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One of our favorite restaurants is connected to a nursing home.  Drakes is part of Country Manor in Sartell.  Last Saturday evening the special was pot roast dinner.  I chose that and I was not disappointed. It reminded me of “Ma’s” roast beef dinner.

Each family has the one or two meals that everyone looks forward to.  In our family, it was “Ma’s roast beef”.  She always put on a very special roast beef dinner.  The meat was very tasty, the mashed potatoes were perfect and the gravy was “right on”.  There was many a time that the four brothers who lived near Minneapolis would gather at Ma’s apartment for her roast beef dinners.  After she passed on, there was much discussion at the dining table about what cut of meat one should ask the butcher for.  Since Ma raised six kids as a single parent, we know that the meat had to be “affordable”.  Brother Craig always claimed that it should be “the eye of the chuck”.

I went to Byerly’s and they said that normally they would cut steaks from the “chuck eye”, but they would be willing to simply provide the cut as a roast.  The balance of the recipe, as I understand it, is to sear the meat in a roasting pan on all sides, slow roast in a covered roaster with water added and roast it for a long time.  Adding onions, potatoes and carrots is an option.  The finished product should be a roast beef that will flake at the touch of the fork and not break the “piggy bank”.  I suggested that the next time all of the brothers are on a fishing trip, Erik should cook a roast beef dinner in honor of Ma.

Live from Here this week is a live show from The Town Hall in New York City.  Special guests include Common, Gregory Alan Isakov, Aoife O’Donovan, The Fates from Hadestown, Serena Brooks and Tom Papa.  Enjoy the show on the radio, by streaming it on your MPR Radio app or by watching it live on YouTube. 

“Nothin’ says lovin’ like something from the oven.”  Betty Crocker                         

Category : General

Comments Off on November 1, 2019

Next Monday, October 28^th,  I will reach a milestone.  Twenty years representing Minnesota Public Radio in central, western and southwestern Minnesota as well as Sioux Falls and Sun Valley, Idaho.

After spending 23 years selling office furniture and 6 years in the office equipment industry I was laid off by the agency that represented Xerox. They simply decided that they didn’t want to be a Xerox agency anymore.  The owners didn’t like the new contract that Xerox had presented.  So they didn’t need a sales manager.  The night before I got laid off, I had supper with my son at Byerly’s near the place where I was rooming with my cousin and I told Erik that I would keep the old house in Upsala, but I was planning on moving to Minneapolis, since I had my dream job as a sales manager with a great product and I would be making a very good living.

Instead, I ended up spending the summer of 1999 painting old buildings in the Upsala area. I drove to Randall and went to the back room at Bermels Shoes & Boots, the local Red Wing boot dealer. I picked out a good pair of sturdy work boots and started climbing ladders. My first job was the Post Office in Upsala and then I did an out building on my cousin Dave’s farm. Per my brother Bill’s instructions, I used oil based primer and latex paint. He let me use his power washer. The two buildings that I did the summer of 1999 still look good. The boots are in pretty good shape too.

In August I read an ad in the St. Cloud Times for a “Development Officer” for Minnesota Public Radio. I didn’t know what a “Development Officer” was, but it turned out to be sales. A perfect fit. It took two months and seven interviews to get this job, but it worked out well. Compared to “slamming boxes for Xerox”, this is more fun than it is work. I may shoot for 25.

Live from Here this week is a live show from the Town Hall in New York City.  Special guests include Paul Simon, Mavis Staples, Rachael Price, Janeane Garofalo, and Brian Platzer. Enjoy the show.

“It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul” From the poem “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley.

Bonus quote:  “Toddler’s Creed:  If I want it, it’s mine. If I give it to you and change my mind later, it’s mine. If I can take it away from you, it’s mine. If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine. If it’s mine, it will never belong to anyone else , no matter what. If we are building something together, all the pieces are mine. If it looks like mine, it is mine.”

Category : General

Comments Off on October 25, 2019

Some were “summer kids”, not “village kids”.  They were kids who’s parent or parents grew up in Upsala and they were sent to spend some time with Grandma and Grandpa during the summer.  Some stayed for a few weeks and some stayed for the whole summer.  In one situation that I knew of, the son was getting into too much trouble in the “cities” and they thought hard work on a farm would be a better way for him to spend his summer.

Larry was a “summer kid” and he ended up marrying one of the Upsala beauties.  She was chased by all of the boys but Larry won her heart.  He was also one of the eight couples that camped on our lakeshore on Cedar Lake west of Upsala every fourth of July.  He was a fun loving fellow. One year he decided to make sure that my son Erik and I had a chance to experience grouse hunting.  This is the story that I share every MEA weekend, because it means a lot to me and I know Erik had a great time too. 

MEA weekend is a special time of the year. Many a father/son(daughter) combo head for the woods or ponds to bring home the “bacon” in the form of grouse or duck. Larry, a friend of mine who died way too young, knew that I had never taken up hunting, but he wanted my son and myself to experience a weekend of grouse hunting, up north at “the shack”. He invited our friend Ron and his son Matt, my son’s best friend, to join him and his son Danny. So there were three dads and three sons along with a black lab, “Bear”. We formed two teams and I was the “bird dog” on the DADS team. Bear went with the boys.

