Ekren and "Torgy" heading toward sunset

Our beloved Morris Area High, MACA sports hub (B.W. photo)

Email from a friend: "Heard on the radio news that Mark Ekren filed his retirement papers at the school board meeting this week. And, overheard Mark Torgerson in Willie's telling someone that this will be his last basketball season at MAHS." 

Best source for news imaginable: "Overheard someone in Willie's." 

I remember back when I'd scramble to get photo caption info for Morris paper - name of someone that was not practical to acquire at the time of the picture-taking - a good strategy was to just go to Willie's. Look for someone with a promising connection. 

Another resource might have been the restaurant where Riverwood is today. The restaurant had the Kelly's name for a long time, then became Ardelle's. It was the type of main street gathering place that I think this town misses now. There was a community meeting room with a piano. The place had fine food for middle class prices. A fine salad bar. Will we ever see salad bars or buffets again, in the wake of the health scare/turbulence? Will restaurants even survive? Will the higher prices finally discourage a substantial number of customers? 

Seems unthinkable that restaurants as an institution could vanish. But many surprising trends come along, right? Things we could not have easily envisioned. I began full-time at the Morris paper when the Jimmy Carter era "malaise" situation existed. It wasn't something that he necessarily imposed on us, even though his story about the swimming rabbit in the swamp caused head-scratching. "Malaise" denotes a period when doubt reigned about a whole lot of things. Cynicism. 

We were still in a post-Vietnam war funk. Don't underestimate that element. I made rounds for the Morris paper and heard talk about how the small schools near Morris surely were headed for demise. "Oh my, they won't be going on much longer": a typical remark. You might say it was a glass-half-empty attitude. People got bored easily. 

So I could not have envisioned at all, our current times where the Hancock school literally has to turn students away! And, where money is being plowed into facilities there including sports facilities, e.g. a softball field where I've read that fans can sit on top of the dugouts. Boy, that's enterprising. Looks like the people in Owl country are more trailblazing than in Morris. We have a vaunted new softball complex that could use an innovation or two, or five or seven, for serving fans better. 

Chokio still offers a grades K-12 education. No more Chokio-Alberta sports - a sob uttered here - but certainly these little schools didn't just up and die. Well, Cyrus did. Cyrus had a varsity basketball program which as late as the '80s could compete with Morris. I know that seems like "news of the weird." Does to me, anyway. 

But my mind was on a quite different wavelength from many Morris community leaders and pacesetters. I assessed things for how they appeared really to be, not based on whether I'd find agreement within a certain social clique. I deserve no medals for that, except maybe one for stupidity. Remember the slogan for Goldwater? "In your heart, you know he is right." And Goldwater got clobbered, eviscerated in the election. 

 

A case study

I think back to when our beloved boys basketball coach, "Torgy," got the head basketball job. Seemed as plain as the nose on one's face, that he and friends acted as if he was simply entitled to it, like the job could not realistically be considered "open." I most certainly thought it was open. And while the late Dennis Rettke confided in me that he actually preferred someone else - this was after the fact - who knows in these matters who is really telling the truth? 

My supervisor when I began at the Sun Tribune advised early-on: "Brian, people will lie to you." He looked me right in the eye. Maybe Mr. Rettke knew my biases and was simply catering to me. Biases? When it comes to the "toy department" of sports, doesn't everyone have biases? Isn't that baked into the cake? It's merely entertainment. It's fun, Kemosabe. But in Morris in the 1980s, it was a gravely serious matter where you could court personal or professional hardship if you expressed views not in line with certain other people. 

So yours truly grated on certain people. When all that reached a head, I remember the very wise Mick Rose stopping in one day. I had such a convenient office for people stopping by, chatting. Nothing like the Pacific Avenue location of the newspaper now - "the boonies," to use Jason Kirwin's term. And Mr. Rose - how we bemoan his health issues of today - gave insights into how yours truly was perceived. He summed up my problems thusly: there was a "professional class" in Morris - doctors, lawyers etc. - that had come to resent me, had me in their crosshairs. 

 

It takes all kinds

No wonder it was a dentist, my own personal dentist in fact, who dropped off a letter to the editor that the professional class probably felt would spell my doom. But people read it and figured it was just a typical obsessed sports parent. A tantrum. (He wasn't my family's dentist any more.) 

