Old boomer friends visit back home in Morris

Camaraderie from bygone times: Peter, Scott and Del

The years inexorably roll along and MHS alumni of a certain vintage continue to show exuberance. Isn't that evident in the faces you see in the image here?
Two 1972 MHS grads pose with a compatriot one year older. From left: Peter Timmons, Scott Reese and Del Sarlette. Del of Sarlettes Music is the '71 grad. The photo was taken at the store.
As suggested by Peter's clothing, the visitors were back in their home area to hunt. The wet weather on this day - the norm lately of course - had them looking for other options. Pete and Scott do a lot of hunting together: turkeys, pheasants and ducks.
Our part of the state can be a magnet for hunting. What we might lack in urbanity we make up for with game birds! I think Del is a pacifist.
Your blog host is a contemporary of these dudes.
 
Inculcated in music when young
Don't we all remember who played the bass clarinet in our high school band? Timmons wore that mantle. Often we'd play a different instrument in marching band, and in Timmons' case he pounded the bass drum. Our marching band would totally wow the public if it was transported via time machine to today. The decline of Prairie Pioneer Days has prompted its cancellation as a summer event. If only that marching band could be present to march down 7th Street, everyone would be so invigorated. I would venture to say we'd be awestruck. And Scott Reese played the trumpet. Scott's dad cut hair.
Peter's mom had distinction in the political sphere. As I recall, she was a delegate to the Democratic national convention on behalf of Shirley Chisholm, the bold and pioneering African-American woman.

Peter Timmons as lawyer

Morris legend has it that Peter got left behind when the marching band buses came back to Morris once. And I do believe that director John Woell had to personally go back and get him, accompanied by a rather nonplussed father of Peter.
Marching band would be such an exciting and wholesome activity for our kids today. No one has to "win" or "lose" like in sports. (No legal appeal to get reinstated from suspension after you've practically knocked out an opponent in football, eh?) In summer we get to see the Irondale marching band from the Twin Cities area come here for intensive rehearsals and a public exhibition at Big Cat Stadium.
I try making constructive suggestions for more activities like this. And, I have tried arguing for keeping Prairie Pioneer Days a summer event. We hear the argument that "Morris gets dead in summer." So the solution is what? To cancel the one event that injected some special life in this community? Truly I am not on the same wavelength as so many Morris people.
 
"An elephant is honest"
How wonderful to have Peter and Scott "back in the neighborhood" again. Scott was also here for services for the late Barb Stevenson. The Class of '72 had other personalities - for example Steven "Skip" Sherstad - who would be worthy of more recollections sometime. Let's acknowledge Mark Lammers - our sympathies go out to Mark because of the very recent passing of his mom Dolores. Mark's father was Ray who was an early fixture in helping get UMM going. Ray's forte: theater. And, guess what Mark's forte was in school: theater! He might be surprised to know that I remember his speech that had the refrain "an elephant's honest 100 percent." I heard him give that at the old (now razed) elementary auditorium.
Update: We learn of another death of a Class of '72 parent, Patty LaFave, mom of Joe. Condolences to Joe.
The '72 class along with my '73 group had its education at the height of the boomer years. Our numbers were teeming. Our parents celebrated the prosperity of the immediate post-war years. Skip Sherstad was a long-time public servant with a reputation of winning squeaker elections. It's possible that his old Northridge Drive, where my family resided, put him over the top! Skip died too young.
 
Some more name-dropping
I might have seen Matt Watzke recently but he was not back for his mother Dorothy's funeral. Matt was a '72 class member, one year older than my classmate Tom Watzke. Tom seems almost alarmed at how I can remember obscure details of the "old days." The most fun I've ever had at a reunion, was for the '87 all-school event that had Tom and I in a group of 6-7 just "doing the town."
The biggest character in the '72 class was Tom Erickson. Sometimes four or five such conspicuous personalities can give a class its overall image. Silly rabbit, the large majority of any graduating class are kids pretty much the same from year to year. The '73 class has survived me being associated with them. The '73 class motto was "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead."
The local radio big shot Deb Mattheis (nee Driggins) was a Class of '72 member! Deb was an ingenue in high school. I remember when she came forward to speak into a microphone for a pep fest and the mike wasn't cooperating. Some kids sized up that the problem was that Deb had her hand on the mike. So we heard shouts of "take your hand off the mike." Then after a pause, Del Sarlette shouted "take it off!"
Del was in the '71 class and did a lot to keep the school newspaper interesting. The paper was called "Tinta Wasota." That's Native American language, what we would have called "Indian language." The most proper term today might be "indigenous people." The Land O' Lakes company is feeling pressure now to drop its "Indian maiden" logo. Land O' Lakes is catching hell for having given money to the campaign of Nazi panderer Steven King of Iowa.
The content of the "Tinta" was not always conventional. We saw the caption "Lucky Lindor grabs pass" for a sports photo. Keith Lindor was a '71 grad and has gone on to be one of the most brilliant medical minds in the world, having served for a time as dean of the Mayo Clinic Medical School. I grew up next to him: terrible luck as I would inevitably develop an inferiority complex. His sister Laurie went on to be a doctor too.
 

