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Editor's ViewpointMeditations Of A Minnesota Mossback |
Growing Pains
It’s been a tough year so far in Hugo.
The city experienced an unexpected and tragic death of a local resident in a stormwater drainage pond last weekend.
In January, the city was shocked by an inexplicable murder/ suicide in a Hugo townhome complex.
Just after the first of the year, a fire burned a longtime landmark to the ground in downtown Hugo.
While watching the Hugo Fire Department’s emergency rescue personnel work alongside the Washington County Sheriff ’s Office and Fire Dive Team on Oneka Parkway last Saturday, I asked a city employee whether he didn’t feel that, somehow, the city was being targeted by tragedy in 2010.
“We’re growing,” he said, simply.
I had to think about that.
In the end, it did make sense, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
As the number of people who live in this community increases, it seems that along with the new home starts, brand new babies, birthday party celebrations and vibrant successes, there will be more tragedies, more failures, more poor choices.
Growing pains hurt.