GaryOsberg.com

There is no activity on campus today. The students are on spring break and the staff has the day off for Good Friday. The postmaster was surprised to see me.

A local story about two dogs attacking a woman in St. Joseph reminded me of my experience in Vienna, Austria. I was an Army brat and we lived on the second floor of an apartment building at 41 Gregor Mendel Strassa. I was nine years old and I was the leader of a small street gang of dependent and Austrian children. Our apartment was across the street from a huge house with a fenced yard occupied by a Colonel in the Fifth Army. There were two boxers in the yard and one of the kids stuck his hand through the linked fence and a dog took his mitten. The kid starting crying and I offered to go in and get his mitten. By then the dogs had moved to the opposite corner of the yard and when I starting walking towards them they rushed at me and knocked me down. I covered my face with my arms and they chewed on my arms and legs. After what seemed like a long time, a neighbor we called “The Fire Man”, because he stoked the large furnace in our apartment building, came to my rescue.

I remember walking home crying and when my mother opened the door she fainted. I spent many weeks in the Army hospital. For some reason they did not stich the wounds, so Ma spent a lot of time rubbing olive oil on the scars to lessen the redness. I was afraid of dogs for a long time, but I did get over it. Time heals most wounds, some just take a while longer. The Colonel bought me a new winter coat.

The APHC show this week is a rebroadcast of a show which aired March 29, 2014. Willie Watson performs “Mexican Cowboy”. Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele sing “You Make Me Feel like a Natural Woman” and Hilary Thavis and Butch Thompson play “Mamie’s Blues”. In the News from Lake Wobegon, the Lutheran Church holds its Lenten soup suppers. Enjoy the show.

“No man is worth his salt who is not ready at all times to risk his well-being, to risk his body, to risk his life, in a great cause.” Teddy Roosevelt