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Many years ago my Dad went to work as a dishwasher at Little Sisters of the Poor in St. Paul. His boss was a woman named Maxine. They became real good friends and her family also referred to him as Grandpa Bill. Maxine and Dad never lived together, but they ended up living in the same high rise apartment building next to St. Paul Ramsey Hospital on University Avenue. When Maxine died, I attended the funeral and Dad surprised me by asking me to sing “The Lord’s Prayer” and “Amazing Grace” during the service. There was no piano, so I had to sing “a Capella”. It was ok.

One of the pieces of furniture that Dad brought with him when he moved into my house in Upsala was a corner unit with glass shelves and a glass door that had belonged to Maxine. Her family had given it to him.

After Dad passed in 2005, I had to clean out his room. One of the items in the cabinet was a small green egg with silver decorations and a seam abound the middle. I was curious to see what treasure was inside, but when I pried it open, expecting to find a doll, what came out were ashes! “OH MY GOD! IT WAS MAXINE”. I spilled a little in my haste to put it back together and I quickly put it back in the curio.

A few years later, it happened again to someone that was helping me to clean house.  After that I decided to dig a hole next to my Dad’s grave and bury the “egg”. 

“Tell me, what else should I have done?  Doesn’t everything die at last and too soon?  Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  From The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

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Comments Off on January 14, 2022

In 1976 I gave up drinking Old Grand Dad 80 proof for Lent. My other “drug of choice” was Heineken beer.  When dining out, my dessert selection was usually a dish of vanilla ice cream with a double shot of Old Grand Dad poured over it.  Easter Sunday in 1976 was not a good day, but I stayed “on the wagon”.  I do believe that I entered into the “dry drunk” stage of my recovery.  Not a lot of fun, especially for my family.

I gutted it out and in April of 1977 Marcia signed us up for a weekend retreat at the Cenacle Retreat House in Wayzata, Minnesota. Sister Ten-Tie Saniel and some of her fellow nuns presented “Effective Living” a seminar based on John Boyle’s “Omega Seminar”. With much struggle and dragging of my feet I managed to learn the following affirmations. Affirmations are stating future goals in the present tense.

For the last 44 years I start each day with a selection of readings and end by stating these six affirmations.  It has worked for me. 

The six basic affirmations are as follows:

1. I am loved; therefore, I like myself, unconditionally as I was created. (Repeat five times)

2.   I never devalue myself with destructive self-criticism. (Envision yourself doing something that you are very proud of)

3. I see love in others and have warm regard for all persons at all times. (Envision yourself doing something nice for somebody else)

4. I am easily able to relax and with every affirmation I become physically and mentally healthier. (Envision yourself doing something relaxing)

5. I am completely self-determined, inner directed by the spirit of love and allow others the same privilege. (Repeat five times)

6. I accept total responsibility for the consequences of my actions and reactions. (Repeat five times)

7. You can add up to 5 more goal specific affirmations.

“Great results cannot be achieved at once, and we must be satisfied in life as we walk, step by step.”  Samuel Smiles

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Comments Off on January 7, 2022

2021 is coming to a close.  “Father Time” is a theme for many cartoonists.  In 1966, my mother’s mother, Grandma Laura,  gave me three old pocket watches.  One had belonged to her father, Fredrick Anderson.  It is a Waltham watch, silver with a gold stag inlayed on the back.  Another watch is a key wind.  It appears to be the oldest of the three.  It too is silver with a picture of a dog engraved on the back.  It belonged to her first husband’s father, Meinert Larson.  The note 1890 is written on the document.  The third watch was a gold watch that had belonged to her second husband, Ingebret Ramlo.  I was very honored that she had entrusted these heirlooms to me. 

I purchased a fourth watch and had the four mounted in an antique frame that hung on the living room wall in our first apartment at 7439 Lyndale Avenue South in Richfield.  We had a lower level apartment, since the rent was cheaper.  

One Sunday evening we came back from a weekend in Upsala to discover that someone had broken into our apartment and stolen some items, including the watch collection.  I was sick.  The culprits were caught, and all of the goods were recovered except the watches.  On the drive home from work one night I spotted the same boys searching for something in a ditch along Lyndale Avenue. These boys came from good homes and they hired a good lawyer.  I attended the trial and was disgusted when they got off with the charge of “lurking and lying in wait”.  I was told after the trial that if I were to make a trip to downtown Minneapolis, to the defendants lawyer’s office, that I might find a bag on the lawyers desk that might contain some “items of interest”.   I had no choice but to play along. I did get the watches back without the antique picture frame. 

While doing my annual house cleaning, I brought out the watches.  I located the key and wound up the watch that belonged to Great Grandpa Meinert and laid it on my dresser top.  As of this morning it is keeping perfect time.  A watch made by the American Watch Company in Waltham, MA,  still going strong after 131 years.

May 2022 be a much happier year for you and your loved ones.

