The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 67

New fun park opens Monday Jim W' Klobuchar ByZELAHSCALF Minneapolis Star Staff Writer The Roman Catholic church's struggle to guide its lambs to heaven has reached another bench mark with new rules in the purification rite we used to call confession. These have provoked wailing sounds, uneven but determined, among some of the more traditional brethren who believe the honorable old institution has now gone bonkers irreversibly. A letter-writer informs me that under certain conditions Catholics are now able to receive exoneration for their misdeeds en masse. It is a form of spiritual justice 'that appalls my correspondent. "We might as well be Lutherans," he mourns.

"I never thought they would go this far. English masses and liverwurst Fridays I can forgive. I am even prepared to believe they play guitars as well THE CHURCH'S AGONY BOX DISAPPEARS iiwjfl? nil llfr as pipe organs in heaven. But tampering with the confession box strikes at the soul. Who's running the church, the pope or Freudian psychologists?" The man who runs part of the franchise in Minneapolis, the Rev.

Francis Fleming of St. Olaf Church, tells me my informant's despair is largely misplaced. "NEW OPTIONS are coming into the church in the sacrament of penance, true," he "Also, there has been some wildcat and rather deplorable experimenting by individual priests. But I'm sure the option dealing with general absolution The $I5-million Valleyfair Entertainment Center in east Shakopee will open Monday. The $750,000, -1 roller coaster has been tested and the 46 ornate, hand-carved carousel horses on the antique merry-go-round, formerly at the old Excelsior Amusement Park, have been refurbished.

Skipper and Dolly, two seven-foot, 400-pound dolphins, are in their tank of salt water. A 1901 16-passenger Republic bus from Detroit awaits visitors at the main gate, and a special bicentennial show is ready for those who stop in the park's musical amphitheater. Col. John Phillips Ahoompapa and Chocolate Moose, two costumed animal characters, already walk the 30-acre park along Hwy. 101.

MORE THAN 500,000 persons are expected to visit Valleyfair this summer, said Howard Benidt, vice-president of marketing for the developer. The center resembles a turn-of-the-century trolley park built at the end of streetcar lines in 1900 to attract more riders. Four full-size streetcars will transport visitors through Valleyfair. Valleyfair will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

every day through Labor Day. It will be open Saturdays and Sundays in the fall. Facilities include rides, shows, games, a marina and food and bev erage centers. All rides and shows are included in the $6 entry fee for adults and $5 fee for children, age 11 and under. Children under age 4 will he admitted free.

A 50-cent charge per car will be collected in the adjacent 30-acre parking lot for 2,800 cars. About 3,000 visitors a day are expected, Benidt said, and it will take these visitors about six hours to tour the park. Valleyfair's capacity is 12,000 persons. REGULAR BUS service from downtown Minneapolis, and St. Paul to Valleyfair will not be available when the center opens, Benidt said.

The center, however, is negotiating with the Metropolitan Transit Commission to provide the service later this summer, he said. A Valleyfair campground on the Minnesota River will open June 15. It will include 100 spaces for recreational vehicles. The entire 240-acre site is scheduled for development within five years, Benidt said. The entertainment center will be expanded and a motel, dance hall and small golf course are planned, he said.

Valleyfair is being developed by Valley Fair a corporation of 12 Minnesota businessmen and companies. David Sherman, project manager for the IDS Building in Minneapolis, is corporation president. Fred Pearce owner and operator of the Excelsior Amusement Park until its closing in 1973, is a vice-president. AREA NEWS xJV. ZONE 2 ZONE I J.

A 'jy-ZONE 5 ZONE4 $jh. ffA A test run on Valleyfair's roller coaster The Minneapolis may 20,1976 1 Star Star Photos by Jim McTaggart Antique cars run on a monorail track will remain rare, ai me uiscreuun of the bishops. It is nothing much more than a xestatement of a pastoral power that has been available for a long time, for such emergencies as a natural disaster or wartime. "Now, though, or beginning in -the next few months in some churches, the penitent will have three practical options. He or she will be able to make a traditional confession to a priest with a screen separating them; or in an unscreened face-to-face meeting; or part of a communal confession followed by individual confessions.

Incidentally, you are no longer quite with it by describing this purgation process as a The new operating term is 'rite of "AND THE much-dreaded confession box?" I asked. "It is being removed as a symbol of the sinner's mortification in favor of a Naugahyde couch?" "Not at all," the reverend corrected. "The old architecture will disappear, I think, replaced gradually by what we at St. Olaf will call the reconciliation It will most likely be a square room divided by a partition. If the penitent chooses, he can have a screened reconciliation.

But the two can also sit face to face in the priest's section of the room, if the penitent prefers." It is hard to know what all of this radicalism foreshadows for the future of the world or the psyche of 10-year-old penitents, whose first intimation of the horrors of sin's wages occurred in the waiting line for Saturday afternoon confession. It was the kind of primal ordeal that drained all of the terror out of life's remaining crises. After you underwent Saturday afternoon confession at the hands of the Rev. Frank Milhelcic in my hometown of Ely, artillery barrages, screaming blizzards and double pneumonia could be confronted with blissful calm. AMONG THE survivors it forged a comradeship of the elite, of the type known most intimately by members of bomb detonation squadrons.

