GaryOsberg.com

When the family moved from St. Louis Park to Upsala in October of 1956, one benefit to me was that I got out of having to serve “detention” at Park Junior High school. My rebellious nature had already kicked in. The Upsala school population was divided into “farm kids” and “town kids”.  That fall I started hanging out with other “town kids”.

For some reason one of us decided to steal a gas cap off of a parked car. I am not sure which “genius” came up with this idea, but in any case, the prank turned into a project. Everyone in town was talking about it and I am sure that old man Miller printed a story in the local newspaper. In time one of the “gas cap gang” confessed to his parents and we all got busted.

Earl Metzger was the local policeman. He gathered us up and forced me to reveal the hiding place of the gunny sack full of gas caps. All of those who were missing their gas cap were told to come to Earl’s garage in Uptown Upsala and sort through the lineup of gas caps to claim theirs. We appeared in front of the Justice of The Peace in the backroom of the fire hall. Justice Bernard Lunder sentenced us all to “six months of church attendance”. Many years later I would visit Bernard at the nursing home in Sauk Rapids and we would talk about the “separation of church and state”.  He simply laughed and said he thought we would benefit from his sentence.  Not all of us learned the lesson. The “Black Knights Car Club” was born a few years later.  That lead to another crime spree. 

I have two tickets in row G for the performance of Chasity Brown next Saturday, April 29^th at the Paramount Center for the Arts.  Let me know if you are interested.  I will need your mailing address.

“It is unwise to pay too much, but it’s also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, all you lose is a little money, but when you pay too little you stand a chance of losing everything because the thing you bought is incapable of doing what you bought it to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It just can’t be done. So, when you deal with the low bidder, it is wise to put a little something aside to take care of the risk you run. And, if you do that, you can afford something better.” John Ruskin

Category : General

Comments Off on April 21, 2023

Upsala Motors is a sponsor of Radio Lab every Saturday.  They are located “below the hill” in downtown Upsala.   A city divided by Two Rivers.  Across from Upsala Motors, next to the river, is a Shell gas station with an Italian restaurant, Marliano’s.  Famous for their pizza and their Borgstrom Burgers.  

The original building on that spot was a blacksmith shop. It is very likely that there was a water wheel in the river to power the many belts and pulleys that operated the various machines.  In the fifties the “smitty” was a jolly old Swede, Gust Olafson.  I can still recall the sounds and smells coming from the shop.  During the summer, the huge front door was always open, and the ceiling was full of large belts going in all directions.

One spring day, Gust was busy at the forge and anvil when a crusty old Norwegian bachelor farmer came rushing in demanding that Gust drop what he was doing and sharpen his plowshares.  After many attempts in his loud demanding voice, the farmer said to Gust, “If you don’t sharpen these shares right now, I will have to take my business to Swanville!

Without even looking up, Gust replied: “Happy Yourney”.

“To simply your life, and spend your energy on things that are meaningful to you, you must acquire a knack for saying no.”  Robyn Paper

Category : General

Comments Off on April 14, 2023

On Wednesday we celebrated Kaylin Marie Osberg’s 28^th birthday. Kaylin is the oldest of my five grandchildren and life has not been the same since she came into this world.  My daughter was working her way through school at St. Cloud State and from the time she was a baby, Kaylin would spend most weekends with her bachelor grandfather in the old parsonage in Upsala.  We did a lot of pancakes at the Uptown Café on Saturday mornings and a lot of washing her hair in the kitchen sink on Sunday mornings before church.  There was much wailing and thrashing about. 

Getting her to fall asleep in her crib at night was not easy.  It helped if I sang “It’s Summer Time” over and over again while she struggled to stay awake.  After many years, she finally said, “Grandpa, please stop singing that song!”. 

Now Kaylin is co-owner of a promotional products company, Zygoatian LLC.  Their moto is “We will print on most anything”  She owns a small home close to Lake Mille Lacs in Wahkon.  If you need a T Shirt or coffee mug, give her a call.  Simply go to www.zygoatian.com  . 

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes, art is knowing which ones to keep.”  Scott Adams

Category : General

Comments Off on April 7, 2023

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 that year, I decided to drive the rental car from Sun Valley 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 two 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 six years since Aunt Maggie passed. She and 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, in a proud way, told Bill: “My girlfriend, Maggie Caven, lives in Bozeman. Please greet Maggie for me when you get back to Bozeman”.

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 31, 2023

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 on campus 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 the 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.”   

During the next few months, I visited Br. Willie in the woodshop many times. Once, I noticed a small wooden wagon filled with blocks. He made the blocks out of scraps of oak wood harvested from the Abbey forest. I always left him with one of my calling cards and reminded him of my order for a table and chair set.  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 old age made it necessary for Br. Wille 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 granddaughter, Kaylin, has made a T shirt.  Kaylin was the 6 year old granddaughter who got the first table and chair set. 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 24, 2023

Today 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, known as the “Londonderry Air”, 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 to what became known as “Oh Danny Boy”.  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 17, 2023

In January I got a phone call from a fellow in Upsala.  They were looking for someone to be the treasurer of the Upsala Area Historical Society.  I had a bit of history with the organization, since they own the Borgstrom House in Upsala and that is where they keep the artifacts that represent the history of the area including the 1928 Rio Fire Truck that started the whole thing.