Mick Rose said that when you're a sports parent, your oldest kid to go through the system gets you all excited, out of proportion. And then when the younger ones come along, you calm down. The dentist didn't just have things out of proportion, he seemed rather out of orbit. I could be less charitable in words chosen. 

So, according to Rose, the doctors and lawyers of the world and other such brethren had it in for me. Why? Well, they had reached consensus opinion on certain things that were contrary to moi in some cases. They resented like hell that I had the influential position of newspaper writer. Those were days when newspaper writers felt their oats because of Watergate, along with the role they/we played in getting U.S. servicemen home from Vietnam. So we thumped our chest a bit. 

Why did this bother the stuffed shirts of the legal/medical world? Well. . . Maybe it's because someone like me could come to occupy my position without any special degrees/"stud papers." So, I wouldn't be in hock forever because of college loans to get through all those rarefied post-high school studies. And yet I could put myself forward as an erudite person, fully capable of expressing myself as well as any lawyer! (I can hear the teeth gnashing.)

And if I really was stupid as alleged by some, why did such a broad swath of the community come to act like they feared me? I mean, just because I considered the boys basketball position to be "open" after Bob Mulder's exit? It was an ignoble exit but let's not get into that. 

Sources told me that "Torgy" was never a slam-dunk for the spot even though a certain clique tried blessing it as such. They all had the right to lobby as they chose, naturally, and also to lobby hard for a certain girls basketball coach in the late '80s who very sadly wasn't cutting it. That individual had been a UMM superstar. I'm sure Fred Switzer thought he looked real good for guiding this person onto our coaching staff. What could look better? New London-Spicer meanwhile got Mike Dreier established. I would say the latter appointment was at least 100 percent better than what we did. 

Our community of Morris seems to fumble at so many things. Why? And why do we just seem to accept it? Maybe because most of our community leaders, including the doctor/lawyer types, live for going to their "lake place" in the warm weather months. I think the Beatles had a song with the line "life goes on." And so life goes on in our Motown. 

I'm writing this post on "Black Friday." Sounds like a commemoration of an awful massacre somewhere.

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

Prices jump upward as Thanksgiving arrives

Dateline: Day before Thanksgiving, 2021. Much is being made of the increased cost of the Thanksgiving meal, as families gather. Is there any reason we all cannot treat tomorrow (Thursday) like any other day? Reduce the stress and relax. You can touch base with your family members on your own terms, whenever convenient. The electronic communications of today should actually make this a snap. 

We have come to take for granted the communications revolution. YouTube by itself is transformative. Think of what it would be like to go back to the days before "screens." I lived a substantial portion of my life that way. Sometimes people like me get confronted: "How could you do it? How did you get by?" 

Looking back, it did not seem as rough as you might think. We definitely needed more patience. There were more hoops to jump through, like going to the bank and standing in line at a teller window. ATMs puzzled a lot of us at the start. I remember some politicians expressing concern about people having to "pay to get their own money." People had to be reminded that banks are profit-making businesses. Any pushback against the ATMs seemed to evaporate. We were paying for convenience and in the end, we didn't mind. 

Further note: I have yet to use an ATM. Any day now, will change. An old high school friend says he'll advise me, next time he comes to town. He stays up on all the new stuff while I am a laggard. 

 

Ingrained in us

Don't we sort of get pushed into accepting the ritual of Thanksgiving without exercising our own critical thinking? And does this not pertain to Christmas too? Does a part of you feel disrupted by getting drawn into the traditions? We commemorate the Pilgrims dining with Indians. This was not a prelude to the kind of relationship that would develop between these groups. 

Europeans penetrated the North American continent in many ways before the Pilgrims. The Pilgrim story became a charming way to share our nation's background with our kids. The whole Christmas thing is based on religion. This is becoming dicey because of the melding of Christianity and politics. The chant of "let's go Brandon" has begun entering our churches, according to news reports. I suspect pastors might be inspired to speak on the Rittenhouse verdict, in a celebratory way. 

At some point, might we push flashpoint topics like this aside and just focus on Jesus and the Gospel? Could any of you really see Jesus celebrating right wing politics in America? Yet so many of our churches push down that path. And if you choose not to attend such a church, you might get a hard time from friends. I realize that our world around Morris MN is much more red state-attuned than the average. Not sure why this has to be. 

