Outside Looking In
Final stitch
When I was putting the finishing touches on the Mascot last Tuesday afternoon, Senior Center Director Joanne Myrvik stopped at the Mascot to inform me of a fancy quilt they were sewing together and wondering if I wanted to take a photo if it.
I grabbed my camera and walked across the street to the Senior Center where I was greeted by five busy stitchers. The ladies meet every Tuesday and Friday for quilting and volunteer to hand-stitch quilts for various people or organizations.
Whenever I’m in town, I try to stop at the Senior Center to visit with the men and women playing cards, exercising or quilting. I truly enjoy each and every one of them and try to engage in some sort of fun-loving banter, bring them treats or just to say hello.
After ribbing these five quilters -- Myrvik, Rita Engels, Karen Golden, Marianne Christensen and MaryAnn Buysse -- that I should help them with the quilt, I positioned myself for a photo of them (see photo left).
The quilt was being put together for Minneota senior Ireland Stassen, a standout athlete. The quilt squares were from her various athletic t-shirts during her sports career. The various colors and the precision with which each of these talented ladies were handling a needle was impressive.
I left the Senior Center with a huge smile on my face as I always do when I say some wisecrack to them and they return some sort of quick-witted comeback.
“I mentioned to other quilters that we were having such a happy day,” Myrvik said.
But in less than 24 hours, the mood went from happy to somber when Myrvik phoned the next day to inform me that MaryAnn Buysse had passed away that morning while picking up sticks from her lawn in Minneota.
I’ve met MaryAnn several times in the Senior Center and was always met with politeness and she always complimented the content of the paper.
Buysse was the last of Myrvik’s original group of quilters at the Senior Center.
She is the sister of Etien and Omer Laleman. Etien’s wife, Marian, passed away on April 2, 2023.
Rest in peace, MaryAnn.
Where’s my paper?
We have been getting several calls in the last few months from subscribers wondering why they are not getting the Mascot delivered in a timely manner like they used to. I am one of those people.
Since I began writing for the Mascot 11 years ago, I received my copy of the Mascot in my mailbox at my home in Willmar every Friday like clockwork. A couple of years ago, it started arriving on Saturdays the majority of the time.
Last year, I began getting the paper delivered as late as Monday and four times in the last year I didn’t receive a paper at all.
Now I’m getting it delivered on Tuesday and Wednesday most weeks. Of course, it doesn’t bother me much since I already know what it going to be in the paper, but it must be very frustrating to others.
So, I started backtracking to see where the problem was. I called House of Print in Madelia, where the Mascot is printed, labeled and mailed from. They assured me that there was nothing different on their end. The paper is printed at House of Print on Wednesday morning and it arrives in Marshall early Thursday morning. A driver from the Marshall Independent then brings the Mascot and the Independent papers to Ghent, Minneota and Canby.
I checked with the post office in Madelia and was assured that nothing has changed as far as truck delivery there. I then checked with the Minneota and Willmar post offices and was told the same thing.
Some people like to blame their local post office, but this is not the fault of the Minneota Post Office or its carriers since they have nothing to do with the papers leaving Madelia and ending up in my mailbox, for instance.
The problem seems to stem from the fact that delivery system has changed delivery routes in recent years. When the papers are brought from House of Print to the Madelia post office, various trucks pick up the mail and bring them to locations beyond the eventual delivery place.
For instance, if I mail a letter from Willmar to Minneota, I was informed by my local post office that the letter will either travel to St. Cloud or to the Twin Cities before it eventually arrives in Minneota, instead of the direct route to Minneota.
It’s very frustrating because once we send the completed digital pages to the House of Print each week, it’s out of our hands. When a paper does eventually arrive at its destination several days late, the news is beginning to draw cobwebs.
We appreciate all our subscribers and hope they can continue to subscribe. Maybe this problem will iron itself out.