The first day we brought back 17 grouse and Larry fixed a meal of grouse with wild rice and cream of mushroom soup in the giant iron skillet that hung from a nail in “the shack”. It was one of the most memorable feasts of my life. I trust that you are doing something special with your family this weekend. I   

“Remember, it’s not about having time it’s about making time.”

The Live from Here show this week is rebroadcast.  Next Saturday, Paul Simon will be one the guests on a live show from Town Hall in New York city. 

Category : General

Comments Off on October 17, 2019

I am about to leave on a trip up I 94 to Alexandria to deliver a few loaves of Johnnie Bread.  There were a few cars with snow on them this morning, but I should be fine.

In September of 1956 I was enrolled in the eighth grade at Junior High in St. Louis Park. The previous month my mother had given birth to her sixth child and Dad was once more in trouble. My mother’s mother, Grama Laura Ramlo, drove her 1952 Chevy from Upsala to our rented bungalow at 1620 Colorado Ave in St. Louis Park, put my dad in the back seat, drove to the VA Hospital in Minneapolis and said, “Here! He is a veteran and a drunk and he is your problem, not mine”. She then took her daughter, myself and my five siblings to live in the apartment above Ramlo Grocery in Upsala.

On Monday, October 1st, I rode my bike from Ramlo Grocery to the Upsala school. I had earned the money for my shiny new Schwinn by delivering newspapers, both morning and evening in our St. Louis Park neighborhood. Of course, that first day, someone let the air out of the tires. That evening I removed the headlamp, the tank and the fenders from my bike. No one messed with the bike the second day of school.  Another plus related to this move was that I did get out of the 10 hours of detention that I had accrued at school in St. Louis Park.

The next Monday, the student body was ushered into the school auditorium to watch game five of the World Series. We watched Don Larsen pitch the only perfect game in World Series history. He’d had a disastrous game two, lasting only two innings and allowing four runs on four walks. When he reported to the locker room that day, Larsen was astonished to see the baseball tucked into his shoe by the manager Casey Stengel. He faced 27 batters that day and not a single one made it to base.

Live From Here this week is a live show from Town Hall in New York City.  Musical guests include Trey Anastasio, The Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Sarah Jarosz, Edward Norton, Dulce Sloan and Tom Papa.  Enjoy the show.

Tonight Tom Papa will be appearing at The Paramount Center for the Arts in downtown St. Cloud. I will be working a table in the lobby and I hope to see you there.  Tickets at www.paramountarts.org 

“If you are going to expect, you must inspect.”  Laura Ramlo

Category : General

Comments Off on October 11, 2019

Tomorrow is homecoming here at St. John’s University. I am not sure when the homecoming is at Upsala. In my day it was the Upsala `Cardinals’, but some time ago Upsala football merged with Swanville and now it is the USA (Upsala Swanville Area) `Patriots’.

Some of my favorite memories of football games are those played in the mud. I was an overweight freshman on the Upsala Cardinal team in 1957. Freshmen wore the old uniforms and helmets and we did not win any fashion awards. John Atkinson, a senior running back, ran with his knees pumping up and down high and hard. He still managed to make yardage. In practice, I would simply bounce off of his knee pads. The memory of the pain is still with me. That was the year when no other team even scored on the Upsala team. Clarissa got to our three yard line, but our defense held.

A couple of years ago, the 1957 Upsala football team was inducted into the Upsala Sports Hall of Fame. I was one of nine of the twenty-nine original members of the 1957 Upsala Cardinal football team who showed up for our induction into the Upsala Sports Hall of Fame. One of the guys, Dave Chuba, came all the way from Ohio. The quarterback of the 1957 team was Bob Soltis. Bob was named All-State in 1957.  Bob was the guy who nicknamed me “Murray” because I went to the U of M in fall of 1961.  The other nickname that I had was “Alkie”.

This was the second year that inductees to the Upsala Sports Hall of Fame were chosen. Bob’s brother John was a junior on the 1957 football team and he accepted an individual award for his older brother.  The first year of the Hall of Fame, Bob’s brother Ralph was chosen. There were lots of Soltis boys and they all played football. No one lifted weights in those days, they just threw bales of hay all summer. Those of us who were “village kids” had a tough time keeping up with the “farm kids”.

The Live From Here show this weekend is a rebroadcast of a show titled “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass.  It was performed yesterday in San Francisco.  Special guests included Grace Potter, J.S. Ondara, Aoife O’Donovan and Nore Davis.  Tom Papa will be reporting his usual “Out in America”.   More details can be found online at livefromhere.org

“Is there nicotine stains on his index finger? A dime novel hidden in the corncrib? Is he starting to memorize jokes from Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang?” Professor Hill in The Music Man.

Category : General

Comments Off on October 4, 2019

Fall is here and there is a forecast for frost tonight.  The Millstream Art Festival will be held Sunday in vibrant downtown St. Joseph.  The event runs from 11am until 5pm.  There will be 55 artists and 8 authors displaying and selling their works.  There will be live music and a wide variety of food available for purchase.  I hope to see you there.

