Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Like hundreds of others, we attended Gordon Moeller’s final concert as choir director at MAHS. It was kind of a bittersweet moment, one doesn’t like to see something familiar end and yet time marches on and new people step forward to continue a tradition.

Many of us have long-term connections with the music department. Our oldest daughter, Mary Lisa, started with Mr. Moeller as a music student back at Glenwood High School. After that, our next youngest daughter, Sarah, was involved at MAHS.

Over the past few years we have had two grandsons in the program, Colin and Daniel, who will be a senior next year.

So over the years we have attended lots of concerts, and when we didn’t have a child or grandchild in a concert, I was often there carrying a camera to get photographs for the next edition of the Pope County Tribune.

The truth is I would have enjoyed those concerts even if I didn’t have another reason to be there. They are just good music.

I’ve always enjoyed music but have always been a better listener than musician. It has been fun to see some really good musicians perform with the MAHS choir and band. These directors get those students to a level they might not get on their own. It is fun to watch and enjoy.

A few years ago the school district chose Heidi Polzin to head the instrumental music department. She is a MAHS alum and is familiar with the tradition of a good music program. Jeff Iverson, another MAHS alum, has been selected to replace Mr. Moeller for the same reason. MAHS music programs have a tradition of being excellent and these people understand that. They will be challenged to maintain that excellence. We all wish them well.

So we offer an appreciative thanks to Gordy Moeller for years of really good music. We thank him for what the program has meant to us, our kids, and grandkids personally. And we thank him for setting a high bar for the various MAHS vocal music groups and encouraging all students to reach for that bar. It has worked well.

         

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Over the past five or six months I’ve been watching gas prices and it has been interesting that Glenwood has been low in the area for most of that time.

In January when we spent a couple of weeks going back and forth to Alexandria for Senior College there actually was a time when gas was 45 cents a gallon more in Alexandria than in Glenwood. I’ve been on a few road trips through multiple states and have not seen that wide a range in pricing.

I was reminded of this last Monday when we went to the Twin Cities for a memorial service for a friend. Gas in Glenwood was $3.04 at Casey’s. We saw as high as $3.44 in the Minnetonka area to which we traveled.

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On that same trip we went past the home we lived in the 1950s in Minnetonka. We couldn’t get close enough to see all that was done but the house had at least one addition and probably more remodeling.

The neighboring house was gone and replaced by a McMansion. The neighboring house had a tennis court behind it, the family was big on tennis. But they weren’t wealthy people, the whole family played and enjoyed tennis. That tennis court has now been replaced by another McMansion accessed by the road behind that had a sale sign on it. I looked up the price on line when I got home and it was listed for $1.1 million! I think Dad probably sold our house for $15,000 or so when we moved to Alexandria in 1960.

That area was an average neighborhood when we lived there, the wealthy people had lake places on Lake Minnetonka. Boy has that changed!!