GaryOsberg.com

It was in 2001 that I first noticed an old man kind of shuffling towards Wimmer Hall where the studio of Minnesota Public Radio is located. His bib overalls were covered with saw dust. I stopped and introduced myself.  I asked him what he did and he responded in a gruff voice, “My name is Brother Willie and I work in the woodshop.  I make a table and chair set, haven’t you seen them?  They are for little ones.”   Since I had a six year old granddaughter at the time, I asked him if he would make a set for me.  “Oh, I don’t know, there are many orders ahead of yours, I don’t know if I will live long enough to make a set for you.”   I responded,  “No problem, I will pray for you every day and I am sure that you will live long enough to make them.”   

I visited Br. Willie in the woodshop many times. The first time I noticed a small wooden wagon filled with blocks. He made the blocks out of scraps of oak wood.  Most likely the oak had been harvested from the Abbey forest. I always left him one of my calling cards and reminded him of my order for the table and chairs.  One day the phone rang and it was Brother Willie.  My table and chair set was finished. Over the years I took delivery on two children’s table and chair sets plus 8 of the small wagons filled with blocks of many shapes and sizes.  Years later Br. Willie had to stop working in the woodshop but he still would make his rounds going thru the garbage searching for aluminum cans.  He donated the money from the cans to the poor.

At one time Brother Willie was the Monastery dairy herdsman but he was best known for his role as the self-appointed night watchman on campus.  The pub in Sexton Commons is named after him and George Maurer wrote a song named “The Brother Willie Shuffle”.   

In 2005. my friend Dave Phipps drew a caricature of Brother Willie Shuffling from which my granddaughters company, Zygoatian LLC, has made a T shirt.  The T shirts are available at the St. John’s Abbey Gift Shop in the Great Hall.  The Gift Shop is open Monday thru Saturday from 10 until 2 and Sunday from 11:30 until noon.  A picture is attached. 

“Success has nothing to do with what you gain for yourself.  Success is what you do for others.”  Brother Willie (William Jerome Borgerding, OSB)   1916-2009 

Category : General

Comments Off on March 25, 2022

It is still nippy, but we did hit 51 degrees this week.  I am sooo happy to see spring is on its way.  I miss sitting by my bubbling boulder.

I celebrated my 10th birthday on a ship on the Atlantic ocean on the way home from a stint in the Army.  My dad was a Sergeant in the 5th Army stationed in Vienna, Austria.  I had quite the summer tan, since the trip took almost two weeks.  I remember how embarrassed I was when my mother pulled my pants down to show the tan line to Auntie.  My dachshund Mickey came home by air, but the rest of the family had to take the ship.  My first glimpse of television came when my sister and I stuck our heads in a bar in Grand Central Station in New York. 

When I started fifth grade in Upsala I was getting around on crutches due to a car accident.  I was able to go up the old wooden stairs at school alright, but coming down for the very first time, I swung out on my crutches and tumbled down the stairs.  It is a wonder that I did not break my neck too.  In those days, the basketball heros at Upsala High included Dave Holmen and the Anderson boys.

This year Upsala is not in the hunt, but both the girls and boys teams from Albany are still in the playoffs, heading toward the state tournament.  The boys play number 1 Annandale tonight at St Cloud State and the girls play number 1 Providence Academy, at Williams Arena on the campus of the U of M, today at 6pm.   Go Huskies. 

Bessie, Billie and Nina: Pioneering Women in Jazz will perform tonight at the Stephen B Humphrey Theater at St. John’s University. Tickets are available at www.csbsju.edu/wow

 “The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time.  It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life.  When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else.. we are the busiest people in the world.”  Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)

Category : General

Comments Off on March 18, 2022

Next Thursday is Saint Patrick’s Day.  The song “Oh Danny Boy” is a very popular Irish song.  Malachy McCourt wrote a book titled “Danny Boy. “The Legend of the Beloved Irish Ballad”.

The tune is known as the “Londonderry Air” and it originated in the northern most county of Ireland.  The story goes that sometime in the 1600s, Rory Dall O’Cahan, a blind harpist, left a gig at a castle in the Valley of Roe and having had a little too much to drink, he fell asleep in the ditch alongside the road. He was awakened by the sound of fairies playing the most beautiful tune he had ever heard, on his harp.  He returned to the castle and proceeded to play the first rendition of what became known as the “Londonderry Air”.

Around 1850, Miss Jane Ross of Limavady, County Derry, heard a blind fiddler playing the tune and she wrote down the notes and the tune spread all over western world. Some say that Jimmy McCurry was that fiddler. Many tried to come up with words to the tune, including some of the best known poets of the time, but none seemed to work. 

