Wonderful picnic leads into new UMM (UMN?) year

Walkers and runners can have unexpected things come up along the route. I put "walkers" first because that is my thing now, as opposed to the running I once did. Kudos to Kevin Wohlers who is still a committed jogger/runner. Heard the other morning that Kevin might be running for mayor. He is the one person in city government that I have comfort for breaking bread with. 

So on Wednesday, yours truly is taking a late afternoon walk in my usual environs - that includes the outskirts of our UMM campus. Hey, there's a picnic outside of the HFA. Out of curiosity I walked toward it a little. Someone spotted me! It was a UMM staffer with whom I have been friends a long time. So even though I was not invited to the event, I joined the fold with this person who said I could be a "member of her family" for the occasion. 

Such a pleasant surprise and a nice meal too. It was the welcoming picnic for UMM staff. We're getting around to that time: start of new school year. I wonder how enrollment is looking for the new academic year. 

I'm very curious if UMM music will have its concerts at the HFA recital hall. We do not have the full-fledged concert venue that an august institution ought to have. Strange how the public school has that, not UMM. Instead the HFA has this cavernous hallway but a too-small performance site for the music department. We scratch our heads. 

 

That was then

I must remind you: the HFA along with the science auditorium were designed when "avant garde" ideas were the "thing" all over the place. I lived through that, alas. The stranger the idea, the better it was received. It meant you were being imaginative, not locked into old norms. The '70s were a time when shedding of old norms defined the zeitgeist. We are stuck with the HFA.

A friend emailed me some terrific memorabilia a few days ago. It was a UMM music program from a concert in 2004. Way back in 2004! The year does not seem that long ago in my mind. Even 2000 does not seem so distant. Is this a trait of the aging process? I vividly remember "Y2K." How many of y'all remember? I smile as I recall talking to my father the next morning, after the whole thing blew over without incident. Yes, like the Comet Kohoutek.
I asked Dad if our dog "Sandy" showed any apprehension with midnight approaching. My dad chirped "he was snoring." 

The 2004 concert program from UMM (UMN?) included an arrangement of my father's "UMM Hymn." The arrangement was by John Stanley Ross, music faculty member at the time. John Stanley and my father became close. Dad wrote the Hymn for the opening of our august institution. So the "band played on" with the spirited rendition of the UMM Hymn which dated from 1960. 

Dad directed the first-ever UMM music concert in 1960 at the National Guard Armory which then was located where the public library is now. The band played the Hymn on that special day, when the audience was Stevens County 4-H youth and their families. Concert sent a superb message about how UMM would seek to groom a good relationship with community. I don't think that ideal was embraced fully through the years. 

I once mused with Jim Morrison how periodically, Morris would get some new do-gooder community leader who'd make a public proclamation about how the campus and community should have a better relationship. Yours truly and Jim might fall into a cynical mindset, common among journalistic types. Jim might deny that but hey. . . 

People know I wouldn't deny it. I would further point out that to the extent the relationship was not ideal between campus and community, it really was UMM's fault. That's a bald-faced opinion, I concede. 

I can remember the time when students floated around the term "townies" to describe non-UMM inhabitants of this burg. It was not a flattering word, suffice to say. Shall I assume the term has vanished now? Looks to me like UMM students today are (far) more mature and respectful than in earlier times. In the same vein, I'm assuming that UMMers of today are nice and accommodating toward people who come here from other institutions for sports events. Holy cow, I can remember when the inverse of that was so obviously true. 

As I tell these stories today, I sense that a lot of people don't have the background of the remote past at UMM. They might not even believe me. Well. . . 

 

It had to be good

Take a look at the UMM concert program from 2004 that appears with this post. Can't you imagine what a full and delightful musical event this was? 

Last spring the symphonic winds and choir had their big concert in Alexandria. Strangely and sadly, there was no repeat performance here. Stranger than fiction? Was this because the HFA recital hall was too confining in these days of covid? This might be understandable. But the arrangement is very sad and discouraging, n'est-ce pas? 

My friend emailed me a photo of archival quality from the 2004 concert. It's at bottom of this post. You see my father Ralph up front (at left) with Jim Carlson. Carlson was the genius behind the UMM Jazz Festival. He was in vocal music under my father when we had a group go to Seattle for the World's Fair. Don't ever forget the names Williams and Carlson. You can put me aside.

My life has been anticlimactic ever since 2006 when I left the Morris newspaper. Most likely it was a forced departure due to the fallout from the UMM goalpost incident. I got more public criticism than anyone because of this, and I wasn't even there when it happened. Scapegoat, I guess. The nail in the coffin for my career was most likely a letter to the editor from Dr. Busian. He's deceased now. 

I was reminded of ol' Dr. Busian Wednesday night when I saw the surgeon Dr. Sam at the picnic. Is it true that if you were a patient of Dr. Busian, Dr. Sam was reluctant to do surgery on you, might refer you elsewhere? Just asking. You might say "legend has it." 

I thank UMM for having its fine picnic fare available for me Wednesday night. The weather could not have been better. I always see a few familiar faces at events like this. We get used to the turnover.

UMM music: what it's all about

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