At the pinnacle of nice weather now

Here's a favorite fall picture I took several years ago.

What a perfect Saturday morning. These times can be the most pleasant of the year, weather-wise. My church of First Lutheran is having a picnic at Pomme de Terre City Park Sunday afternoon. No trace of wind this morning, even. 

Not only is this the fall season, it is road construction season for Morris. It was an adventure for yours truly walking home after the MACA football opener on September 1. Iowa Avenue is all torn up, so bad it's almost impossible to walk along the edges. It helps to have moonlight if you're walking home! The area around the old Heartland Motors is known to have a few critters out and about, skunks and raccoons. 

I got home without falling into a hole. 

So we're forced to use a couple of road alternatives. It's not a simple decision. There's the dirt road going to the west toward Dan Sayles' dog kennels. Then you take a left and head into town. But the dirt road up until just a few days ago was in quite poor condition. The issue was the old "washboard effect" that can develop with dirt roads. Think of dirt roads and you think of country music songs, eh? 

Those of us on Northridge Drive, close to the soils lab, have another alternative for getting into town, and that's an old non-maintained road that has been there for time immemorial. It's the former private driveway from when venerable diversified farm operator Earn Julius lived out there. It was the classic diversified farm, could have been subject for a Norman Rockwell painting. Ducks in the barnyard. Neighbor kids would fool around and play games over there in a way that would be harrowing to ponder now, from the standpoint of liability. People must not have been worried about getting sued much in those bygone times. Swinging on ropes in the "hay mow" like Tarzan? 

Well, the old Julius driveway remains but it's part of the U of M field that you see across from Pizza Hut and other familiar businesses. It's a non-public road but people have always availed themselves of using it. In my case, often with a bicycle or just plain walking. 

Driving it? That's less practical now. It no longer hooks up with the state highway that goes in front of Pizza Hut et al. The connection to the highway was eliminated when the new service road was put in. The service road is where you see the Greeley's building, excuse me it's Morris Electronics now. What happened with that? The Chamber of Commerce was there for a while. I should say "alleged" Chamber of Commerce because I have not been too impressed with its performance. The Chamber let the old Prairie Pioneer Days just up and die. 

We experience many changes these days and some I find difficult to grasp. 

Now, the old non-maintained road has "sort of" a connection to the service road. However, it is designed to really discourage vehicles crossing over. There's an incline. I went down that incline on my bike once and wiped out. The front tire got lodged in a little hole or rut. So now I can understand why helmets are recommended for bike riders. I survived with a pretty big scratch on my face, but no concussion to my knowledge. 

And to think football players experience collisions like this all the time! Did you read about that poor kid from Bloomington who got paralyzed at the shoulders from a routine tackle in a football game? Do I need to keep writing posts where I seek to ring alarm bells about football? I have been doing this for ten years. You are taking a concerning chance every time you let your son go out onto the field. 

Don't just smile when I bring this up - some people do that just like some smile when I try to make a point about Donald Trump being terrible and a disgrace. They smile as if to just show amusement with what they see as my misdirected concern. I'm so upset about that, I'm in a mood where I probably will not write a new original Christmas song this year. Our country could be headed toward truly dark times due to MAGA. 

 

City of Morris responds

Oh, I have some follow-up on the dirt road going to the west. I emailed city manager with concern about the washboard condition of the road. This was on Saturday morning of Labor Day holiday weekend, and would you believe Mr. Hill answered very promptly? Life has its pleasant surprises. He said "a blade" was the answer, and it wasn't long before we got some work done. The road is at least usable now, yes not ideal. 

The Iowa Avenue project is expected to conclude in the middle of next month. The skunks and raccoons might want to make a note of that. We won't need to hope for a full moon anymore. 

I told my neighbor that I am an asset living among them, for getting City of Morris response, because I BLOG. I noted that "I have been aware of power of the press since I was in the cradle." 

 

Tigers defeat Monte

So it's Saturday morning and I can at least find the score of the Tiger football game at Montevideo. A win, 48-26. As of this morning I cannot find any other game details in the available media. Media issues always interest me. The West Central Tribune sports website has been off-and-on with its (nagging) "paywall." First I'll share an email I sent Wednesday to an old newspaper compatriot/friend in Central Minnesota:

 

Hello Randy - It's 6 a.m. and I'm getting ready for the biscuits and gravy special at DeToy's. I just made a check of the West Central Tribune's sports site. I was curious to see if the paywall was up. For the past couple weeks, they have had a paywall and it is now the type I cannot get past with the "incognito" trick. So I was ready to write off this site as a sports info source. They were really just asking for a negligible amount: $2 for six months in a "limited time" offer!! Wow, just like the Ginsu knives. "Operators are standing by." A friend sort of sniffed at me and suggested "what's two bucks." I guess I was addressing the principle of the matter. I think information should be free, unless it's in newspaper form where the paper has overhead with printing.

