Morris had a 24-hour grocery store for a long time: Coborn's of course. Coborn's was probably not as sharp an operation as Willie's today. Nevertheless it blazed a trail in this community by being open 24 hours. We came to take it for granted. If I discovered I was out of dog food for the next morning, I could make a dash at any time.
Coborn's has been gone from our midst for some time. That end of town is not the hub for people traffic like it once was. People traffic has of course subsided in a big way overall due to the public health crisis.
Morris history should never overlook how we had a 24-hour restaurant. It was Atlantic Avenue Family Restaurant owned by Floyd Schmidgall. Was it ever practical as a business matter to have such a place in our humble rural community? We might assume it was, based on Floyd's unquestioned business acumen.
Businesses that operate 24 hours might be seen as consistent with a college town. The restaurant reportedly attracted a lot of college youth who'd study or at least had a purported purpose of studying. A credit to them, but of course relaxed socializing became a prime aim. Word was, to no one's surprise, they didn't spend a lot of money.
The mere existence of late night places was a statement of openness and sociability, was it not? The gesture suggested vitality despite how nighttime activity often suggests a low-life underbelly. I'm told that simply walking through town these days late at night or middle of night, can get you a visit with law enforcement people. Heard a personal story re. this. It's hard to argue with the vigilance toward public safety. Still, we must acknowledge we cannot create a perfectly safe world. Or to cite a saying: the perfect is the enemy of the good.
By the same token, we guard our kids to the point where they become sedentary and obese, whereas the parents of my generation would let us off the leash so much. Is it true that "walking to school" is frowned upon or maybe even contrary to law now? Well, it's vigilance toward safety. How can we argue with that? The Jacob Wetterling case which stretched out over so many tragic years left a legacy not entirely heartening. When all was said and done - a fortune spent many times over on law enforcement investigating and tips followed - we learned that the Wetterling story was one of profound law enforcement incompetence.
Someone joked with me a few years ago about how we guard our kids so closely now, maybe we should just have them wrapped in Nerf until a certain age. I believe that friend was Roger Boleman. A perceptive view.
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| "Nighthawks" painting by Edward Hopper |
Night has risk as with simply driving an automobile. Shall I assume that nighttime drivers no longer "dim the lights" using their left foot? It was once a staple of driving activity. I rarely drive at night, very rarely, and if I do it's only to town and back. And I'm struck by the greater challenge or dangers presented when driving at night. I remember the line from Robert Redford as "Roy Hobbs" in "The Natural": "All I know about the dark is that you can't see well in it." To refresh: the baseball character was in the office of team owner who had an unusual fear of bright lights.
Hyper danger w/ the dark
My sense about nighttime driving is supported by what we saw happen in South Dakota with the attorney general. Imagine running over and killing someone on the shoulder, having to pay a fine or fines for negligence in connection with the incident, and continuing your professional life as public servant as if nothing had happened. Stranger than fiction, but myriad strange things can happen where one-party government exists. You're in pretty good shape in South Dakota if you run for public office with the "R" next to your name.
Increasingly the conservative Republican governor seems on the defensive because of the feeling of entitlement she developed, as leader within the prevailing party. You might check the headlines every day: Kristi Noem is in there. We wince as we realize the lack of accountability, the accountability that would come in a healthy two-party system with checks and balances.
The South Dakota attorney general drove after dark after attending a Republican fundraiser in Redfield SD. Why the need to have a fundraiser? A Republican gets in trouble these days, we hear about an "investigation" and then I grimace as I realize these things just go down a rabbit trail. Or, into a "black hole": choose your cliche.
Donald Trump is "under investigation" for his phone call to the Georgia secretary of state. His voice is on tape. Matt Gaetz is "under investigation" for child sex trafficking. The investigation just hangs out there until we realize it means essentially nothing.
If a person is actually innocent of something as heinous as child sex trafficking, it should be trumpeted to the world. Instead we see Gaetz acting in his usual cocky, irritating way, basically like the South Dakota Republicans - a netherworld where nothing seems to happen. There is a continuing odious projection, but that's all. "There is an investigation."
Sigh, and South Dakota officials are still pondering whether to impeach the attorney general. The weeks plod on, but if I'm spotted by our local cops not wearing my seat belt - this has happened - I'm toast, no real recourse for me - I'm immediately ticketed and must pay a fine, plus I've undergone the humiliation in a small town of being pulled over to the shoulder by a cop car with lights flashing. And so I get accosted in church: "Don't you follow the rules of the road?"
But child sex trafficking? A case like that can just linger or disappear permanently into a netherworld? Can't the media do a better job of explaining these things to us? I mean, how the SD attorney general can just keep showing up for work, really as if "nothing happened?" When Gov. Noem implores him to resign, is she just doing this with a wink? Fellow Republicans. And is Noem now having an affair with Trump acolyte Corey Lewandowski? Well, why not? Why not just have clown Trump re-elected in 2024? Keep the clown car running.
Antiquated behavior
A final note about nighttime in our Morris MN: like all communities, there were places people went for the "bar rush" on Friday and Saturday nights. Floyd's restaurant and Don's were hubs for this uninhibited and frankly silly ritual, people acting stupid and not even caring. We had to wonder what the restaurant servers were thinking of us. (We used to call them "waitresses," just as we once said "stewardesses," and we saw TV journalist Sam Donaldson get in a bunch of trouble by referring to a female park ranger as a "rangerette.")
I participated in a few bar rushes myself. The ritual accompanied the far more accepted behavior of social drinking, which may have reached its peak in the 1970s. The patterns of behavior faded without much commentary, frankly.
So now we experience nighttime that is far more vacant, silent. Where you might invite a conversation with a cop if you have to be out and around.
For me the nighttime motif will always be symbolized by the classic Edward Hopper painting "Nighthawks" from 1942. The front of Don's Cafe in Morris would be the subject for a like painting. Not a "copy," mind you, but a work with the same essential ingredients. An idea: the artist could have someone paying at the till who looks just like Elvin Presley! A customer might be looking up with an expression of shock.
Addendum: Floyd's restaurant of the past is now known as DeToy's. Just as all-night business there has been retired, maybe we'll have to say goodbye too, to the salad bar. The giant Coborn's shopping cart was in our summer Prairie Pioneer Days parade - what a spectacle, but it's gone just like Coborn's.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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