Mel’s Musings – What the future may bring

Currently the Mitchell School Board is considering some possibilities for a new high school. They include simply “fixing up” the current sixty-year-old MHS, constructing a new high school but continuing to use the old building for some things, gym space for instance – thus doubling the operating cost of running a high school – or erecting a new building and hooking it onto a 54-year-old structure (the MCTEA built in 1968) all ridiculous options. Perhaps the Board should consider whether a completely virtual classroom will be the future of education, making construction of any kind unnecessary.

High school used to be a shared experience. When I started in 1982 there were pep assemblies for every home football and Friday basketball game. When I retired, four years ago, there was just one pep assembly and that was for Homecoming. By the way, who thought playing the Number One team in AAA (SF Jefferson) was the ideal Homecoming opponent? But I digress…

We used to have at one time or another, a “Back to School” dance, the Homecoming dance, a “Holiday” dance, a Sadie Hawkins dance (around Valentine’s Day where the girls asked the boys for a change), in later years an all school “formal” and of course for juniors and seniors, the Prom. In my last years at MHS it was only the Homecoming dance (and not always that) and the Prom.

Forty years ago, every student was in school together in one basic location – MHS. There were a few who took classes, welding for example, at the Mitchell Tech across the street (now the MCTEA building) but not that many. We were one big family – not always happy, but together. Now, very few seniors roam the halls at MHS. They are at home on-line for college courses or out at DWU or MTI. The MCTEA and the PAC add to the physical separation and isolation of the student body making any kind of cohesion and school spirit difficult to achieve. MHS is no longer a “high school”, it is one of several attendance centers. In the future, I would not be surprised if high school as an institution, as we once knew it, ceased to exist.

There are several other changes, in the works or on the horizon, that will change our lives. I recall listening to my folks talk about what it was like to live through the Depression and World War II. I may not live long enough to regale my grandkids with “how it used to be” but my adult children will.

The future will bring the death of the physical experience in several, if not in all, realms of life. We are seeing this already. Physical platforms are dying – for example, music and movies are in the process of going completely digital. We no longer play physical music – CDs, LPs etc. – but rather stream it. Movie theaters are the dinosaurs of entertainment, hanging on to existence by a thread as studios find a way to make money via streaming either by releasing films simultaneously in theaters and online or sometimes simply to streaming only. Newspapers, magazines and to a lesser extent (at least for now) books are ethereal, existing on your computer screen but not in a physical sense. Retail has become more and more of an online thing rather than a get in your car, go to a store, handle the goods and interact with people there to serve you type of interaction. Even doctoring has moved into the realm of “telemedicine” where individuals, for a variety of therapeutic interactions, visit via computer over Zoom with medical professionals. Obviously some things, for example surgery, will continue to be in person but I’m sure you’ve experienced the online meeting trend – especially during the height of Covid.

Gas powered vehicles will largely become a thing of the past after 2030. Many car companies have announced they won’t sell gas powered vehicles after that date. We’ll see in eight years whether or not the country has the infrastructure of charging stations and a beefed-up electrical grid to make this come true or not. Already California is facing serious issues with the stability of their electrical grid when all those tree huggers are charging their electric cars at night. The cost of charging an electric vehicle is about the same as filling the average gas-powered car and electric vehicles are more expensive to buy and maintain so perhaps this transition will be put off beyond 2030, time will tell.

Volunteer organizations are vanishing and will probably cease to exist sometime in the future. People are busy living their own lives and with the rise of the 24/7 workplace via cell phones, emails etc. there is less time for family let alone for volunteer activities. We’ve seen civic events like the Madrigal Feast, Arts in the Park, the Tannenbaum Festival etc. fall by the wayside as those who organized them grew tired of the responsibility, moved away or died out. I’m wondering how long the ACT can last once its founding members pass from the scene. Recent financial figures from the Corn Palace Festival call into question how long that century old tradition can continue as well. Look at the membership of the volunteer organizations in town, it tends toward the mature bordering on the elderly. Where is the next generation of leaders, movers and shakers and those who will make things happen once this generation of do-gooders has shuffled off this mortal coil? We are a society now where we hire things done rather than doing it ourselves or banding together with like-minded citizens of similar interests to complete a project or achieve a goal. South Dakota has been more successful in resisting this trend, but as more and more people move in, fleeing the taxes and regulations of other states bringing strangers who don’t necessarily share our values or upbringing – how long can we hold out and maintain our volunteer culture?

I think cemeteries will cease to exist. For example, look at the growth around Sioux Falls in terms of home or apartment building and the increase in their population. Farmland is being gobbled up for shelter, where is the corresponding real estate to bury a burgeoning population? Already in Asia there are “funeral hotels”, high rise buildings that are large columbariums for the deceased – basically safety deposit boxes holding the dead. Columbarium storage, as opposed to a traditional cemetery plot, is becoming the popular option in Mitchell. We are fast running out of room for the living, to use precious real estate for the dead will become a relic of the past. Already California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont and Washington allow human composting. Perhaps that will be the norm of the future for the disposal of the departed.

Farming as we know it will change as pressures from surrounding, encroaching urban areas intensify. Just as the government has set aside public land for national parks, I believe in the future the same thing must happen in farming. The population of the country has almost doubled from the time I entered the world naked and crying in 1959. The number of acres under cultivation continues to diminish as farmers get older and cash out by selling their productive farmland to property developers for home building, case in point – Marion Road in Sioux Falls. No one can blame farmers for getting out of a business fraught with risk and uncertainty, not to mention terrible hours and physical dangers. However, we must eat and there is only so much that indoor agriculture and personal gardens can replace once productive farms and land are lost. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in my grandchildren’s lifetime, that farming became a job like the Post Office or working as an Agricultural Extension Agent. It’s not ideal but once every farmer has cashed out and sold their land to a property developer, where will the food be grown if some land isn’t conscientiously preserved for agriculture?

I think democracy is on its last legs as well. After all, nothing lasts forever especially if it’s on autopilot and taken for granted. We have candidates running for office all across the country that have basically promised to ignore the results of elections if their Party doesn’t win. We have people who view the “insurrection” of January 6th as just a Capitol tour turned just a little rowdy rather than what it was; an act of treason, a serious attempt to execute by hanging the Vice President of the United States and other elected leaders in an effort to nullify a free and fair election certified via recounts and by other standard and open processes in various states often overseen and certified by Republican governors and officials themselves. We now have numerous people, some elected to public office, calling for an armed uprising, secession and perhaps even civil war. Lincoln is turning over in his grave.

I hate change. Throughout my life I’ve found that about 98% of change is only that – simply a different and usually not a more positive or better way, of doing things. Some change we can’t do anything about or maybe don’t want to resist. However, some alterations are a transformation or even revolutionary upheaval that threatens our cherished way of life or perhaps even is an existential threat to our very existence. The time to moderate any threat or guide any change is now before it becomes an irresistible force or a fait accompli. We can’t be so myopic about today that the future simply arrives unanticipated and unannounced tomorrow.