This is a continuation of a column from a couple weeks ago. Looking back at my year which was 2022. Notably, I’ve been really bad at actually continuing columns for a second part, but here goes.
March
It’s interesting to read columns I wrote a year ago. I didn’t write a column every week in 2022, something I aim to do in 2023. March included the end of the respective winter sports seasons. I remember both of these rather vividly. I remember waiting almost an hour to talk to Isaiah Lundberg after the boys basketball team lost to Waseca in the first round of the playoffs. That was a difficult conversation. Endings are never easy and it ended up being Isaiah’s last game as head coach. I remember asking him if he would be back to coach again, mainly because I wanted to see him back. He told me he would be and I later found out that a coach should never answer that question in an emotional state, like following the end of a season.
At the same time, I remember snapping a photo of Tom and Perry Peterson hugging. Tom was one of my coaches growing up, and I graduated with his son Palmer. We chatted for a while that night. He and his wife were talking about adopting another kid. Perry was the final Peterson to play sports, so this was the final time for Tom too, as a parent fan. The last game for Perry was also the last time Tom would get to watch one of his children play. It was an emotional moment. And I snapped a photo of it.
Looking at that photo again brings all of these memories flooding back to me and reminds me of the impor-
tance of the work we do at the paper. Several times throughout 2022, I asked myself if I should be taking photos of such emotional, touching moments. Yes, I think I should. Not necessarily every time, but to get a good photo, a thought provoking, memory inducing photo, a person, a reporter, should take that photo.
I remember getting a nice thank you note from the Peterson family regarding a different article I later wrote about the basketball season. Also, they shared the news page on Facebook and received a lot of positive feedback. In a column I chose not to print, because it was kind of a mess, I wrote about how much feedback helps us at the paper. Positive and negative.
I wasn’t sure if I should have taken that picture of Tom and Perry, but then they reassured me with a “Thank you,” and a, “Great photo,” comment.
Oh, and the girls basketball season ended. I talked with then senior Sophie Stork on the court in Mankato after the girls lost in the sub-section championship game. Right before we were done, I was reminded of something I got told. She and many girls were crying, but Sophie, a real trooper, still talked with me and opened up about the season, and her final highs chool basketball game.
Anyways, before we were done, on a whim, I told her what I was told after I played my final baseball game senior year. “If this is the saddest moment, think about how blessed your life must be.”
Hearing that quote really helped me during my senior year. It really, really hurts to play your final game.
When I told Sophie, she smiled and I was again grateful for my profession, grateful for the opportunity to ride along for the season.
The final week of March was very eventful.
Donovan Eaker died. I remember talking with her on the phone numerous times. She’s another person I wished I could have had the pleasure to interview and write about.
And then my cousins won farm family of the year in Waseca County. That was really cool. I wrote 12,000 words, including five articles. One on each family, one on the event, and another on their “Gifts of Grain” program offered by the Waseca Area Foundation. In that same week, I wrote five or six articles on the end of the Winter Sports season, one of our special sections. I literally wrote from dawn to dusk, beginning on a Saturday morning and ending late on a Sunday night. I think I wrote an entire book in those two days. My only regret is I wish I had more time for
editing. Melanie caught, well, I think everything. But I didn’t read them again after she was done. I just remember saying a prayer and hoping she could fix all my typos, because it was literally a book.
So that was March.
I don’t know if this is going to be a 12 part series. If so, I’m two parts down.
Thanks for staying with us, with me, with the Star Eagle for another year.