By Elaine Rassel
The week started out with going to the City Council meeting at 5 o’clock. It was the second meeting for 2021 elected Council members and the mayor_time to appoint Council members to their positions, as well as naming depositories and the official newspaper. One of the last issues discussed was the intersection at Highway 3 by Casey’s. Another letter is to be sent to the Iowa DOT about this. It was mentioned that not being patient could have been the human error in these accidents.
Tuesday was Bethany’s birthday! Zachary, Steve, and I helped her celebrate by going to the Pizza Ranch for supper. We missed the MMCRU girls’ basketball game but made it home in time to get the last half of the boys’ game. The girls won 83-27 over Trinity Christian and the MMCRU boys won 55-47. Wednesday’s newspaper had a write-up on three Royal girls_Harpenau, Hilbrands, and Dreckman each receiving 1,000 points in their career. Each of the seniors were presented with game balls decorated with “1,000” and signed by all their teammates and coaches.
I was missing an insurance check that was mailed November 20, 2021. This has been the third check since August that has not reached its destination. I don’t know what is going on. Some of the mail I get has no stamp but a “presorted First-Class Mail US Postage PAID”instead. Most of the junk mail has this also. Maybe someone gets this letter by mistake and thinks it is junk mail, doesn’t open it up, and tosses it to the garbage. I have had another check issued and it arrived on Saturday, Jan. 15.
Before Christmas the UPS truck left a package off that was addressed to a Gayle xxx to be delivered to 308 West Cedar, Missouri Valley. We tracked down one of the three trucks that were in Marcus that day and left the package off with the driver. There is no West Cedar street in Missouri Valley. He was going to put it in the miscellaneous box. The return to person was from another state. Chances are that Gayle never got this package.
The Doctors had two interesting stories on this week. One was a woman that was going to have surgery on “hammer toes”. I had a distant relative that had this where the second toe goes over the big toe that is trying to go into the spot of the second toe. The woman on the show could hardly wait until she could at last wear toe-less shoes or even sandals. (My relative never wore them.) Poor fitting shoes in earlier life or the fact there were no finances to do something with the problem was supposed to be the blame. (Maybe in earlier days, there wasn’t anything to do about the problem like there is now.)
Now, I don’t wear toe-less shoes, have a hammer toe problem, but have one foot a shoe size bigger than the other. If I wore toe-less shoes, the left foot would have a toe showing and the right foot, there would be nothing!
The other show was about crowd surging at a concert. The two in my household had tickets to the Orpheum on a concert featuring Martina McBride. The tickets were from 2019 that was cancelled. Zachary called the Orpheum the other day to see if these two tickets were still good. “Yes”. So on the 13th (a bad number for me!) they are going to this concert. I have asked him to call right up to the last minute and see if it is still going as sometimes the performer gets sick and cancels at the last minute. Of course, I didn’t know what I was talking about! Now with them going to this concert, the Doctors have a program on when a crowd goes “wild” at a concert. Could this happen at the Orpheum?!
There were four people interviewed that had gone through a concert surge. The first two people told about the horror of what they went through. They were nurses and gave CPR to many that were being trampled on. They were glad they could help but now they had after emotions of those that died when no one helped.
The other two told of losing a friend and they couldn’t do anything about saving him. There was a promoter that came on and said that the real hero of a concert/crowd surge were the promoters that planned ahead of time as to what to do if this were to happen. He explained that many of these crowd surges come about because of the environment the concert is in. And, alcohol was also brought into the story. It was in 2015 that a male performer walked off the stage because he could see what was happening to the crowd. According to the promoter, this concert should have been stopped right at that moment. But, concerts make money for cities as well as those putting them on; so no one wants to stop one. A psychologist was offering sessions for the four to hopefully overcome their feelings that they should have done more as people were dying around them.
A doctor came on and had four things to do if you are in a concert surge. 1. Keep your arms up. 2. Go with the flow of the crowd_don’t try and find the opposite direction to go to get out. 3. Stay upright and don’t look down. 4. Try to avoid being on a hard surface. These might be some very good suggestions, but when you are shoulder to shoulder in this mess, it wouldn’t be the easiest to follow these 4 suggestions.
Like Marilyn in the Parade magazine said last Sunday, that loud music captures our attention and takes us out of our individual real worlds. We find music intensely exciting especially when it is associated with major events. Do you remember the actions of girls when Elvis was performing? Television at that time showed girls jumping up on the stage and tearing off his shirt! There was a lot of shoving and pushing of girls wanting to get closer to Elvis. There could have easily been a crowd surge at one of his concerts. That was back in my day!
(I would suppose you wonder if I sit by the television a good share of my time. I do most of my writing after midnight and when I hear (from the other room) one of these stories that might be interesting to see, I leave the computer and go listen.)
Well, I didn’t have to worry about a concert surge at the Orpheum as the concert with Martina McBride was cancelled until March 3, 2022 due to an unfortunate and untimely COVID exposure. Bethany had left work early and then found out about the cancellation. Even if it had taken place, with all those people that would be attending, it would be a good chance to have many more cases. Will anything be better by March 3 that the concert will take place?
It didn’t have to be the 13th for what was going to happen weather wise on Friday. Before 9 p.m. on Thursday, there were schools up north that were canceling classes for Friday. At 5 o’clock (Friday morning) most of the schools all over were closed due to the snowstorm that was predicted to arrive early Friday. Those that move snow were getting all prepared for snow.
By six o’clock Friday morning, there was a covering of snow. The person that brings the Sioux City Journal to Marcus called Steve to tell him the papers wouldn’t be in Marcus until Saturday morning (it was 10:30 that morning). By this time people had scooped and delivery wasn’t that bad.
I saw in the S.C. Journal the obituary of Carol Mullins. Carol was a sister of Dan Gates.
Remember in your thoughts and prayers those who have lost loved ones to death, to those who are experiencing long-term effects of Covid or the new strain, O , to those who have extended health problems, those who are struggling to have ends meet financially, to those who need encouragement to get back into the workforce, and to those who are still trying to build a bridge instead of a wall to bring them closer to friends and family.
I will leave you with this quote from Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American president: “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”