The Apex Committee will reconvene April 26 and announce the strides they have made in making Austin "a better place to live" with special consideration for the "new people" coming in to the community and ways they can disperse the $5 million dollars the Hormel folks have provided.

Tuesday, April 18, 2000

The Apex Committee will reconvene April 26 and announce the strides they have made in making Austin "a better place to live" with special consideration for the "new people" coming in to the community and ways they can disperse the $5 million dollars the Hormel folks have provided. Tall work for "tall people." My concern – did they leave anybody out and what about the ones that serve who are not "Blandin People?"

I guess that’s not my worry

Word has it that the Apex Committee will also announce plans to hire a director of the "Welcome Center" located somewhere. Who will decide what qualifications this position requires? Does the Apex Committee have a personnel committee? Should he – undoubtedly it will be a he – to help maintain our good ol’ boy image, be a Blandin graduate? Indubitably.

I also look forward to hearing the committee reports – especially the Strategic Planning Committee. Their last report I witnessed was a hoot. I think the chairman assured the others that it was too soon for the strategic planning committee to report. Maybe this update will be filled with substance.

Looking back in time one could say we had a "strategic planning team" when we were in high school. We met every morning at Dick’s house before school.

One of the first questions we faced daily – should we go to school? Sometimes we just ended up staying there practicing our card skills and making change with "Teen Beat," "Bonistorus Stomp" and other famous ’45s’ of the late 50s early 60s playing nonstop, except for restacking, in the background. We turned down the volume when the phone rang. There would be a hush as Dick assured the assistant principal that he was the only there keeping in mind the Czech Proverb: "Better a lie that heals than a truth that wounds."

Other times we would arrive at the end of first or second hour and share with the attendance people how something happened to the car when we were "blowing out the carbon" on the Hollandale Road, slid in the ditch, or ran out of gas… what have you.

Eventually the school announced via the PA system that car "mishaps" were no longer excused. Curses.

Unlike Casey, our sixth grader, who went with his class to the capital last Thursday and Lydia who today went with other ninth-graders to Mankato to visit the University and the Mankato Technical College, we had to arrange our own field trips. Here, more of our strategic planning came in.

Some of it instant, like the time we flagged down traffic headed back to Austin after a snow storm at a game in Albert Lea, convincing others to go back to the Albert Lea Hotel on Broadway for a night of fun and frolic.

Our major junior and senior field trips were to a pool hall in Owatonna – five of us. A pool hall just up the street from the famous bank with the world renowned windows and design., where the proprietor would greet us with, "How’s it going Tiger?"

We figured this to be hands-on work in geometry.

Our junior trip was flawless, however, our senior year trip was fine until our arrival back in Austin.

Arriving back in Austin after school let out, we met Jim’s Dad on Main Street like we could have on any day. His facial expressions and hand gestures put closure to our gaiety.

It seems that Lars from Lars’s Standard, across the street from Erickson’s Gas Station, where the Hasting’s gym is now located, called Jim’s home to say he wanted Jim to report to work after school. Clyde took the message and called the school to have the message delivered to Jim – something our strategic planning hadn’t planned on. If I remember correctly, Clyde wasn’t very gracious with the school either when told Jim wasn’t there.

The school of course didn’t know of the Czech Proverb, of course we didn’t ether back then – we just operated like we did.

This is why Clyde greeted us the way he did I guess.

So much for our strategic planning. We were pretty much at wits end when most of us graduated – some preferred to stay on for summer school. And by then our morning card club had also slacked off.

The school had pretty much destroyed our strategic planning.

Now about all we had to look forward to during the last days of school was the 3:10 dismissal bell then to Brighams for a coke and on over to ‘The Spot’ (George Bronner’s Pool Hall) for extra credit in ‘geometry’.

There’s just no getting away from learning…

Bob Vilt’s column appears Tuesdays