BREAKING NEWS!!!! Thanks to this VIDEO and PUBLIC PRESSURE from it, CROOKSTON is bringing the OX CART DAYS back to this EXACT LOCATION. A Win for American traditions and small town celebrations! I'm leaving the original description up for those of you in other small towns who might want to send your city leaders here, so they can experience the old ways of feel good. Enjoy and Thanks for your great support. Arnie
The end of the road. Gone but not forgotten. This video sequence is of when Crookston Minnesota's annual Ox Cart Days use to be held in their old downtown. Yes those were the days my friend. We thought they'd never end. But alas. This public setting, in the old downtown, was as all-American as mom and apple pie, the flag and all things good about our country. But what did I know?
Now, the events documented here, have moved to the edge of the city limits in a wind blown asphalt parking lot outside a new hockey arena. The new arena is out on the highway bypass around the city. It has a great view, vista, of the wide, unbroken, open prairie to the north. This video, therefore, is of a bygone era. A time gone by.
My original Introduction;
This is one of the most natural video walk-through sequences I've ever done. Nothing was planned beforehand. I simply started by following a local police officer, our initial host, as she escorted a child across the street. From there I hooked onto each following mini event as it caught my eye.
As I follow the officer and the child across the street you can catch a glimpse of a robust, stout man, leaning against the Stop sign who quickly looks away as I pass him. After all this is small town America and I was considered a outsider, being from Minneapolis-St. Paul. Not a local.
Next I locked onto two guys grilling brats. They talk back and forth before I turn to move on. You catch another glimpse of a local quickly turning away, a woman, after wondering what I was up to.
As I move from brats to the corn on the cob table you can hear a boy calling out "Dad!...Dad...Dad!" I move my small camcorder in close as a single corn cob is dispensed with a vocal, unenthusiastic, " Alright " by the server as he hands it over.
Slowly I turn and move around people and lawn chairs so as to get a better view of the skyward, majestic, triple church spires reaching up into the heavens (the symbolic, iconic purpose behind church steeples). If one wants ambiance this is it. The tree leaves parts and there's the complete sky shot, the three spires unobstructed.
Just then I catch two little kids running from my side of the street to the other out of my peripheral vision and quickly turn to follow them. As we cross the street another child runs down the sidewalk as I approach.
The music soundtrack for this video was playing on the streets as I follow the sidewalk I go directly in front of the speaker (as you can hear). From there it''s a carnival event set of "bed carts" (bed carts for a race which would be coming up in minutes) and a group of women chatting and school kids selling snacks as part of a high school sports team fundraiser.
With the little tour nearly over I re-crossed the street to another police officer with kids and with one last turn, one final glance up at the majestic triple spires, pointing heavenward.
Small town carnival events or annual community celebrations are the fabric of the American character. Perfect for many of us who see it as such.
Can't see the forest for the trees?
In a small city, where many might feel things are so yesterday, so old fashioned, corny if you will, a largely abandoned old downtown, mostly feels like a embarrassment. Certainly such a setting isn't the place to host the town's annual celebration if you have something new, modern, and progressively more appealing. This was the case with the historical event you see displayed here (now part of Crookston's past history).
This town was fortunate to have received state bonding monies in the amount of $10,000,000 to replace a flood threatened, 1934 built, WPA era hockey arena. The community added their own $5.5 million and built a spanking brand new $15.5 million dollar three arena hockey "sports center". Inside it's 99% open for three hockey arenas (the building's purpose, hockey). The massive building also contains one small community room and variously scattered, small bathrooms. The arena structure is situated out on the edge of the prairie on what used to be outside the city limits. And of course it has a large asphalt parking lot.
American character and spirit. It's fast disappearing almost everywhere. Newness, change, modernism. Out with the old! This video captures a moment in time in small Crookston Minnesota. This wasn't 100 years ago, or 50 or 20 and not even 10. The video is two years old. Funny how fast things can change. Enjoy. Arnie Lahd
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Man Steals Police Car in Crookston, MNby atsdroid488 views
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