We have so many older residents who benefit from Social Security and Medicare, programs that the political right associates with "socialism." They even come at us with the word "communism" now. That's an old trick that got shot down for a while - now it's coming back. Donald Trump talks about the "communist Democrats." He continues to speak with a potty mouth so often. It does not deter his local fans who flock to churches where you might hear "let's go Brandon." 

To review, the phrase means "fuck Joe Biden." Not exactly sterling eloquence. 

Jeb Bush has spoken up for "abolishing" Medicare. How would you feel about that? Would all the local red staters say "aye?" 

The right wing comes down on Joe Biden for any little reason. Today's little snippet: brickbats for Biden's decision to continue a family tradition of joining relatives in Nantucket. The righties thought Barack Obama was spending too much time playing golf? How did Trump do on that score? 

 

The real warning light

I will repeat: All these little issues that red staters seize upon will in the end seem insignificant. The rising cost of things will become paramount. There is literally only one cure: allowing interest rates to rise. Oh but woe is us: rising interest rates could/would kill the stock market. We have had years of accommodation for the stock market. The powers-that-be simply cannot allow stocks to slide in a substantial way. 

Is prosperity this easy to script? Of course it isn't. A healthy stock market goes up and down. People learn how to make money when it goes down. At least, that's the way it used to be. And then the era dawned for all the common folk - the masses - getting coaxed into stocks as in "401Ks." 

And now with interest rates at basically zero, the chimera of inflation raises its ugly head. 

What on earth is going to happen? I mean, we see news reports of all the "food insecure" people, the stretched food shelves etc. A friend of mine who used to teach in the Lad qui Parle school told me "there's lots of poverty" there. So whither all those folks with prices taking a new jump upward? I mean, really. 

  

The micro picture

Are you all concerned that we have a big grocery store in Morris that has pretty close to a monopoly? Realistically there is only one full-service grocery store: Willie's. The price inflation makes me wonder: would we be better off with two viable grocery stores engaging in a certain level of competition? 

I remember a book I read by the libertarian John Stossel: he talked about the myth of how people in the business world admire competition. Competition is a bulwark of our free market system, right? In reality, Stossel wrote - and I think I can remember his exact words - "people in business hate competition and they try to shut it down wherever they can." I checked out the book from our public library. 

Morris certainly had competition with grocery stores once. And it wasn't just two stores. The main ones were Willie's when it was Red Owl, and Super Valu which had the Juergensen name. Plus there was a Holiday grocery store. There is a belief that Mitch's Food Pride got wiped out by the city's Atlantic Avenue project. Also, there's the very strong legend that Coborn's left town because it wanted to build new and also wanted a liquor license. The answer was "no" on the liquor license and the rest is history. Which I suppose makes Paul Martin happy. 

Boy, I don't know. A fresh new Coborn's store would be a real plus. They were open 24 hours. 

 

What are banks up to?

This is bizarre: I remember going to the Morris banks back around 1980 and finding interest rates that were in orbit compared to what we see now. What we see now is basically zero. So even though there was inflation coming out of the 1970s, one could keep pace with your savings. Are banks even doing a lot of loan business now? If not, what is their raison d'etre? They occupy a lot of real estate on Atlantic Avenue. Riverwood displaced a very popular old restaurant. That is fading in our collective memory. 

Will food get so expensive, restaurants will cease to exist? You have to pay a cook and a waitress when you dine out, plus the restaurant has an assortment of other overhead costs. Will prices rise to where the customer base will erode? Erode to where the businesses cannot sustain themselves? 

"Ours is not to reason why," Tennyson wrote. (I have previously written "wonder" instead of "reason," but seems to mean the same.) 

If we wonder why, re. the inflation and other woes, we might conclude that "Brandon" is our best hope for recovering. 

Our Christian churches are so charming now, n'est-ce pas? "Let's go Brandon," i.e. "Fuck Joe Biden." Let us put this in a time capsule. Maybe just skip celebrating Christmas.

 

Addendum: What would Jesus say about the new Penn State football coach getting a contract for $85 million? This individual should be able to handle inflation.

 

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

"Hard rolls" at Willie's bakery: 45 cents to 75 cents!

