to be installed for a lengthy tour of duty with Dallas, but he was dismissed after the infamous Tony Romo fumbled snap on a kick attempt. It's curious how fate works. Just like when Tarvaris Jackson was ceremoniously benched as Vikings quarterback (in favor of true journeyman Gus Frerotte) after a game in which Visanthe Shiancoe dropped a sure TD pass that would have beaten Peyton Manning and the Colts. Was Jackson on the verge of a breakthrough in that game? We'll never know. Frerotte came and went.
Now we have the Brett Favre circus, which we'll find entertaining until the purple fortunes fade. Without Harvin and Rice, the outlook is most clouded. If Adrian Peterson fumbles a couple of games away, the boos will come cascading.
By far the most interesting thing about the Vikings' first pre-season game was the showing of Joe Webb, the sixth-round draft pick. Quarterback Webb looks like a much quicker version of Daunte Culpepper. Assuming Favre does play, the Vikes will have to dispose of (or deactivate) either Sage Rosenfels or Jackson, because three QBs are the maximum and Vikes fans will insist on keeping Webb.
I would like to see Webb play an entire pre-season game even if he shows some rough edges. If he has a rough stretch, just have him complete a couple of passes under the coverage and prop his stats back up.
The Vikings may not have reached the Super Bowl last year but we trounced Dallas in the playoffs. Faint consolation.
The swashbuckling Romo has yet to look like a playoff quarterback. Felicia at DeToy's will surely hope that he'll get that monkey off his back. She has been quite excited about the Cowboys' top draft pick, "Dez" Bryant. Bryant made news in the pre-season by saying to heck with rookie hazing. He has a mind of his own but he might be able to contain this trait better than Terrell Owens.
So, Owens is now playing with Cincinnati? The same team that already has the eccentric Chad Ocho Cinco? My only question is this: Who's going to play the role of Curly?
Let's get past this pre-season and get to the "real deal!"
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

Dayton, his dogs to reach finish line together

Harry Truman once said that if you want a friend in Washington D.C., "get a dog." Bud Grant said that one of the great things about having a dog is that "as long as you feed him, he's your friend." The threshold should be so reasonable for most of our human companions.
The iconic coach Grant likes hunting dogs. He's iconic but he lost four Super Bowls. By any criteria he was at the top of his profession, but people remember the four "super" setbacks. I'm sure coach Grant came home to his dogs each time and found them delighted to see him. Unconditional affection. As long as you feed them.
Now we have a political controversy, really just a passing kerfuffle, here in Minnesota involving dogs. I'm sure "Mesabi" and "Dakota" didn't want to enter the public spotlight. These are the dogs of Mark Dayton who I'm sure prizes them. They are grand German Shepherds. This was the breed showcased many years ago in the TV show "Rin Tin Tin."
Some people refer to German Shepherds as "police dogs."
The kerfuffle grew out of an incident on August 12. Democrat Dayton, freshly crowned with the DFL gubernatorial nod, held a press conference at the State Capitol. He probably wishes he had had his dogs at his side. Remember Richard Nixon's "Checkers speech?"
Nixon, for all his faults, had the political instincts to know that a charming dog might help people dismiss troubling issues connected to him.
Nixon was just vice president at the time and the nickname "Tricky Dick" was long from being coined. "Ike" Eisenhower ran the steady ship of state.
Dayton held his press conference while his dogs were out in the car. In this day and age of political "tracking," you don't dare even leave a too-small tip at a restaurant. (Are you reading this, Tom Emmer?) Any alleged indiscretion will get reported and have the potential to go "viral."
Dayton's alleged indiscretion with his dogs is exhibit "A" of how the new media (sometimes folded in with the traditional media) can be an annoying gadfly for politicians. The allegation, of course, is that the outside temperature was too hot for dogs to be kept in a car.
The Emmer camp was quick to trot out the "erratic behavior" accusation toward Dayton. The political silly season is setting in. It's problematic for the old media which are supposed to sift through the reams of information out there and report what's relevant. Often an ideological niche website or blog can cause enough of a ruckus to get a story at least on the periphery of the mainstream media. This is what happened with the Dayton/dogs story.
Political "tracking" yielded some gold nuggets, for a day or two anyway, for Republicans.
There are lots of dog lovers out there like yours truly. A story like this might well stick in your craw. I doubt that Dayton would feel his judgment was perfect in this case. But he was not oblivious to the dogs' welfare.
The "other side of the story" has it that the car was parked in the shade with windows open for the first half-hour, and then a staffer was dispatched to turn on the air conditioning.
Republicans pushed the "viral" potential and very soon we saw a Facebook group sprout: "Dog owners and lovers for Emmer." Which makes me realize that Betty White was probably right on, when she suggested on Saturday Night Live that Facebook is "a big waste of time."
To suggest that Republican Emmer is a more feeling person than Dayton makes me want to laugh harder than the Saturday Night Live audience.
The Humane Society says there is no safe temperature to leave your pets in the car. As a rule of thumb that's nice to observe, but real life calls for discretion sometimes. Dayton was totally aware of the welfare of his grand animals.
People who say there should be a law against leaving children unattended in a car should be asked: What about when you have to leave the car to pay for gas at a gas station? We must allow for discretion, and I wish this dictum had remained for seat belt use!
It's one thing to suggest seat belts in the Twin Cities where driving can entail real hazards on any given day. But here in Mayberry (Morris), where a typical motorist might be going just a few blocks to get a gallon of milk at Willie's?
And the fines seem more onerous out here where the average yearly income is lower. We ought to start a movement to get the state to lighten up on seat belt enforcement. And no, I haven't received a citation myself.
There is a law on the books about pets and vehicles. It's state statute 346.57 which reads: "A person may not leave a dog or a cat unattended in a standing or parked motor vehicle in a manner that endangers the dog's or cat's health or safety."
There is a lot of room for judgment there. Most of our domestic animals should just be thankful to have masters. Us masters must recognize our responsibility that comes with pet ownership. In the broad picture, "Mesabi" and "Dakota" are fortunate to have Mark Dayton as their owner.
This whole story makes me want to get familiar with these big wonderful animals.
This media story will prove to be the proverbial "blip" so typical in the Internet age. Emmer would love to see a similar fate for the story about the Target boycott. Attention pet owners: Don't buy your pet supplies at Target.
I wrote long ago that Dayton was likely to "put on his cape" and run for Minnesota governor. I'm proud of how I characterized it now. It will take a significant effort to defeat the Republicans and their crazed friends at Fox News, who have such a pied piper effect with so many shallow people.
I feel sorry for Margaret Anderson Kelliher who actually got my vote. But Dayton bypassed the endorsement process (a sticky issue for DFLers) and now he may be flying, adorned with cape, to the governor's mansion.
I first met Dayton at a house party in Morris way back when he was starting to build his political stock in Minnesota. Certainly this was the early 1980s. I had an immediate favorable impression. The handshake and eye contact were endearing.
Many years later, when my newspaper career was soon to crash on the shoals, I crossed paths with him again. His visit here, to Morris Area Elementary School, was coordinated by teacher Ken Gagner. The eye contact and handshake hadn't changed a bit.
I doubt he remembered me, although I should note that had this been Bill Clinton, based on what I've read, he would have remembered me!
Dayton is up to the battles that await him on the campaign trail. The "dog" story will barely be a trivia item when it's over. I wish him luck and extend my regards to "Mesabi" and "Dakota," who now relish getting back into the background I'm sure.
-Brian Williams - morris mn Minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com