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.

For my Father’s Day, my son surprised me with a fishing trip to Gull Lake. Erik along with his son `Walleye Willie’ and I are entered in the 33rd annual “Nick Adams Memorial Camp Fishing Classic” for Confidence Learning Center. It may rain, but over the years Erik has gifted me with first class rain gear for Father’s Day. It will be a great day.

The APHC show this week is a live broadcast from the fabulous Fox Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri. Special guests include Iris DeMent who will sing a few songs from the heartland, by way of Russia, and The Cactus Blossoms travel down from Minneapolis. Missouri native Joe Newberry will bring his banjo and his guitar to join the Royal Academy of Radio Actors and the house band. Garrison will bring us the latest news from the little town that time forgot, and the decades cannot improve. Enjoy the show.

“Enthusiasm is the key not only to the achievement of great things but to the accomplishment of anything that is worthwhile.” Samuel Goldwyn