Willie's Super Valu, Morris (B.W. photo)

Is inflation flashing a red light for you yet? The word has more than crept into the headlines. Is there a degree of "media frenzy" here? I mean, there's at least a nugget of truth with the inflation fears now. Does the media latch onto this and sort of sensationalize? 

I'm admitting my age when I share how I remember the inflation of the 1970s. The media conjures that up quite a bit. As a "veteran" of those times, let me tell you that inflation did flash a red light. It became a hot potato political issue, to where the point was reached that someone in an influential position had to reach into his bag of tricks. That "someone" was Paul Volcker. He took the reins at the Federal Reserve. 

"The Fed" has gotten so high-profile in the recent past because it has been indefatigable in putting up guard rails for the stock market. The stock market has seemed like Emerald City with its allure/magic. People have been guided into those magical "401Ks" everywhere, yes with ubiquity. And so the Fed guards the "green arrows" of the stock market in a dogged way. 

The financial news media provides support as if its on-air people are actually wearing cheerleading costumes and doing high-fives. Lordy, "business news" ought to be dull. It was definitely dull in my growing-up and young adult years. The network evening news would have some token boring person do the business update, pretty obligatory. Ah, Irving R. Levine of NBC News. He did fine with his dry assignment. I can at least remember his name. 

Then we plunged into the age of Ron Insana, Joe Kernen et al. Donald Trump sought to go on TV with the latter. Nothing made Trump thump his chest so much as to report the stock market going up. But how legitimate was this phenomenon? And at present we must wonder: has it been rather an illusion, the prosperity I mean, because interest rates have been kept abnormally low for so long? Seems quaint to remember "QE" as this little obligation for applying emergency first aid after the "financial crisis" of 2008. 

"Financial crisis": sounds rather like an act of God. It was totally not an act of God. It was of the making of us flawed mortal folks.

 

Jerome Powell of the Fed

Going to the well

Once the Fed saw it was like a guardian of the economy, feeling its oats as it were, it steadily got more full of itself. It felt ever more empowered. And can you blame those people? Our political leadership wanted one "fix" after another from the Fed. 

Interest rates exist for a reason. For one thing, it makes politicians more responsible with their spending decisions, n'est-ce pas? You may pause to laugh here. 

Actually we may not be in a position to laugh much longer. I mean, some telltale signs are definitely out there. 

Reality check: People have not stopped dining out. I had to circle the DeToy's parking lot more than once at about 10 a.m. today (Saturday), seeking a parking spot. 

I think dining out is therapeutic for people who grew weary with the pandemic-caused restrictions/isolation. I know that's a motivating factor for me. Now, my favorite breakfast at Caribou Coffee (at Willie's) has not gone up in price since the hair-pulling with inflation started. Perhaps that breakfast was over-priced to begin with? Oh, I need to be more positive. You know what? People don't mind paying a hefty price if a meal is really satisfying. 

DeToy's is holding its own. For now. If any more price hikes become necessary there, it will be a test. I strongly hope they pass the test. One cannot predict the future. In fact, it is an absolute truism that you cannot predict how interest rates will behave. But, I think this particular truism applies more in normal times. In normal times we expect a certain ebb and flow with the economy. 

 

Is there a home base?

For a while after QE started, we heard how interest rates would "normalize." But then all the bull market cheerleaders, all those folks who try to stuff stocks down your throat - "no-load mutual funds" - began to act like they were offended by the term: "normalize interest rates." Hey, interest rates can be kept at zero forever because, well, we're really in Emerald City! So "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." That be the Fed chair, and under current circumstances it seems not to matter who that is. 

And you know what really gives me a belly laugh? When the Fed puts out a "statement" and then all the analysts, gathering like moths to a light, analyze it word by word. There is a term called "Fedspeak." So it's as if the Federal Reserve people speak in a foreign or coded language. That's really not exaggeration. 

But what really makes me laugh now, is how each literal word of a Fed official's statement gets the analysts scrambling. The analysts are perhaps vain in this venture, seeking to impress us? Jim Morrison in his wisdom told me those people "want you to buy their newsletters." I suppose it's online subscriptions now.

But what this all shows, is that the economy is too dependent on the Federal Reserve, as if this entity is going to create real wealth. Real wealth comes when we produce things. If we aren't producing, we should be whistling past the graveyard. 

