Oh for a hot sandwich on this early Sunday morning

Yawn. We are into the netherworld of the period between Christmas and New Year's. I believe "post-Christmas letdown" is a thing. I attended public school in a time when we really relished "Christmas vacation" or any other type of break actually. And that is because we were subjected to way too spartan a regimen. 

Today schools have to be more customer-friendly. The customers being both the parents and the kids. Accommodative, pleasant, not miserable. Public schools had a sense of monopoly when I was young. That is always bad news. Bad things are guaranteed to happen. 

My point here is that kids today really won't mind getting back into their school routine. It makes too much sense really: to have school be reasonably enjoyable for the kids. Well I'm happy for them. My generation grew up with the boys petrified with fear over being forced to go over to Vietnam. You parents of today: I hope you appreciate how much better you have it. Like night and day better. 

Anyway, it is Sunday morning of this netherworld situation where we are between Christmas and New Year's. It isn't enough for life to screech to a halt for Christmas itself, we find excuses to keep going slow. If it's for the sake of spending more time with family and relatives, that's quite fine. Many people like me are subject to a feeling of isolation. We feel disrupted when our normal routines cannot be followed. 

 

Oven gremlins?

One of my routines is to go to Willie's early Sunday morning and get a couple hot sandwiches for breakfast with coffee. There's guaranteed repartee with others at the "cafe" there. For the second Sunday in a row I struck out on being able to get the hot sandwiches. Last Sunday I settled for a cold one. Not this time. 

It's a short walk over to DeToy's. Sometimes that restaurant gets a bad rap. I consider it a blessing and a very reliable blessing, although I think the exterior of the building needs some work. I'm enough of an old-timer to remember when it opened as "Country Kitchen." It was a franchise. 

I am puzzled why Caribou Coffee at Willie's has had a non-functioning oven for so long. Many weeks it has been. I can't help but guess, like to guess that maybe Paul should have bought a service contract and did not. I have witnessed this kind of thing at a business where I once worked. Ahem, you might surmise. That's the way the ball bounces. I don't think the Morrisons were ready to enter an age where you're expected to plow $ into one generation after another of tech stuff. 

I wonder if Willie's Super Valu is just in a slowdown between the two holidays. We see this sort of thing all over. Last Sunday there was just one table of people for church coffee when I arrived at my First Lutheran. Upon commenting, I was told - you guessed it - that it was so close to Christmas Eve. My purportedly logical mind did not just accept that. Christmas Eve was two days away, Christmas Day three days away, so why would people be leaving early to visit relatives? Wouldn't they leave on Wednesday morning? 

A friend responded to my funk by saying there's an apparent implicit assumption that everyone would be leaving Morris. In contrast, would we not expect this to balance out with local people's relatives coming HERE to visit? We laughed. 

My photo of Morris water tower

We end up assuming that there is always an outflow, never an inflow. A cynic might say "this is Morris." 

I have joked in the past that our water tower should have the words "we're going to be gone" on it. Ask about people's whereabouts in the summer and on holidays and you'll year they're "gone." 

Odd way of expressing it really, as "gone" does not specify any actual place or destination. It really only means that you will NOT be somewhere. 

But we all get the message: so-and-so found something better to do than to be in Morris or to attend church here, especially the "bland" churches of First Lutheran, Faith Lutheran and Federated. We do not exist to promote Republican politics and Donald Trump. 

 

Another "netherworld"

Speaking of "netherworld" we are in the half-ass period between the election and the inauguration. ABC News has "donated" $15 million to help pay for the inauguration. Isn't that nice? We cannot stop the "Trump train." It's a matter now of just hunkering down to prepare for the so-called "shit show" that the second DJT presidency will bring. It wasn't enough to elect him once. 

All I can do is observe. I'm ready to observe another wave of inflation which would be guaranteed from Trump's policy suggestions. Unless it's all just talk which it well could be. The media actually acts naive. Or maybe they are happy just to be fed so much sensational stuff by the Orange Man. Most of us act indifferent now. 

A large majority of us churchgoers out in western Minnesota voted Trump. I have to hope that we can survive this.

 

Right on cue. . .

After Christmas we get reminded of the netherworld between holidays by certain news stories. I can't help but be depressed by these: the "year in review" stories, the galleries of famous people who died in the past year, the item about the "hot new word" that became fashionable in the past year. 

"Mr. Blackwell"

And in past times we would get "Mr. Blackwell's List." My do you remember that? Why did the media go for this? "Mr. Blackwell's list" was the notoriously sexist list of "the worst-dressed women." The list just happened to be of the most famous American women at the time. The story has been retired to historical annals so that people like me might bring it up. "Mr.  Blackwell's list." 

Sports slows down but if you're lucky your favorite local basketball team will be in a holiday tournament. I got a good start writing online about the MACA boys basketball team this season. But of late I have been stopped in my tracks: the coaching staff decided not to bother posting game stats on "Maxpreps." I might have to fall back on covering Minnewaska Area girls basketball. I'm always happy to write about area prep sports. Keeps me feeling relevant. 

 

The quest for breakfast

I should mention that the Willie's deli often offers hot sandwiches in the morning that are separate from Caribou. It's been no dice the last two weeks. This morning I simply had to leave and take the short walk over to Detoy's. Bless Detoy's for helping this isolated soul: me. 

So here's this big store, Willie's, with "Foods" in its name and I have to walk out and go to DeToy's. Sometimes these days I wonder if Willie's is starting to cut some corners. People in the food business I'm sure are seeing their prices go up, then they have to wrestle with whether they should raise prices on their customers. 

I have a problem with Willie's in that it's a monopoly for the county, it really is. And I will assert that no monopoly business will perform as well as one that has to stay sharp with competition.

Happy ending: I had a nice omelette and toast at DeToy's, so to be sharp for writing this blog post hopefully. 

A wonderful family Christmas photo, what the holiday is all about! This is the family of our beloved Morris Area High band director Wanda Dagen who you see at right. Don't miss the dog! The Christmas tree in back makes clear the spirit of the season. Yours truly is happy to be associated with the MAHS instrumental music program and to make an occasional financial gesture. I helped with the New Orleans trip, took some of the pressure off for the "fund-raisers."
 

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