WORTHINGTON - You have seen words to this effect in this column before.
We spend our years yearning for summer, but I really think we are better off in winter than in summer. For one thing, in the winter, we can make adjustments in dress. Someone reports, “This is really a mild day. It’s like spring.” We go outside wearing a jacket. Another time someone might report, “It is so cold you can scarcely bear it. They say it may be the coldest day of the year.” We go outside with a coat over the jacket and maybe we slip on a scarf besides. We make adjustments. In the summer, as the heat and humidity bear down, there is no escape.
Oh, we have air. Air conditioning. But for all of this, we suffer the heat. There is no taking off all clothing, although some appear to be near that state. Still, even a bare back is not a cool back.
We compensate for the heat - distract ourselves - with community festivals. Now, as the time for county fair draws close, is the peak of the festival season. Worthington waits for Turkey Day, which is essentially a fall festival, but there is celebration along main streets through most of the region, from Luverne to Windom, from Slayton to Sibley. Balloons and clowns. Parades. Grilled burgers and iced drinks, hot dogs, sometimes fireworks. The region celebrates its communities.
I am partial to Turkey Day, of course. Turkey Day has survived a test of decades. I have sometimes had a tear to wipe away when the bands begin marching along 10th Street. Turkey Day is a wonderful experience. There have been many other notable community celebrations, however.
The historic retail district at Brewster was only one block long. Then came the park, and then came the school. There perhaps never was a day more celebrated than the day a parade moved along this route in celebration of the completion of the bandshell in the Brewster park. That was a day still remembered. Summer 1939.
Three thousand people is a lot of people, especially when they pack themselves together at a curbside, and the estimate was there were three thousand people at curbside in Brewster that afternoon. They came to be thrilled and thrilled they were. Think of this:
First came the renowned Brewster Girls Drum and Bugle Corps, which was famous through all of Minnesota and which won a first place in a state competition. “Seventy-six trombones led the big parade.” Then came the Brewster High School band, the Heron Lake High School band, the Worthington High School Trojan band. Then the Lakefield High School band. Then the Westbrook band. Then the Okabena band. Then the Worthington American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps. If you were there, you knew this was a day to be remembered.
This actually was the year the Brewster girls marched for the first time. There were 32 of them. Officially the Daughters of the American Legion Drum and Bugle Corps, they ranged in age from 11 through the teen years. An 11-year-old with a bugle and a Legion uniform, a 15-year-old with a bass drum. They were indeed a thrill. There never was more music along the streets of Brewster.
The Nobles County Historical Society worked diligently to earn a Historic Site recognition for the NYA bandshell at Chautauqua Park, where the Wednesday evening band concerts have become a treasured Worthington tradition. It is hoped someone will resolve to win similar recognition for the Brewster bandshell that is carefully preserved in the city park. It is a time for half-a-dozen Brewster musicians - or half-a-dozen Worthington musicians - to step on the stage for a concert in the 76-year-old bandshell at Brewster.
In the county historical archives at Worthington, there are photos of uniformed bands which trace nearly to the beginning of settlement in Nobles County. In one memorable era, there was a band stand on the lawn of the Nobles County courthouse where local bands did concerts for Worthington shoppers on Saturday nights. Saturday night was the shopping night. Community and high school bands are one of the finest traditions of all our region. May it ever be so.
Ray Crippen is a former editor of the Daily Globe. His column is published on Saturdays.