So, are we on the verge of seeing real unmistakable inflation, to get the "red flag" of a warning? Well, let me just report: this past week I went to our beloved Willie's Super Valu in Morris to get a favorite snack item: a "hard roll" from the bakery. Typically I get two. Now I get one. I was in the habit for a long time of paying 45 cents per roll. If I submitted a $5 bill, I could get four one-dollar bills in change, which I then used to get my lunch at the former senior center - it's where the Meals on Wheels kitchen is now. 

 

Canary in coal mine?

This past week, I found that the price of a hard roll had gone up to 75 cents. To make clear, a hike of 30 cents: 45 to 75 cents. 

I mentioned this in a nice way to a checkout clerk and she, equally nice, pointed out that price hikes were really going on throughout the place. In other words, get ready. You won't need a store clerk advising you of this - a bell will go off for you at some point. 

We heard lots of bells in the 1970s, that's for sure. Oh and we heard disco music. We watched "The Gong Show" on TV and "Smokey and the Bandit" movies. Euell Gibbons was a celebrity and we heard about the decadent "Studio 54" in New York City. And more importantly we dealt with losing a war. We lost the Vietnam War and had to witness the incredible "fall of Saigon" on the evening news. 

My God, you think the departure from Afghanistan was awkward or incompetent? It was NOTHING compared to our exit from Vietnam. 

Euell Gibbons, RIP

That war colored my whole growing-up years. It was fought because of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. Or, was it fought because of the military industrial complex? The latter question is rhetorical. 

Well, good luck with dealing with the rapidly increasing prices. At some point you may not be so infatuated about your 401K. You may not want to listen to all those stock market hucksters. They have had a heyday, a spree, with their selling message for so long. Their luck is going to run out. 

Good luck to you all in dealing with "shrinkflation" too. Just don't become like Euell Gibbons. (You can look that up.)

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

Representative Fischbach defies our interests

Michelle Fischbach (minnpost image)

"Ours is not to wonder why," the saying goes, or starts out. Tennyson, I believe. 

The political turn in western Minnesota is hard for yours truly to figure. Veteran U.S. Congressman Collin Peterson got backed into a corner where he shied away from sounding much like a Democrat any more. He was in fact a long-time Democrat. A photo of him posing with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was used against him. As if Pelosi was seen as rather a poison out here. 

My suggestion to Collin was that he roll the dice and not be intimidated by the red state fragrance. Yes, he could have lost anyway, probably would have. Stand forward as a proud Democrat and you could at least be true to yourself. Isn't that what life is all about in the end? Sticking with your principles and your well-grounded loyalties? Switching parties wouldn't work for him, because he would be overwhelmed, pummeled by a GOPer who exudes the fragrance. I would suggest the fragrance is not like flowers. 

Meanwhile, Michelle Fischbach is entranced by the fragrance in spades. The Democrats are whimpering out here in western Minnesota. Forget trying to mimic Republicans because it's the card-carrying Republicans who own that turf. There is no equivocation. 

You thought Tom Emmer was rock-ribbed? Fischbach is worse. She directly helped foment what happened on January 6 at the U.S. capitol. Guess what TV outlet she utilized? Well, I guess it could have been Newsmax but it was the old standard, Fox News, the favorite of our president from 2016 to 2020. Fischbach asserted that the Democratic Party manufactured votes. In the aftermath of the Jan. 6 incident, she tried denying that certain parties were even responsible. 

Even with the nation stunned by what happened, Fischbach refused to calm the waters, as she voted to challenge the counting of electoral votes. Even Emmer did not do that. White supremacists and fascists had laid siege to our precious capitol. We needed leadership to maintain a steady course, to preserve our basic institutions. I thought stability and temperance were hallmarks for political "conservatives." They once were, to be sure. 

I remember conservatives from my childhood who were bastions for proper behavior. It was part of what defined them, actually. Gone with the wind, eh? Today these unbalanced folks drop the F-bomb and use the coded expression "let's go Brandon." Signs outside of Brandon MN have been defaced to promote the disgusting message. A residence by East Side Park in our Morris MN has had a sign, "Biden, stick your unity up your (blank)." The sign did not fill in the blank - it didn't have to. Young children play in the park right across the street. Very recently I have seen "for sale" signs outside the place. Maybe they'll move to Brandon. 