Finally in 1913, an Englishman, Fred Weatherly, a teacher and a lawyer who had written nearly 1,500 songs in his life, was sent the tune by a sister-in-law who lived in America.  Fred had recently lost his father and his only son.  His sorrow is reflected in the words, especially the second verse.

“And if ye come and all the flowers are dying, if I be dead as dead I well may be, ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying and kneel and say an “Ave” there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me, and all my grave the warmer, sweeter be.  For you will bend and tell me that you love me, and I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.”

“Good judgment comes from experience and often experience comes from bad judgment.”  Rita Mae Brown

Category : General

Comments Off on March 11, 2022

In the spring of 2000 I visited MPR’s classical music station, KWRV 91.9, in Sun Valley, Idaho for the first time.  When I made my second trip in the fall of 2000, I decided to drive the rental car to Bozeman, Montana and visit my ex-wife’s Uncle Bill and Aunt Maggie.  Uncle Bill was Marcia’s mother’s half- brother. They both had the same mother, but different fathers.  I had met Aunt Maggie when Marcia and I went to California on our honeymoon in 1965. Aunt Maggie told stories about a Native American ghost that would visit her. He often sat on the end of her bed.  She also introduced me to stuffed grape leaves at the shopping mall. Going to visit Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bill became an annual event.  Each year I heard more marvelous stories and I learned to love those wonderful people. Knowing that Marcia and I were divorced, Maggie would introduce me as her nephew from Minnesota and add:  “I got him in the divorce”. 

Uncle Bill passed in 2008.  It has been five years since Aunt Maggie passed. She and her husband Bill Heisick both grew up in Bozeman, Montana. Here is just one of the many stories that Maggie told me.

Bill served in the Pacific during World War II. When he came home, he and his mother traveled to LA to visit some friends. One day a fellow named Ivan popped in to see his friend Tommy who happened to be playing bridge with Bill and his mother Mary. Ivan asked “Who owns the car outside with the Montana license plates?”. Uncle Bill spoke up. Ivan told Bill “My girlfriend, Maggie Caven, lives in Bozeman. Please greet Maggie for me when he get back home”.

When Bill got back to Bozeman he phoned Maggie and asked her to go to a movie. Maggie mistook Bill for his older brother Bob who she had once met in high school. She accepted the date and she was very disappointed when she found out that Bob had been killed in the war. Bill had gone to a different school and she did not know him.

She was quite sure that Bill, who was a couple of years younger than she, was not her kind of fellow. Bill was very handsome. In fact he could have doubled for Clark Gable.  Maggie was sure that like most handsome men, he would prove to be full of himself. She tried to call it off, but Bill was persistent and they were married in Tucson, Arizona on April 12, 1949. They were a very happy couple. They lived in Van Nuys, CA and retired to a small ranch outside of Bozeman in 1984. She would introduce Bill as “Her SOB, Sweet Old Bill”.   I am not sure what happened to Ivan, but he shared too much information and it cost him dearly.

“When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us”.  Alexander Graham Bell

Category : General

Comments Off on March 4, 2022

I am in the habit of listening to a podcast every morning with my first cup of coffee. The host highlights important birthdays and other anniversaries and ends the broadcast by reading a poem. One day a few years ago, the poem was “Yard Sale”, by George Bilgere, the first line of which is “Someone is selling the Encyclopedia Britannica in all its volumes, which take up a whole card table”.

I wish that I could remember the name of the salesman that came to our basement apartment in Richfield in 1965 and refused to leave until I signed the sales agreement. For only $10 a month, for three years, we could own a 30 volume set of the “Encyclopedia Britannica” and for only $1.50 more each month, we could get a genuine walnut bookcase to hold the set of invaluable information. He guaranteed that our children would be brilliant and success in life would be theirs, if only I would sign the contract. I held out until 11:30 PM. Today the 30 books, in the original bookcase, are in the finished attic room of the 130 year old Parsonage that my daughter owns in Upsala, Minnesota. By the way, both of my children are brilliant and cute too.

