One of the items I read this week from my anthologies was an excerpt from a Henry James essay titled “The American Scene.”

James wrote the essay in 1907 when he returned to the United States after spending most of his adult life in Europe. The excerpt is a description of a boat trip along New York City’s East River with views of the city skyline.

He didn’t like the skyline. He thought the skyscrapers towered over the churches, which in his prime of life were the city’s tallest buildings.

He laments how his favorite opera hall had lost its role as a top of the line performance center. He also commented on immigration, doubting that the Irish, Italians, Poles and others would ever be truly be integrated into society. He wishes for a more unified society like Scotland or Switzerland.

James sounds like a cynical old man. In some respects he sounds like a bitter old man. He doesn’t like how his version of New York had been superseded.

It makes me wonder why he couldn’t view the current city with fascination. The skyline should have delighted him. It was a change, but it involved reaching new heights in more ways than one.

It didn’t do him any good to focus on his past. Likewise it doesn’t do any good for me or anyone my age or older to think in terms of “good old Marshall.”

There are times like when the afternoon traffic is bad where it’s tempting to wish for a return to simpler times.

We had several things back then that we no longer have. We had more grocery stores. We had Marshall Bowl. We had The Key roller rink.

We have to think, however, of all the things we have now that we didn’t have in the 1970s. Back then the area between Bruce Street and the mall was a farm field.

We didn’t have the Marshall Area YMCA or the Red Baron Arena. We didn’t have Chinese or Mexican restaurants. We didn’t have a bike trail between Marshall and Camden State Park. We didn’t have the current Marshall High School across the highway from Southwest Minnesota State University.

All things considered, we have more now than we had then. It took real vision to plan for the future. It took forward thinking ideas to get the results we’ve had in the past generation.

Most senior citizens that I know realize how the changes have helped the community. They know it’s different than it was in the past, but they don’t think the changes have to be bad. Instead they focus on the benefits for families, children and employers.

We’ve grown in a smart way. It hasn’t been the kind of haphazard urban sprawl that’s affected many larger cities. Instead it’s been carefully planned and coordinated.

I can understand if residents in smaller rural communities wish things could be like they were in the past, when their towns had more businesses and more activity on business days.

Marshall is fortunate to be a regional center, a destination for education, health care, shopping and employment. It draws people from a wide area. The traffic is something to put up with in return for those benefits.

It shows that we have to think about the future. We have to plan for changes that are likely to occur. We need to decide what we want our community to look like in the future, what we want it to become as the 21st century continues to unfold.

There’s not much of a way to stop change. It’s almost inevitable. We can either embrace it and become part of it, or we can grumble about how things just aren’t the same anymore.

It’s better to be part of it. It’s helpful to enjoy the new things that serve current residents an help to attract new ones.

There are many more exciting possibilities for the future. We have many possibilities to think about and dream about. With dedication anything’s possible.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and

contributor to the Marshall Independent