Fischbach got on board with the effort to disenfranchise millions of voters, many in minority elements of the population, by voting to challenge the electoral college. Elections are run by the states in this country. States have the responsibility to investigate "irregularities." The latter is a buzzword used by people of Fischbach's stripe. It's deliberately vague. 

Zealous Trump-ite Fischbach along with Jim Hagedorn were Minnesota Republicans who voted late on Jan. 6 to reject the electoral college results of two major states. Mere hours had passed since wild-eyed Trump supporters had stormed the capitol building. We saw lockdowns and evacuations. 

Fischbach is the Seventh District congressperson, Hagedorn is the First District. 

Fischbach read a carefully crafted statement that could be absorbed into the ether of vagueness. But it was good as a pep talk for those of her ilk: "This election was shrouded in allegations of irregularities and fraud too voluminous to ignore." 

Allegations, irregularities, voluminous. But where's the beef? It was a smokescreen, a rhetorical tactic that comes off largely as posturing. The problem here, in spades, is what was at stake. My old high school civics teacher, the late Andy Papke, might faint from disbelief re. it all. He'd seek to share with his students the prima facie fact that the capitol rioters committed a disgusting act. He'd impress upon his students the need for civility and reason. And he'd probably be sent on his heels by local red staters who would practically lose their minds. You've read about people showing up at school board meetings and raising hell? 

I fear that the church life in Stevens County contributes a lot to this. You all are not doing Christianity a favor by echoing the likes of Fischbach and Hagedorn. Look for Christianity to begin fading as a new generation gains maturity. I have "stuck it out" in my ELCA church which has resisted the tide. A friend of mine was only half-kidding when he told me I attend "the communist church." I can be friends with these people because I still hold out some hope for them. Heaven help us all if we lose hope. 

Ben Franklin asserted that "we have a republic, if we can keep it." 

The attempted coup d'etat of Jan. 6 should have been seen for what it was. The emperor had no clothes. If we're thinking of Donald Trump, I wouldn't want to see him naked. Stormy Daniels has. Karen McDougal has. Trump supporters celebrate his moral shortcomings because of the Christian presumption of sinfulness. We can go forth and weigh the pronouncement of Mississippi Republican governor Tate Reeves, who stated that dying from covid isn't that bad because Christians can count on eternal life. Such stuff is an advertisement for just leaving Christianity. 

Tom Emmer is the Sixth District representative. He and fellow Republican Pete Stauber, Eighth District, voted to certify the election results. Emmer displayed the simple wisdom of asserting that election challenges fall within the purview of the courts, not Congress. There would be danger in federalizing the election.

 

Voting against money

Representative Fischbach was contrary to the infrastructure bill. Our own city manager has commented that the measure would "result in billions of dollars going to Minnesota for infrastructure projects." The city manager explained that the city already has a number of projects in the works that would quality for the federal dollars. Minnesota is set to receive $7 billion across the next ten years. 

Emmer and Fischbach were both naysayers this time. Minnesota would have been a loser. And Morris. 

And we're so uptight about Collin Peterson being photographed with Nancy Pelosi! Ours is not to wonder why. My friend Del Sarlette finishes the quote thusly: "We're only here to mop and dry." And, to maintain our republic.

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

Epic battles, "Son of the Morning Star" (1991)

We hear today about "the problem" at the southern U.S. border, and we all seem to acknowledge that some unpleasant things might have to happen down there. The Democratic Party follows the impulse of wanting to be more humanitarian. Great in theory, problematic in practice, as the current news suggests. 

The indigenous people of the West, including the Plains Indians, once presented a profound problem. "The Indian problem" seems a pejorative term, inducing a wince by today's standards. Again, the most laudable attitude is one of wanting everyone to get along. 

Shall we assume that "Manifest Destiny" was an inevitable and unstoppable force? Was the advancing European civilization ever going to countenance an actual chunk of the U.S. West to be reserved for the natives? To allow the natives to keep living as per time immemorial? To live off herds of buffalo? 

No, it was going to be a matter of nudging the proud natives into "reservations." The natives with some exceptions to be sure, were not wired to live like the Europeans. The Europeans' concepts of property and law were alien to how the natives had established their standards. 