“It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.”  Mark Twain

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Comments Off on December 31, 2021

Merry Christmas Eve,

This true story was told by Gary Gilson.  Gary is a Twin Cities writing coach who teaches journalism at Colorado College.  He can be reached at www.writebetterwithgary.com  

“I knew a New Yorker named Phil who worked in Manhattan’s Diamond District, along 47^th Street between 5^th and 6^th Avenues. He traveled to and from work by subway from his home in the Bronx every weekday for years.

One day, in the week before Christmas, Phil entered the subway car on his way home and, as a veteran rider, immediately sensed something was off: only one passenger in the car, a drunken, disheveled man, ranting and cursing and flailing his arms against the world.

Phil felt tension in the air.  Then he noticed a group of passengers huddled at one end of the car, cringing in fear.  Phil went right over to the man, sat down, put his arm around the man’s shoulders and began to sing,    “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…”

The man slowly calmed down, and soon he was singing along with Phil, “where the treetops glisten, and children listen…” And then, just as slowly, the passengers at the end of the car started drifting toward Phil and the man, gathered around them and joined in singing, “with every Christmas card I write..” And they all kept belting out holiday songs as the train barreled northward toward the Bronx.

These people had never known each other before, and now they were singing and laughing and hugging, if only for this brief moment in time.  They were so connected that some riders chose to stay on the train past their stops.

The troubled man brightened; he seemed to be feeling part of something larger than himself. And all it took was an arm around the shoulders, a familiar song, a gathering of humanity and, above all, a man named Phil.”   

Thank you to Gary Gilson for allowing me to share this Christmas story.  Merry Christmas

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Comments Off on December 24, 2021

Eight days until Christmas. I have all of my shopping done and now I simply have to pace myself on the cookies and candy.

Children love Christmas, as well they should. As with most families, some years, Christmas gifts were easy to come by and some years the budget would not allow for much. The Christmas of 1956 was a memorable one for me. My mother had to move from our home in St. Louis Park due to Dad’s inability to handle booze. Ma’s mother, Grandma Laura Ramlo, drove her 1952 Chevy from Upsala to 1620 Colorado Avenue South in St. Louis Park, put Dad in the back seat and drove him to the VA Hospital in south Minneapolis. She told them, “He is a veteran, he is a drunk and he is your problem, not mine”.  She took us all back to Upsala to live above the Ramlo Grocery in Upsala.

I am not sure what the reason was for our ending up living in an apartment in Little Falls in December. It had something to do with getting financial aid. That Christmas, Santa brought us six big Tonka Toy 18 wheel trucks. There was a cattle truck, an oil tanker, a freight truck and three more. This was a perfect gift for a family with five boys. I was 13 years old and brother Bill was 10. We played with them non-stop. I am not sure what my sister Kathie got that year. For many years I had the impression that they were from some sort of social agency that served the poor. It turned out that “Santa” was Dewey Johnson, a classmate of my mother’s from Upsala High School class of ’37. Dewey’s cousin was one of the founders of Tonka Toys. Dewey had already passed on before I learned the “rest of the story”, so I never did have a chance to thank him.

Perhaps you know of a family that has come upon hard times and they could use a “Secret Santa”.  

“Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men”.   Angel

Category : General

Comments Off on December 17, 2021

My first born granddaughter, Kaylin Marie, started drawing pictures when she was very young.  In 2002 Kaylin decided to draw a picture of a Christmas tree for her grandmother Marcia.  Somehow, the Christmas tree became an angel blowing a horn. I was amazed that a seven-year-old could make the Angel’s cheek look like it was puffed out, blowing the horn. I borrowed the drawing from Marcia and used it to make my first Angel Christmas card.   Every year after that I would ask Kaylin to draw an angel to use for my Christmas Angel card. 

Five years later Kaylin started with a photo of her younger sister Christen and my son’s daughter Anna as a basis for the angel card.  She added some wings and halos and that was the Angel Card 2007.  After that Kaylin decided to retire from the task. The next year Christen Irene drew her first angel.  She was only five years old. Christen has drawn 12 more Christmas Angels since then.  The comparison of her very first angel and the one that she drew in 2020 is amazing.

This summer Kaylin and Christen lost their Grandma Marcia to cancer.  2021 is the twentieth Angel Card and in honor of Grandma Marcia I will be using the very first angel drawing for my Angel Card.  I am so grateful that Marcia shared  Kaylin Marie’s artistic creation with myself so that I could share it with you.    

The St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra will be performing their St. Cloud Holiday Fantasy concert tomorrow at 3pm. All of the symphony orchestra concerts are performed in Ritsche Auditorium at St. Cloud State University. Tickets are available at www.stcloudsymphony.com or at the door.  You will need proof of vaccination and you will need to wear a mask. 

