GaryOsberg.com

Sunday is Father’s Day. In 1998 Dad moved from his high rise apartment in downtown St. Paul to my house in Upsala. He had been a city fellow for most of his life, but he was raised in Upsala. I was working in Minneapolis as a sales manager with a Xerox agency and I was gone most of the week. It wasn’t much of an inconvenience to have him there. His passion was cooking, however I told him in no uncertain terms that I hated the smell of fried foods and I did not eat leftovers.

In July of 1999 the Xerox agency and Xerox parted their ways and they no longer needed a sales manager. I spent the summer painting old buildings and garages in the Upsala area and started working here at MPR in October of that year. If I did not leave a post-it note on the counter in the morning that said “NO SUPPER”, there would be a home cooked meal on the table when I arrived home. The food was awesome. The baked potatoes were done in a special way. He boiled them 10 minutes first and then baked them for one hour at 400 degrees. As Dad struggled with old age and cancer, sometimes the quality was not up to the usual standards. Also, many times the smell of burnt food or worse, burnt plastic, from the tea pot handle, would greet me at the back door. He burned three tea pots, with plastic handles, in the last six months. It got so that the only time I did not leave out the post-it note, “NO SUPPER”, was on Fridays. On November 18, 2004, I came home and he greeted me with “I have to go to the hospital, but you can eat first” I responded “No way” and I put on the oven mitts and grabbed the baked potatoes and dish of meatballs from the oven and shoved them in the frig and we drove to the VA in Minneapolis.

That was Dad’s “Last supper”, he never did come home. That weekend I ate the leftover meatball supper. It was a very tasty meal.

Tomorrow Erik and Walleye Willie will treat this Dad to another fishing tournament for Camp Confidence on Gull Lake.  Two years ago we placed third in the “Mixed Bag” category.  I will deliver a full report next Friday.

This week Live From Here is heading west for a live broadcast from the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery just outside of Seattle with guests Ben Folds, Wye Oak, and comedian Dave Hill. Joining Chris is the band: Gaby Moreno, Rich Dworsky, Alan Hampton, Alex Hargreaves, Julian Lage, and Ted Poor. There will also be Chris Thile’s latest Song of the Week; scripts from the radio acting company, Serena Brook, Tim Russell, and Fred Newman; a new edition of musician birthdays; your chance to rise to internet fame with the Instant Song Request; and thoughts from Out. In. America. courtesy of Tom Papa. Tune in for all that and more on your local public radio station.

“To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula. It’s an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all and each person must look for that courage in their own soul. ”  John F. Kennedy