Primitive? Is that pejorative too? 

Man, I can remember anthropology instructors from my college years who were revulsed by anything judgmental. I live in a college town and so I recently asked a friend of mine from academia: "Are anthropology teachers still so intransigent, not wanting to budge from the totally non-judgmental stance?" I was told "yes." The beat goes on: a tribe in the South American jungle is not to be judged as inferior to our own American people. 

And I suppose the academic world applies this template at any time, anywhere, certainly to the American frontier of the late 19th Century. I would demur from the party line: The natives lacked science and medicine that would promote everyone living a reasonably long and healthy life. 

We just assume our standards represent "advancement" and to that I say "aye." So I guess I plug on without regard to a chorus of disapproval from academia, those anthropologists. 

So easy to say today, how the natives were treated as the Europeans inexorably moved westward. Some here in Minnesota have suggested we stop recognizing Ford Snelling as a historically significant place, to commemorate it, to upgrade what's left for "interpretive" purposes. Some suggest we are signalling approval for how our authorities in territorial times treated the indigenous folk. And on the surface, there is so much sobering background. 

A letter writer to the Star Tribune pushed back, saying that if we promote the study of history at all, we are shedding light on how "the strong have oppressed the weak." Because when you get right down to it, this is what history is. The prevailing culture/system wants standards and laws that are bad news for those who diverge, those "left behind." And that is just the way it is. 

The indigenous people were headed to reservations, hopefully to be treated in some sort of humanitarian way. But life was indeed tough on reservations. We can joke that the Indians of today are getting "revenge" with their casinos. Still, I think the lives of natives are held back by a perception of being "the other." They were torn from their preferred way of life in the 19th Century. But weigh that against how their former life, however romanticized that has become, was bereft of any real science or medicine. And surely the natives fought among themselves. 

 

Flashpoint with Custer

The inevitable clash from long ago is nowhere better represented than in the 1991 made-for-TV movie "Son of the Morning Star." Here we're getting into Custer. Last name alone suffices for that historical figure. It invokes an immediate response: the image of a cavalry commander who shall we say bit off more than he could chew. 

Gary Cole played Custer in the movie. I personally found the movie riveting, fascinating, if incredibly sad, I mean to see so many human beings get cut down in battle. 

The Indians won overwhelmingly. After watching the movie - the zillions of bullets flying around - I had to wonder how many Indians died in the following weeks from blood poisoning. Every shot fired from a gun poses extreme danger for someone. 

Crazy Horse memorial (wikimapia image)

Did the American public find the movie disturbing? Even though "Son of the Morning Star" seems very well made, it got low ratings. That failure had consequences for another war epic that was in the works. The execs at ABC decided to turn thumbs-down on the grand civil war epic about the battle of Gettysburg. The movie's tentative name was "The Killer Angels," the name of a historical novel. ABC turned away from the movie but Ted Turner picked it up. So it got the new name "Gettysburg" and was released into theaters. 

"Gettysburg" had a flavor exactly like "Son of the Morning Star." It pulled no punches showing the violence of war. I have a theory that both movies got drawn out too long. Some of the audience may have drifted away before the "action" really set in. I put "action" in quotes because it's ironic how we are entertained by "action" that shows so many human beings dying. We understand it's history, of course. But we can appreciate history through poring over books, n'est-ce pas? 

I am able to "compartmentalize" and realize we're just seeing actors (or "re-enactors") on the screen. Still, rows of combatants firing off "volleys" against the foe? Entertainment? WCCO Radio had a popular personality, Ruth Koscielak, who was concerned about watching 3-4 hours of the big screen showing "men shooting at each other." She was talking about "Gettysburg." 

And then "Gettysburg" begat "Gods and Generals," another Turner project that tragically tried to raise the moral component of the Southern cause. "Gods and Generals" failed so badly, the third movie in the planned series of three has never been made. It was turgid. 

So, "Son of the Morning Star" stumbled in gaining an audience despite artistic pluses, and yet "Saving Private Ryan" came along and was quite successful. Lessons to be gained? Surely there are some. 

Such movies have value if only to remind us of the huge clashes of the past that help explain who we are today. So, will we see movies about the January 6, 2021, clash at the U.S. capitol? Oh, I think most surely. Didn't both sides lose on that?

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