My Thoughts Exactly: We may not have 54, but we have 28
By Mike Christopherson, City Editor/Opinion Editor  Crookston Daily Times

So Grand Forks is promoting 54 reasons to call that city home in recognition of the Red River's 1997 crest of 54 feet there? Hey, more power to 'em. But they don't have a corner on the self-promotion market. The Red Lake River in Crookston peaked at 28 feet that spring, so there's no reason we can't scrounge up 28 reasons to call our little town home, too.

1. Let's get the obvious out of the way immediately. All together now: Widman's Candy Shop.
Amen!  The chocolate's fine and the fountain cokes are out of this world

2. A multitude of insurance choices. Crookston has got to be the leader in insurance agents per capita. And hair styling salons. And churches.

3. Crookston High School. If we'd all let the district's budget struggles not blind us for a few fleeting moments, we'd see what a great place CHS is. Call me nostalgic but I liked it better when Prom and Graduation were in the school.   

4. I'm probably risking my personal safety if I don't take this opportunity to mention Crookston's private schools, the best on God's green earth.

5. Local channel #7 on our television dial, which provides countless hours of fun playing "Count the Typos!" (Insert your own typos in the Crookston Daily Times joke here.) Let's get them to feed it to the internet so those of us outside the cable system can play too.

6. Two words: Mr. CHS. 

7. The multi-cultural mural on the back wall of the Grand Theater, which provides a wonderful topic of conversation when outsiders first witness the strangely colored rainbow and ask, "What the hell is that?"

8. The Grand Theater itself, the old side. It was retro long before retro was cool.
But what happened to the "just before Christmas" Saturday when all the kids got to see a free movie and get a bag of candy/peanuts?

9. Stop signs in absurd places, like the one at the intersection of Barrette Street and Fourth Avenue Northeast. Have you seen how fast the traffic comes barreling into town there?  And Walsh is even worse.  I vote for more stop signs...we can't be in that much of a hurry if we live here.

10. The smallest daily newspaper in Minnesota, and one of the smallest in the nation.
I'd like it better if it didn't allow those "get rich quick" and "work from home" ads.

11. The large, neon sign adorning the Motel Country Club. A friend visiting from out of town thought it was so cool, he actually wanted his picture taken in front of it.

12. Happy Joes' taco pizza.
Happy Joe's YES  taco pizza NO - I like the sausage the best.

13. Our short city council meetings. You're always home in time to catch the end of "Trauma: Life in the ER" on The Learning Channel. Is it possible that not enough people are given a chance to speak?

14. Thank God...half-way there.

15. The ample opportunities to see up close and personal what our young people are up to. You'll find them downtown, on any given street corner, on any reasonably warm evening.  How about a downtown burger hangout?  Remember the SODA POP HOP sign at the armory and the Friday night dances.  

16. Office chairs for $359. This one has me completely stumped, however our company just did a web site for a law office (not in Crookston) that had $1,300.00 chairs for their lawyers.  Don't knock 'em till you try 'em!

17. Businesses who have never heard of interest or finance charges, and instead say, "Pay us when you can."  Hmmm, every invoice I've gotten in the last years talks about a finance charge and the 2% cash discount seems to be a thing of the past.  Where do you shop?

18. Even our worst street is smoother than DeMers Avenue in Grand Forks.  Do some traffic counts.  I'd rather have folks complaining about potholes and LOTS more traffic.

19. UMC. Truly the gem of the community.  Does anyone have digital pictures of the Murals in the auditorium?  Some of the greatest I think I've seen.   And take those speakers down so we can see the entire pictures!

20. You're never more than five minutes from hearing a semi downshift as it makes its way through town. I'm thinking you don't remember how it was before the bypasses went in...when the announcers at KROX would have their window open and there was the constant sound of the semi's making the turn at the Polk County State Bank.  It's a ghost town now compared to then.

21. US West. (Oh, sorry, that's from the list of 28 reasons to avoid Crookston like the plague.) I think they're getting a bad rap.  They're mostly providing exactly what they agreed to with the PUC.  If you think that should be changed, Hurray!!  But let's put blame where blame is due.  

22. The Northland Inn's ribs. Ribs are good but booths don't fit the average fanny of a Minnesotan.  

23. We didn't flood in 1997. (Oh, my bad again. That's from the list of 28 reasons why Crookston has to keep crossing its fingers, hoping to get a measly $3 million in federal money to finally start our little flood protection project.) Let's put the new dam back in place east of town.  Water control, Recreation, more taxable stuff  Stop some of the flow of $$$ that goes right by us on Highway 2 YES!

24. If you want a cat or dog as a pet, there's always one running loose within reach. 

25. General Tsao's chicken (Can you tell I'm writing this at lunch time?) Do you remember Sidney's Cafe in the Wayne Hotel.  Sundays, after Church were so COOL back then.

26. You can always count on seeing items you place on your boulevard for spring clean-up week at a rummage sale in the summer.  Worse yet, buying them back!

27. Only a few homes have plastic animals in their yard. Not near 'nuff if you ask me!

28. We're the county seat! 

This is an editorial from the Crookston Daily Times.  Can you add to this list?  Have some humorous comment on any item?  Send 'em to howboutthisone@crookston.net