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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
"Winter & 'Your Name Here!'"
As the joke goes, there are two seasons in Minnesota: "Winter and Construction."
This has its limitations: it's a term that works very well on the morning commute but not so much on the home turf (unless you live in Oakshore Park or along Lake Drive, where the backup beeps on the heavy equipment are likely driving you crazy even as you read this).
From all reports, when warm weather comes in the spring, we throw open the windows and . suddenly find ourselves at odds with our neighbors.
You can almost set your watch by it: spring brings flowers and hummingbirds - and a cacophony of other seasonal disturbances and aggravations, many of which can be blamed on your neighbors down the street.
Dogs barking, guns firing, cows mooing, firecrackers popping, ATV's roaring, amplifiers pulsing, lawns (more quietly) gone wild: all comprise the fodder of another several weeks' worth of news reporting in the suburbs.
So I thought "Winter and 'You're A Pain In The Neck'" would work well.
But conflict isn't really confined to warm weather - just ask the folks who live along signed snowmobile routes.
That being said, I guess it's fortunate that most of the community's neighborhood conflicts don't make it to CNN.
So what was the attraction of Wally the Steer (see article, Page A1)? (Other than the fact he looks nothing like Paris Hilton, of course, and has a great deal more to say - at least, according to the neighbors.)
I have given this a great deal of thought, and have concluded that, at the root of it all, there is nothing that newscasters from Seattle to Miami dread more than A Slow News Week.
Moreover, we all know that Conflict Equals News.
The general Government Running Amok tale will always play well.
And now that I think about it, Cute Animal websites are eternally popular.
So, blend the four together: post-Paris Hilton news void + neighbors who can't get along + frustrated sheriff's deputy + Wally's cute little cow nose, and you've got a winner - headlines from coast to coast.
Nothing else can possibly explain why a mooing cow in Hugo, Minnesota should make it on KARE 11 News, CNN, Good Morning America, the front page of the Pioneer Press, and Joe Soucheray's Garage Logic radio show, and why I have received a number of e-mails from people I've never met, from as far away as Georgia.
Nobody's picking up on Lino Lakes resident Theresa Dziuk's story where - as an ardent saver of seeds and promoter of prairie restoration efforts - she was ordered to mow her cherished fescues down to stubble. And since the Minnesota State Legislature took the wind out of the neighbors' sails when it passed the Shooting Range Preservation Act two years ago, noise complaint headlines now carry the weight of a handful of buckshot, instead of a full-sized cannonball.
There are a lot of neighborhood conflicts that don't even make the front page of the local paper, let alone national news broadcasts.
Recently, it came to my attention that a family on the hill to the east was shooting off fireworks on the evening of the Fourth of July - to the great delight of some area teenagers - when their next-door neighbor appeared and said that his pastured horses were so badly frightened by the bottle rockets, he was afraid they'd come right through the paddock fence.
Guess what?
The fireworks display was immediately terminated - but the part about being neighbors sure wasn't.
I think they're going to be good neighbors for a long, long time.
And that's the news that will never get airtime on CNN.