Axel Borgstrom was born on August 8, 1888 and his father built the Borgstrom house in 1913.  Sometime in the seventies Marcia and I, along with another couple, had dinner together at our house on Cedar Lake west of Upsala.  Axel and his wife Carrie had a cabin on Cedar Lake.  Since I was in sales, it fell to me to ask the touchy question, “Axel, would you and Carrie consider willing your house to the Historical Society so that we could have a museum.”  I was expecting a negative response, along the lines of “What kind of question is that?”  Instead, Axel smiled at his wife of 70 years and said, “That’s okay, Carrie and I will build a new house and you can have the old house now.”

True to his word, at the of age of 92, he hired a contractor and built a wonderful rambler across the street from the bank that he, his father John Borgstom and Pete Viehauser had established in 1914.  They left almost all of the furniture and belongings in the old house to give the Historical Society a head start on the collection of artifacts.  The Borgstrom house will be open for tours during Upsala Heritage Days on August 12^th.  I hope to see you there.

Secret to a long life:  “When you think that you are going to die, brace up.”  Axel Borgstrom 1988   

Category : General

Comments Off on March 9, 2023

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 131 year old Swedish Mission Church Parsonage that my daughter owns in Upsala, Minnesota. By the way, both of my children are brilliant and cute too.

“It’s the birthday of the host of This American Life: Ira Glass, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1959. He got into radio, he says, “totally by accident.” It was 1978, he was 19, had just finished his freshman year of college, and was looking for a summer job with an ad agency or a TV station. He managed to talk his way into an internship with NPR despite the fact he’d never listened to public radio. He started out as a tape cutter and as a desk assistant, graduated from Brown University, and continued working for public radio as newscast writer, editor, producer of All Things Considered, reporter, and substitute host. He moved to Chicago in 1989, and in 1995, he launched This American Life. The programs usually feature an in-depth look at the lives of ordinary people; sometimes the stories are sad, sometimes ironic, sometimes funny.”   Source: Wikipedia    

You can listen to This American Life every Saturday at 1pm and every Sunday at 9pm on KNSR 88.9 MPR News or the MPR News station in your neck of the woods.   Go to www.mpr.org to find your station. 

“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 March 3, 2023

I heard the first Cardinal call from afar on campus this week. It seems to be right on schedule. Spring cannot come too soon.

To continue with my career path, the drafting field led me to a job at Control Data Corporation at the Data Display Division in Roseville.  In 1967, my boss, Ron Crew, was hired away by a fellow who had launched the very first computerized drafting service bureau in the United States, Norwood Engineering Systems.  Ron then hired me to work as a Franchise Manager for Norwood.  The founders had raised over $250,000 in startup funds, but it did not take long for us to burn through the money.  The software simply was not ready.  The $70,000 6 foot by 9 foot Calcomp plotter was idle most of the time.  The founders were let go.

I ended up being the last General Manager of Nowood Engineering. I was 26 years old. When I called a stockholders meeting to try and raise more funds, they laughed and said “Close it up.” I wrote letters to 14 creditors telling them that NES was filing for bankruptcy and we could not pay their bill.  I did put my home telephone number at the bottom of the letter.

One of the creditors was General Office Products in St. Louis Park.  Their sales manager, Jim Helstrom, called me and wanted his furniture back.  I had to tell him that the previous management had borrowed funds from a bank and had put the furniture up as collateral.  The bank had repossessed the furniture.  After a long conversation, Jim said, “If you need a job, let me know.”   Doing the right thing had paid off.

I started working for General Office Products in 1971. The office furniture industry was very, very good to me.

If you feel like going out tonight, I have two tickets to “Voctave: At the Corner of Broadway & Main Street” in the Escher Auditorium on the campus of College of Saint Benedict.  I can leave them at Will Call for the first one to respond to this email. 

“Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient evidence.” Samuel Butler

Category : General

Comments Off on February 24, 2023

“You just need to find your authentic swing!” Advice from Bagger Vance, a character in the movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance”, released in 2000 and directed by Robert Redford. Doing well at the game of golf is akin to doing well at the game of life. I am here doing what I do, loving what I do, to a large degree because of luck. Being in the right place at the right time.

I had no idea what I was “going to be when I grew up”. My two quarters at the U of M in 1961/62 were a disaster.  I once signed up for the “Phillips 66 Gas Station Management Program”. Those of us in the program wore company uniforms but I don’t remember having to wear “the cap”. They taught us how to properly check the oil and wash the windshield while keeping an eye on the gas pump.

One day in 1962, my sister’s boyfriend Barry Larson asked me if I had any skill with “drafting”. He had a side job that he needed help with. I was living with my mother recovering from a back operation and I told a fib, but I got the job. When he came to pick up the finished work, he was not happy. “Don’t you know the difference between an object line and a dimension line?” Clearly, I did not. I bought an instruction book on “Drafting” and did the work over again. I ended up working as an Engineer Aid on the Polaris project at Honeywell and I even designed a part for a gyro used in the missile. I own a tie clasp with a submarine on the face of it. I probably still have that instruction book in a box somewhere. When I left that job in 1965 to go back to college, they gave me a very nice compass set and a briefcase to carry my books.

Over the last 61 years I have had twenty three jobs, in three different industries, drafting, office equipment and radio.  I started my radio career on the third floor of Wimmer Hall on the campus of St. John’s University in October of 1999.  It is hard to believe that soon, it will be 24 years working with Minnesota Public Radio.

“Wisdom is what is left over after we’ve run out of personal opinions.”  Cullen Hightower

Category : General

Comments Off on February 17, 2023