Also, The George Maurer Group annual Christmas Show is at The Paramount Theater this coming Monday at 7:30. I hope to see you there also.  Tickets are available at www.paramountarts.org  

“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”  Leonard Cohen

Category : General

Comments Off on December 10, 2021

It looks like the ice on the pond is not going to be very safe for a while.  Do not go out there unless you are with a buddy and be sure to check the ice often.  When I was a wild youth in Upsala, we used to drag race cars across the ice on Cedar Lake west of Upsala. To my knowledge, no one ever went through the ice. We got away with a lot of stupid things as kids.  One winter we made a game of standing on the hood of an old DeSoto, using it as a giant snowboard as we were towed in the ditch behind a car.  Dumb and dumber.

My sister and one of my classmates both ended up in casts after a toboggan run down a steep hill in the Burtrum Hills.  After a heavy snow we would make a party out of driving into the Burtrum Hills with our old cars and just try to get stuck.  These were not SUVs, simply rear wheel drive Chevys with a bunch of crazy boys and snow shovels.

Here is one way to enjoy the winter and the ice in a safe environment.  https://youtu.be/iNuCXUkp2DE

Also, you may want to come to St. Joseph tonight for the annual tree lighting at the corner of College Avenue and Minnesota Street.   The Great River Chorale is presenting “Upon the Midnight Clear”, online beginning tomorrow and airing until the 10^th of December.  Tickets can be purchased at www.greatriverchorale.org 

“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.”   Seneca

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Comments Off on December 3, 2021

American Public Media is the parent company of Minnesota Public Radio. This is from Wikipedia  “Giving Thanks is an American Public Media radio special that airs nationwide on Thanksgiving Day. It is hosted by John Birge. The show consists of classical music, songs, and dramatic readings all related to Thanksgiving. Although the format remains the same, some individual features are always aired, notably, selections from Charles Laughton’s 1962 album The Story Teller, about his experiences with Etienne Houvet and Alfred Manessier at Chartres Cathedral, as well as his reading from Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums. Musical pieces regularly included are Handel’s Largo from Xerxes and music from Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.

Although John Birge began doing an annual Thanksgiving program in 1985, Giving Thanks did not go national until 1999, two years after he began working for Minnesota Public Radio. Birge states on the website for the program that Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday.”    Source Wikipedia 

If you missed the program yesterday, you can find it at www.yourclassical.org/holiday.     This is the link to the Charles Laughton segment.   https://youtu.be/LOPv55Tsol0

I made it to Wadena yesterday to celebrate with my family and Erik’s in-laws, Kathy and Lee.   Erik and Willie used the old brine soak method and the turkey was marvelous.  A family photo is attached.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world..”  J.R. Tolkien author of The Hobbit.

Category : General

Comments Off on November 26, 2021

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 adult life, but he was raised in Upsala. I was working in Minneapolis as a sales manager with the Xerox agency Albinson 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 Albinson 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 for Minnesota Public Radio 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 very special way. He boiled them for 10 minutes first and then baked them for one hour at 400 degrees.

As Dad struggled with old age and cancer, sometimes the quality of the supper was not up to his usual standards. Also, many times the smell of burnt food or worse, burnt plastic, from the tea pot handle, would greet me as I came in 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 Friday November 18, 2004, I came home and he greeted me with “I have to go to the hospital, but you can eat first. Your supper is in the oven” I responded “No way, we will go now!”  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.

“There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself.”  Howard Thurman

Category : General

Comments Off on November 19, 2021

Dad served in the Pacific during World War II. Like a lot of veterans, he did not talk about it very much. After he died I found a notebook that he had written in, beginning with, “I have a closet full of regrets”. It was an unusual collection of thoughts, ending with a reference to December 13, 1983, the day that he finally decided to quit drinking. On that final page he also noted, “I am no big believer that battle fatigue was the cause of my drinking, but there were the 2 ½ months at Okinawa that I do not care to talk about. It was so unreal, like bad television”. The battle of Okinawa proved to be the bloodiest battle of the Pacific War. A total of 219,000 persons lost their lives in that one battle. 12,000 of our troops died and 36,000 were wounded.

A few years ago a coffee shop buddy and I donated a framed print of the U.S. Navy painting that is hanging in the Committal Hall at the Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery north of Little Falls.   We donated it to the American Legion Post 328 in St. Joseph. My buddy Phil’s father served on the destroyer USS Converse in the Pacific during the war and my dad served on the USS Vammen, a destroyer escort. The limited edition print was presented in honor of Norman P. Ringstrom and William E. Osberg and all other Navy Veterans.

There are five original 8 foot x 10 foot paintings in the Committal Hall. One for each of the five branches of the United States Military. They were painted by a native of Little Falls, Charles Gilbert Kapsner. You can view the art of Charles Kapsner at www.buonfresco.com   If you are interested in visiting the Committal Hall at the Veterans Cemetery, simply give Eric Sogge a call at 320-616-2527.

“Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free”. General Dwight Eisenhower

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Comments Off on November 12, 2021