The Canadian Brass along with organist Greg Zelek, will be in concert this Saturday evening at 8 in the St. John’s Abbey and University Church. This is your chance to hear the newly renovated organ.  Attendees must be masked and vaccinated. Details are at Saint John’s Abbey dot org.  Tickets are available at www.csbsju.edu/wow 

“No one can excel in everything. The decades demand decisions. Choose wisely. Your choices pinpoint your priorities and determine your destiny. Use it or lose it.” Patricia Souder

Category : General

Comments Off on February 25, 2022

I celebrated my seventh birthday in Vienna, Austria. I was an army brat. Dad served in the Navy during the second world war and later he joined the Army. In 1950 he was a Sergeant in the 5th Army stationed in Vienna. As “dependents” we were housed in an apartment building that was quite nice. There were two marble faced fireplaces and a baby grand piano along with a crystal chandelier in the dining room. I ran with a group of other army brats and I was the oldest in the group.

One day in February we were hanging out in front of the large estate on the corner next to our apartment. One of the kids stuck his hand in the fence opening and a dog took his mitten. I bravely offered to go through the gate and recover the mitten. I still remember starting my walk across the large yard toward the two “Boxers”. They greeted me by jumping up and knocking me to the ground. They proceeded to chew on my arms and legs until an Austrian man who we referred to as the “fireman”, (he took care of the furnace in our apartment building) came in and pulled the dogs off of me.

I walked home nearly naked and my mother fainted when she opened the door. I spent about 6 weeks in the army hospital. It took me a while to get over my fear of dogs. The occupant of the estate was a Colonel in the U.S. Army and they gave me a new winter coat. 

In April of 2019 I returned to Vienna and I was able to take a cab ride to 41 Gregor Mendel Strasse.  We had lived in an apartment on the second floor.  I told the cab driver to wait for me and I approached the front door. A resident was getting into his car and he asked me if I needed help. I shared with him that I had lived here as an Army brat in the fifties and was hoping to see the apartment. He told me to push the button for Benedict, the owner of the building.  Someone buzzed me in and I walked up to the second floor.  The lobby looked very familiar.  The elevator was new.  The faucet which provided water for the flower garden was still there.  Marcus let me in. He was a live in boyfriend of the owner, Verena Benedict.  He let me in but he would not allow me to take pictures.  I would love to return to Vienna to take Marcus and Verena out for dinner.  I love it when a plan comes together.

“You must learn day by day, year after year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about- the more you have left when anything negative happens.”  Ethel Barrymore

Category : General

Comments Off on February 18, 2022

It is still winter and I for one am growing weary of it all. The days are getting longer, but I have not heard any Cardinals singing their songs looking for love.

Monday is Saint Valentine’s Day, “an annual holiday celebrating love and affection between intimate companions.” (Wikipedia) The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine, established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD.

Some claim that the first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules by Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote: “For this was sent on Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.” This poem was written in 1382 to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia both of whom were 14 years old.

The sending of “Valentines” probably started in Great Britain. Esther Howland developed a successful home-based business in Worcester, Massachusetts making Valentine cards based on British models. The US Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, second only to Christmas. There are many ways to demonstrate affection to those that you feel love towards. Gifts of music is one.

If it is romance that you are looking for, check out Allie Sherlock’s cover of “Unchained Melody” on YouTube. I have a close personal friend that unwittingly revealed his unique love for his wife. He is a retired business man who has a cell phone, but the only person that has his cell phone number is his wife. Every time his cell phone rings he knows that it is the love of his life who is calling him. Now that is romantic.

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”  Leonard Cohen

Category : General

Comments Off on February 11, 2022

Sixty three years ago yesterday will forever be known as “The Day the Music Died.” Rock and roll pioneers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper”, J.P Richardson, were killed when their plane, headed for Moorhead, MN, crashed into a frozen cornfield near Clear Lake, IA, just six miles from take-off. Holly chartered the flight after his tour bus broke down and fellow musician Carl Bunch ended up in the hospital with severe frostbite. Don McLean referred to that day as “The Day the Music Died” in his 1971 song, “American Pie”.

The plane was a Beechcraft Bonanza with room for 3 passengers and the pilot Roger Peterson. Richardson was suffering from the flu so Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the plane to Richardson.  Another member of the band, Tommy Allsup, lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.

Fans of the late, great musicians call the plane crash “the first and greatest tragedy rock and roll has ever suffered.” Over the years several memorials have been created in their honor, including a steel guitar and three records bearing the three performers’ names, a giant pair of Holly’s famous Wayfarer-style glasses marking the crash site, and Don McLean’s hit song “American Pie.”

Fifteen year old Bobby Vee and his Fargo band, The Shadows, were called upon to fill in for Buddy Holly at the Moorhead engagement because he knew all the words to Buddy’s songs.  Bobby Vee went on to become a music legend of his own.  He had 238 Hot 100 chart hits. The Vee family lived in the St. Joe area and for many years they performed as the headline act for the annual Joetown Rocks fundraiser here in St. Joseph.  Let us hope that we will be able to rock in St. Joe to music in the streets in 2022.