So this morning I made a check and - guess what? - THE PAYWALL ISN'T THERE! I went right in and checked the volleyball update from Tuesday. The Morris match was not covered. You see, when you force people to pay something, they will complain if their favorite team isn't there. The Forum is always in retreat, always trying to wring money out of people and then having to continue with retrenchment. Here's another example. They drop their "limited time offer" and then just open the site up to everyone - bad form obviously.

When I left the Morris paper, there was big talk about how we'd be shooting video at sports events. The following fall, I noticed there were in fact links to watch little snippets from games. That's not there now. A big reason is that kids at the school have taken this over themselves. They are known as the "YouTube geniuses" locally. So the paper's efforts with its little snippets would be useless, pointless. So there you go: the continued retreat by newspapers. We once had access to the all-powerful printing plant. That advantage has eroded substantially.

It is questionable how much Morris sports coverage will even be on the WCT site this year. Starting last year, Morris was no longer in the WCT official coverage area. So, Jackson Loge not on All-Area team etc. However, I found during the spring that a fair amount of Morris info was still getting on the site. Some maybe was called in by opposing coaches. Or maybe the WCT continues to take the calls from Morris coaches regardless, at least those coaches who bother. It looks like the Morris tennis coach (my neighbor) emails complete match results to the radio station which puts them on the website - very nice.

If you are counseling the Morris paper's sports person, it has not yielded any improvement yet. I checked the SCT site a couple times in the last few days. Because of the Labor Day holiday they probably went to press early. I expect their sports service so far in the school year to be almost nil. Meanwhile, for what it is worth, I've done just fine with my online efforts. I'd be lost without a platform for doing this. A top MACA athlete recently had the torn ACL bugaboo and is out for the whole school year. That's Cate Kehoe, daughter of the principal.

Such an irony: SCT has someone paid to write sports, and I don't get paid. But I am relieved of the overwhelming pressure which was crushing me at the end. It was really almost comical. About a month after I left the paper, Sue Dieter actually called my home because they were in a pinch for a driver on short notice. Well sorry Sue, maybe you'll have to drive the van yourself. As for Tom, he must have needed the job awful bad to be willing to behave like such a horse's ass. And this behavior came on so sudden. Doesn't take a genius to know he got some order from higher up in the (expletive) Forum chain of command. They gave up on Morris.

- BW

 

And, here is an email I sent to a different friend Friday morning covering some of the same stuff. Hey, this is pertinent!

OK, both Wednesday morning and this morning, I checked West Central Tribune sports site and the paywall is gone!!! I got right in. However, Morris volleyball hasn't been appearing. There's always hit-and-miss there. I have to believe that the WCT was getting negative feedback on the paywall. Otherwise, how embarrassing to have people sign up only to have the wall come down. Maybe coaches and athletic directors were saying "take down the wall or we won't call in information any more." The price wasn't the issue, it was the hassle. It's an instant turn-off. What's happening is that step-by-step, newspapers are losing the privileged position they once had. Look at video coverage: it is not done through the newspaper. The YouTube geniuses wouldn't think of working with the paper, and certainly there is no "paywall" for that, and we don't want them to get ideas! I think it will stay free.

Another thought: maybe a few years from now, sports parents and fans will be satisfied with video-only coverage. There's no excuse for the Stevens County Times website being so "dead." You'll probably want to stick up for them. Who cares if it's Labor Day weekend? That shouldn't matter anymore, people want to see coverage in the media.

Well, Friday night 2nite so I go to Don's about 5:15 p.m. and get a chocolate shake in big metal cup along with grilled cheese sandwich, no fries, $12.26. I wonder how the steak restaurant is doing, or if it's having effect on Stone's Throw or Old No. 1. Shoeshine guy say anything?

 

Did I comment to you about the Edward Jones FDIC-insured certificates of deposit? There's an ad in fishwrap, I think page 2, and it jumps out at you. They only promote their two-year CDs. You should go online and look up their 5-year CDs too. So there's hope with CDs now. The main street banks can go sit under a cow.

The main street banks brag about "free checking." Well my goodness. Bremer doesn't even have that. It's $10 a month to have a debit card.

 

Again, you'd be welcome at Sunday picnic at PDT Park, app. 11:45 a.m. Come fill your plate two or three times, to honor memory of Allen Anderson.

- BW

Here's a Minnesota fall picture from Wikimedia Commons.

  

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