UMM honoree Marilyn Strand w/ Del Sarlette

Of Marilyn "Hazel" Strand, Tom Erickson
The Class of '72 got a big shout-out recently with honors announced in connection to the UMM Homecoming. You might say "hometown girl makes good." Dr. Marilyn Strand received the 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award.
Marilyn was a trumpet player back in a time when the instrument was associated pretty closely with the male gender. Girls were attracted to flute and clarinet. My late mother Martha also played trumpet (along with violin) back when I'm sure it was even more rare. I played alongside a female trumpeter in 1972, Joan Force of Marion IA, who was superb. Not sure why the old gender associations seemed so fixed.
Marilyn showed behavior that reflected the movie "Five Easy Pieces" starring Jack Nicholson. Remember Jack ordering some toast? Anyway, Marilyn decided not to be passive in band rehearsal one day. Out of the blue she said "that's no way to teach," directed at John Woell who could be rather authoritarian. I'm not sure what the backstory was there. John made no comment but he suspended rehearsal for the rest of the hour. I remember Marilyn a.k.a. "Hazel" wearing a neck brace for some of her time in high school. She was a fine trumpet player.
I remember Tom Erickson singing the song "There's a Hole in the Bucket" at the elementary auditorium. He was an extroverted fellow. In high school he was excited to get the assignment of interviewing football coach Jim Satter going into the new season. Wasn't Satter rather an under-achieving coach? He later coached with UMM. I remember being in a class with Tom under the tutelage of Stan Kent in high school. Tom began joking one day about how a student might get "extra credit" in sex ed. class. This seemed funny for a time until Kent clearly decided he'd had enough of it. Kent bellowed "that's very UN-funny!" whereupon we all became very stoic. Chad Swanson, another '72 class member, was there and remembers I'm sure.
Kent was very nice to me, the opposite of Gene Mechelke.
 
We came, we saw, we passed classes!
In sum: the boomers of Morris lived a blessed life in many ways, albeit with some bumps in the road. Students of varying needs did not necessarily have special needs met. We all had to try to grind our way through the system. There was bullying, horseplay and ridiculous peer pressure to "party." There was no FFA or girls sports. Imagine a world with no girls sports.
An 'A' grade was difficult to achieve most of the time. The 'A' honor roll was for a very elite sliver of kids, not at all like today. I like today's system better.

Scott Reese in his Morris Boy Scout days

School for the boomers seemed designed to beat down our self-esteem. Education was once set up to conform to the industrial age model. A "job" in those days lacked fulfillment in many ways. We spoke of drudgery and boredom, of hating your boss, of trying to stretch your weekend, of consuming alcohol on the weekend as an escape etc. It's not like today where it's expected you'll feel passion for your work. Today's jobs have stress but not drudgery so much.
Us 60-somethings might overlook some bad aspects of growing up as boomers. Bullying was a cloud. People with special needs and gay people had to pull themselves up by the bootstraps. You'd get teased if you had a foreign-sounding name. Life is never a bowl of cherries. But, look at the expressions on the faces of people in the images with this blog post. We have had more than our share of enjoyment of life. Even while playing the bass clarinet.
Dave Raasch was in the '72 class, and so was Jon Fellows, son of popular counselor Don Fellows. Brian Henjum is remembered as a legend Little League pitcher. Robin Dunnum played the oboe. Like a snowflake, that class was unique.
 

The image at right shows Joe LaFave along the Gunflint Trail in 1968. He points out bear tracks and a tear on his tent. Del Sarlette the photographer explains: "The story alleges that Joe had stashed some candy in his tent, against the 'suggestion' of Scoutmaster Sandy Munson. A bear sniffed it out while we were out on a canoe trip." Again, our condolences to Joe on the loss of his mom Patty.



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