“One kind word can warm three winter months.” Japanese Proverb

Category : General

Comments Off on February 4, 2022

My daughter Kerry has always loved horses.  When we decided to move from Coon Rapids to a small farm on Cedar Lake west of Upsala, Kerry begged for a horse.  We told her that she would have to go to “Horse Camp” to prove that she was able to take care of a horse.  She was almost 10 years old when she spent a week at Circle R Ranch near Long Prairie.  On graduation day she admitted that she was so lonely the first night that she almost had the camp leader call us, but she really wanted a horse, so she stuck it out.

Kerry’s mother remembered that the Zehrers, who had a farm north of Upsala, had horses.  It turned out that the very first horse the Zehrer girl owned was a Palamino quarter horse named Honey.  She had won a lot of ribbons at the County and State Fair. The whole Zehrer family had moved on to raising and training Arabian horses, so Honey had been put out to pasture with the cows. We were able to buy Honey and Al Zehrer even let us take the western saddle to use.  He would not sell it to us, “Just go ahead and use it” he said.  Minnesota nice. 

Twenty four years later Kerry purchased an Arabian mare of her own.  Rosie was nine years old at the time . When I recorded this video, Rosie was 27 years old and she had lost most of her teeth.  Kerry would have to mix the “Senior Feed” with water and present Rosie with a sort of mush twice a day.  Kerry boarded Rosie on a farm outside of Upsala and Rosie’s stablemate was Angel who belonged to the daughter of the folks who owned the farm.  Angel was almost as old as Rosie.  We used to say that Kerry ran a retirement home for horses. 

On Monday the 17th Kerry had to make the very tough decision to have Rosie put down.  Kerry’s youngest daughter Christen did not have school that day because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, so she offered to be at the farm when the vet did what had to be done. She later told her mother that Rosie seemed to know what was going on and after the injection she simply knelt down slowly and lay on her side.

Three days later when Kerry went out to the farm, Angel was laying down and could not get up.  Kerry had to call the owner and now there are no more chores to do morning and evening.  It was a tough week for both horses and horse lovers, but there are many happy memories of shared joy.  There is something very majestic about horses.

Rosie is the white horse.  Angel is the bay.                                                                                                            https://youtu.be/iFVIpbaCZsM

“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans”.  James Herriot 

Category : General

Comments Off on January 28, 2022

55 years ago yesterday, a telegram arrived at our studio on the third floor of Wimmer Hall on the campus of St. John’s University, authorizing KSJR to go on the air.  The first broadcast was on January 22, 1967.

The first line uttered by engineer Dan Rieder was, “Heed my words, Earth People. You have 10 minutes to live.” The first concert aired was a pre-recorded concert by the Cleveland Orchestra. What began as Minnesota Education Radio became Minnesota Public Radio on January 1, 1975. 

Since then MPR has grown to a network of 46 radio stations reaching nearly 1,000,000 listeners every week.  Programs and podcasts produced by Minnesota Public Radio’s parent company American Public Media, reach over 18 million listeners each week. 

This is a version of the story of how Bill Kling was selected to lead the creation of what has become the largest network of public radio stations in the United States. It was written by our first intern, Ellen Newkirk.

“The Saint John’s University monks chose Bill Kling to help start their public radio station, Minnesota Education Radio, because of his “bright mind” – literally. SJU graduate Marty Mahowald told Ellen the story of Bill Kling’s selection as the station’s first leader as told by his professor Fr. Gunther Rolfson. Fr. Gunther told Marty that in the 1960s, Saint John’s had a mandatory lights-out policy at 10pm when the faculty residents would flip a switch that turned off all power on each floor of the residence halls. However, one evening, during walk around campus , Fr. Gunther noticed a light illuminating from a single room in Benet Hall.

The next day, Fr. Gunther used a master key to enter the room and found a system rigged to keep the power on after the switch was flipped each night. The room belonged to Bill Kling. Eventually, the monks decided Kling’s innovative and determined spirit was just what they needed for their new endeavor. According to Mahowald, “Fr. Gunther said that they knew that starting a new campus radio station would present struggles, budget challenges and many other issues to deal with and it would take someone with a lot of moxie to lead it through to success.” It turned out to be a very good decision; Kling served as president of Minnesota Public Radio until 2010 and created one of the greatest public radio station networks in the country. “  Ellen Newkirk, CSB, Class of 2013.

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past.  You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”  Johnny Cash

Category : General

Comments Off on January 21, 2022