GaryOsberg.com

Good morning from Collegeville,

Indian Summer is over.  The forecast is for lows in the teens tonight.   It is hard to believe that next week is Thanksgiving already.  “Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother’s house we go…”    Now, grandmother has a townhouse in the city and there is hardly room for all of the family.  My grandmother on my mother’s side owned a grocery store in Upsala, Minnesota, so Thanksgiving Day was a big deal.  She would fix not one, not two but three entrees, turkey, roast beef and a small pork roast.  My job was to fill the crystal glasses with ice and water from the cistern pump.  “Gram” would always start out with a prayer and then an apology for the quality of the meal, “I don’t know why I keep doing this, I simply can’t seem to cook like I used to.”  The food was delicious.  I think that is where we got the Lutheran guilt from.

I will be going to my son Erik’s home in Wadena for Thanksgiving Dinner.  Erik loves to cook and I am looking forward to seeing the grandchildren.  I plan to stay away from the stores on the “busiest shopping day of the year”. I don’t shop, I buy.  Waiting in line is one of the hardest things for a “recovering jerk” to do.  Thank goodness for prepay gas pumps so that I don’t have to stand in line while someone chooses from the hundreds of lottery tickets that are available.  

The show this week is live from the Brown Theater at the Wortham Theater Center in Houston, Texas.  Special guests include , western swing and hot jazz ladies of Fort Worth, The Quebe Sisters Band, Texas-born mandolinist/violinist Richard Kriehn and the Cherubin of Midland, beloved mezzo-soprano Susan Graham.  Enjoy the show.   

There will not be a note next Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.  

For those of you who are real public radio fans, check out this rap song.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxRgNnue-zk

“The real messages of hope in our generation are not those to be bounced from the moon, but those to be reflected from one human heart to another.”  Kenneth S. Wills