We seek to follow the most sensible policies, knowing that total relief from health anxiety may be nigh impossible. And there's the old saying of how "the perfect is the enemy of the good." Frankly we'd like to flirt with perfection. The people who have "resisted" the vaccine are probably chasing shadows. What does it take to satisfy them?
We hear of political Republicans being such an obstacle. Men primarily. So weird that politics enters in. Maybe the inevitably improving spring weather will be like a lifting of the shroud. The ominous shroud of the pandemic and restrictions that have hovered for so long. So, is the moderating weather like a liberating effect?
You know what I found liberating? Last night's rainbow. I walked home from a visit to the MACA softball game. At that point I hadn't yet seen Mother Nature's magic with the rainbow. I became curious about if the softball game had gotten called because of rain. I actually assumed it had been. But a check of YouTube showed the game most definitely continuing. Still no graphics on the screen. The telecasts for softball are probably still a work in progress.
Adaptation to the new field is somewhat of a work in progress, if not for the players then for the fans. I have no doubt that our MACA team will do fine competitively. Terrific in fact. With that as a given, I'm curious how the public is taking to the new facility. If you check my blogs - thanks if the answer is yes - you know this has been a subject of considerable interest for me.
Message of peace, reassurance?
On YouTube we saw Friday's action continuing past the little rainfall. And you know what can happen as a rainfall subsides. A rainbow! An absolutely beautiful rainbow appeared on my YouTube screen. It got all my attention for a couple minutes. So I came to think maybe the spectacle was symbolic. One could easily deduce as much: the peace and splendor of a rainbow in the aftermath of a rainfall. Only God could weave such a sight.
And we wonder now with the masks in retreat, might God usher in new circumstances for living, circumstances in line with what we'd consider "normal?" During normal times we wouldn't think in terms of normal. But after the profound disruptions of the past year, we most definitely have a taste for what "normal" is, and would give thanks to God for it.
We're like the generation in the aftermath of the Great Depression. These people, the parents of my boomer generation, would never take normal stable economic times for granted again. We in the year 2021 will never take mask-free times for granted. Illness of varying kinds will always be out and around. We'll hear of influenza outbreaks. Actually we could practically wipe those out if we kept wearing masks. But I don't think that's the route we want to go.
Face it, life can be fragile. The fragility makes me wonder about all the people who felt they had to be defensive about the vaccine. What a tragedy. So many of these people were "wired" to admire Donald Trump and watch the likes of Fox News. Those who needed a "stronger dose" than Fox came to like OANN and Newsmax. The rules around Fox News' own headquarters reflected total respect for the virus and its dangers. Has Tucker Carlson actually gotten the vaccine? I guess he hasn't said publicly.
Any U.S. president other than Trump would have facilitated the proper preventive measures much faster.
It appears we have a local covid casualty who resisted the vaccine. We have been through so much needless distress. We have a congressperson now who is a Trump loyalist. We have a state representative who has said he won't get the vaccine. Is it true our state senator is like-minded? They're Republicans. Times can change but at present, a majority out here have heads buried in sand and just vote Republican. Did all this start because of homophobia a few years ago? So dangerous that this one narrow and quite unnecessary issue could lead us down a path of so many ramifications.
Beware autocracy
Trump is an aspiring autocrat and he'll be starting his rallies again soon, or so I have read. To be carried live on Fox News, I presume. My fear is that the next iteration of "Trump worship" could go full Nazi. His ascent has defeated the odds and flown in the sense of normal good judgment all along. So I cannot bet against him, bet against his vision of a Nazi-like hold on power. He will stop at nothing.
And we still have a big blue "Trump-Pence" sign out by the highway on the north end of town by Greeley Plumbing. Again, not to say Greeley's has anything to do with it.
Apparently the Chamber of Commerce has actually moved out to Greeley's. I thought someone was pulling my leg at first. It just didn't seem natural for the Chamber to be so closely associated with a particular business. But I suppose it can work and maybe even give a competitive edge to Greeley's? Just a thought. I don't know for a fact that they are not connected to the big Trump-Pence sign.
"Keep America great, eh?" That was the motive behind the U.S. capitol uprising. People keep watching the likes of Fox News and they find justification for the attempted insurrection.
In the face of all the disturbing stuff like this, we have the wondrous rainbow of Friday night, a spectacle transcending time itself. Meanwhile the Tigers were playing softball. As of this morning I cannot find details of the game anywhere except for the score: 16-1 win vs. Monte. Our local commercial news media should get with it: find a way to get their usual reports in front of the public after the Friday games. The newspaper website is loaded with Cougar stuff.
I readily worked weekends in my years with the Morris newspaper. I didn't even draw a line with Sunday. Maybe it was a mistake because it got sports parents' expectations raised too high. Sports parents are a particular animal within the human race. Recognizable spots, yes. We have a love/hate relationship with them. Their "blinders" are famous.
I was attacked twice in letters to the editor by people who suggested I was lazy. And yet I bypassed church through all the years I was with the paper. I'd go to my church of First Lutheran to take a photo of something like "New Wine" occasionally. But to just attend? No one considered that a possibility for me. Only after leaving the paper, when expectations were lifted from my shoulders, could I just show up and mind my own business.
The Morris paper published twice a week during all the years when I was there. High school sports itself went through a lot of changes in that time. While the ever-increasing sports offerings were a good thing, it put the newspaper scribes in a stressful situation of trying to keep up.
Today? I can write selectively today. I have no obligations. I answer to no one. I can relax and feel some bliss. Would I like to go back to the old routine? I probably would if I could. Maybe I'm like the retired general character in the movie "White Christmas." Remember when Bing Crosby read the letter back to him?
Credentials? Well, yes
Do I have a foundation for commenting about the new softball field? I certainly can't claim to be a parent. But I can claim having covered Morris softball for the newspaper over a very long time. I think I had to give it up for a time when we had a school administrator who wanted to wrest it from me. I shifted to driving the company van a good share of the time.
As a writer I had picked up some pretty serious "baggage" from a community controversy over prep sports in the late 1980s. If you weren't here then, you wouldn't believe it if I told you about it, really.
I hung in there into 2006, which in my mind doesn't seem so long ago. Therefore I don't consider my car old - it's a 2004. I look back to "Y2K" of 2000 and even that doesn't seem so long ago in my mind.
I traveled to cover the Morris softball Tigers in various state tournaments such as at St. Cloud (more than once), Fridley and Mankato. I had a felt tip pen that exploded in my pocket at Mankato. I remember staying at the Country Suites Hotel in Coon Rapids for the Fridley event.
I traveled to section tournaments like in Pillager, considered kind of a pain with its distance to travel. If I remember right, Morris and Minnewaska made an appeal to have the games closer to here. Appeal denied. I believe I rode with the Exner family to Pillager. It warmed my heart to look down the road and see the El-Ray truck stop which I hadn't seen in years. Looked like a whole new building. Change just sweeps me away.
I remember the Pillager field having nothing special - it was like a ball field at a school playground. My memory tells me that the Pillager people were pressured into having some sort of concession sales for day 2. It seemed like a mere card table, maybe with hot dogs? I pay attention to concessions.
I covered Morris High School softball for the Morris paper in the program's very first year. Jimmy Carter was president. Nobody can ever take those memories away from me.
Keep Friday's rainbow in your thoughts and hope for better times and "normality" (or normalcy).
Addendum: "Preventive" and "preventative" are both acceptable, but preventive is used more often.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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