We would walk out of the confession box mute and aghast but lit by some strange fire that attested to Father Mike's ability to exorcise disobedience and bad thoughts with the beauty of his laith and the decibel power in his lungs. Slowly we would inch toward the confessional, missals in hand, reciting the Apostle's Creed, the Lord's Prayer, Hail Marys, anything immediately at hand that offered some chance of forestalling the good man's wrath. We examined our consciences. We tried holy water. From inside the curtained chamber we could hear the fearful rumbling of the padre salvaging the soul of a buddy.

"YOU TOLD ME LAST WEEK YOU WOULDN'T," the reverend would roar. And then, at the stroke of doom, it was your turn. "Father," you would gulp, "I have been bad." He never acted as though it was news. I don't know how I'd ever tell him I was there for reconciliation. Fire sweeps 800 acres in northwest Associated Press A fire set for burning brush got out of control in northwestern Minnesota yesterday and burned over about 800 acres of farmland, brush and woods, state officials report.

The fire swept over a home, farm buildings and a 60-acre stand of Aspen trees before it was con- trolled. The fire was in a sparsely populated area about 30 miles northwest of the western Roseau County town of Greenbush, the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said. A BAN on open burning in the northern two-thirds of Minnesota has been in effect for about 10 days, because nearly seven weeks have passed without significant rainfall in the forests and grasslands. The fire buildup index, based on the number of low humidity days since the last significant rainfall, reached 129 at Crosby and 116 at Cass Lake yesterday and several other reporting stations had index levels above 100. Two fires in northern Minnesota near Bemidji in 1973 and near Akeley in 1959 came when the fire buildup index was at 48.

The fire near Greenbush was spotted from a patrol aircraft about 3:30 p.m. State officials said the home lost in the blaze belonged to AlexCle-monson, 88. A bulldozer was used by a crew of 17 firefighters to control the blaze. Some firefighters remained at the scene today to keep embers from producing a new wildfire. A DNR spokesman said the fire was set to burn piles of brush and debris near the house.

It was noted that anyone proved responsible for causing such a fire is liable for the cost of suppressing the blaze. Clemenson lost a barn, his garage, three sheds, a pickup truck, two trailers and a new travel trailer. He was the Caribou Township clerk, and many records of the township since 1900 also were lost. 77 Workman rode chain-suspended chair on amusement park aerial swing i r-7. iyr7 whtyo the stock you should know about market esoeciallv New law permits 1-335 fund shift if vou don't own stock.

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800 Multifonds Minneapolis, MN, 55402, Minnesota will not have to repay about $9 million in federal funds already spent for the right-of-way for the freeway, where houses and businesses were removed, if this land is used for a transportation-related purpose, such as a parkway. Minneapolis housing officials have suggested that homes be built in the area. The law is not clear on what kind of a payback would have to he made and how it would be done. Any request by Minneapolis to transfer the freeway funds to other projects must be reviewed by the Minnesota Highway Department and approved by Gov. Wendell Anderson.

Both already have endorsed the idea. Federal officials have said they would go along with whatever decision is agreed upon. The Metropolitan Council must approve any new proposals by the city on the use of the 1-335 funds. of 1-335 was $65 million. Under 1976 amendments to the highway act, those options are expanded considerably, Fraser's office said in a report on the law.

THE MONEY may be used for such projects as a parkway through the 1-335 corridor, pirking facilities for car pools and commuter vans near existing freeway ramps and a light rail transit demonstration project along Hiawatha Av. in south Minneapolis, the report said. It also could be used for a new Mississippi River bridge. Several suburban legislators have urged that the money would be best used for a bridge between north Hennepin and Anoka Counties. The amount of money available could be more than the original cost, Iric Nathanson, staff aide to Fraser, said.

He said the actual amount of money that could be substituted for other pro By BETTY WILSON Minneapolis Star Staff Writer A new federal law clears the way for Minneapolis to use $58.5 million earmarked for Hwy. 1-335 in Minneapolis for a variety of transportation projects, including a downtown "people mover," Rep. Donald Fraser's office said today. City and state officials generally have agreed to drop plans for the controversial 2.7-mile a -w freeway, proposed in 1962 to link Hwys. 1-94 and I-35W just north of Downtown.

They have been waiting for federal clarification of the 1973 Federal Aid Highway Act. The act allows the city council to rescind local approval for freeways scheduled to be built within the city, and request that the money be transferred to mass transit programs. THE MOST recent cost estimate jects would be the estimated cost when the projects are approved by the Department of Transportation. Nathanson said the new legislation will permit the city to use the monev for virtually any transportation more currently apprpved by the Federal Highway Administration and the Urban Mass Transit Administration. Clayton Sorenson, director of public works, said the city probably won't consider filing a formal request with the Department of Transportation to abandon plans for 1-335 and transfer the money to other projects until the Federal Highway Administration publishes the rules for carrying out the law.

One question that must be resolved in the rules, Nathanson said, is how the right-of-way already acquired for the freeway might be used for other purposes. THE NEW LAW provides that i 7 1 fQ3) Piper, Jaffray L-4 MCOHfOIUTtD Serving tumtors nnct 199 Membtr N. Y. Stock Exihutgr, Imt.