I have to leave early to drive up to Breezy Point for our fall sales retreat. One of the cabins that is available is the 11 bedroom Fawcett House. It was Breezy Point Resort’s founder Captain Billy’s personal residence. My mother, Bernice “Bee” Larson was a nanny for the grandchildren of Captain Billy Fawcett in the 1930s. She had a bedroom in the Fawcett House and spent the winters in Los Angeles with Captain Billy’s son Gordon Fawcett, his wife Vivian and their two children, Gordon Jr. and Dennis.

Wilford Fawcett, better known as Captain Billy, was a millionaire publisher from Robbinsdale, Minnesota. His most famous publication was the Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang magazine. The book “Humor Magazines and Comic Periodicals” noted that “Few periodicals reflect the post-WW I cultural change in American life as well as Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang. For much of the 1920’s Capt. Billy’s was the most prominent comic magazine in America.”

Captain Billy purchased Breezy Point in Pelican Township, from Fred LaPage in 1920 and soon the main lodge was built along with his personal residence. The original lodge was destroyed in a fire in June of 1959. Of course he rebuilt the lodge and the “Fawcett House” still stands. With 11 bedrooms it is perfect for large family reunions. It was recently renovated. For details on rates and golf packages, go to breezypointresort.com

Live from Here this week is a live show from Town Hall in New York City. Special guests include Dawes, Jamila Woods, Becca Stevens, John Cameron Mitchell, Ann Patchett and comedian Tom Papa.  By the way, Tom Papa will be appearing live from the Paramount Center for the Arts in downtown St. Cloud, Friday October 11^th.  I will be working a table in the lobby. I hope to see you there.

“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we know what to do with it.  Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.  Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” Emerson

Category : General

Comments Off on September 27, 2019

Building an art monument to honor our veterans requires dedication, commitment and a team to get the job done. It takes an artist willing to spend the time researching, designing and creating the paintings. It takes a committed group of individuals to share the dream and it takes donors to make it come true!

The Veterans Art Monument was commissioned by the Minnesota State Veterans Memorial Association and consists of five 8’ X 10’ oil paintings; each paying tribute to the men and women of the five branches of the U.S. Military: Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. The artist, Charles Gilbert Kapsner, a native of Little Falls, studied in the studio of Nerina Simi in Florence, Italy.  He has spent the last 10 years working on what he says is perhaps the most impactful project of his career.

All five of the paintings are complete and are installed in the Committal Hall at the Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery north of Little Falls. The paintings tell the story of each branch of service, commemorating the sacrifices of all who have served. Besides being a memorial to our nation’s military men and women, the paintings are educational tools which will help citizens and future generations to understand the vital role that the U.S. Military plays in maintaining our freedom and democracy. There are 24” x 29” prints available for purchase.  My coffee buddy Phil and I donated a print of the U.S. Navy painting to the American Legion in St. Joseph. Both of our fathers served in the Pacific Theater during the second World War. It is hanging in the meeting room. You can contact me if you are interested in purchasing a print of any or all of paintings.   

This Sunday, September 22^nd,  at 2pm,  there will be a dedication of the granite monument honoring both Veterans and donors. The monument is located outside of the Committal Hall.  I have attached a press release and I hope that you can make it to the ceremony.   

“Millions of men and women have served. Many were wounded in battle. Many died to keep us free. The least that we can do is to remember them.”  Jack Peck  Veteran U.S. Navy 

Category : General

Comments Off on September 20, 2019

It has been six years since Auntie passed. There are many stories to tell about Auntie, but my favorite comes from her son Kevin. They had been visiting Kevin’s uncle in Alexandria and Kevin told Auntie that he wanted to get back to Upsala so he could watch the Preakness horse race on television. The speed limit on County Road 17 is 55, so Kevin was doing 60. Auntie said, “You drive slow Kevin”. Kevin stepped it up a bit and a little while later, Auntie spoke up again. “We’ll never get there at this speed.”. Kevin responded: “Ma, I don’t want to get a ticket.” , but he dutifully stepped it up again. There was silence for a while and then: “ Kevin, why don’t you just pull over and let me drive”.  Kevin owns a four wheel drive pickup. Auntie was 90 years young at the time. We miss you Auntie. 

Live from Here this week is a live show from New York City.  Special guests include The Lumineers, Raphael Saadig, Sarah Jarosz, Jeff Daniels, Aparna Nancherla and Maria Popova.  Enjoy the show. 

“I was born to have fun”.  Leone Larson Hagstrom 1922-2013

Category : General

Comments Off on September 13, 2019

This note was cut and pasted from my son’s website, The Outdoor Report.  He wrote it in 2013.

“In our family, Labor Day weekend means a trip to Uncle Brian’s Cabin. It’s our way of saying goodbye to summer & one last weekend dedicated to feeling Minnesota. What I mean by that is a celebration of why we live here, sky blue waters, great food, fantastic fishing & family fun. This year, the weekend began with temperatures in the mid 80’s which lead to perfect swimming weather. Eventually the temperatures dropped far enough to make fishing the favorite activity. “The Cabin” is a gorgeous log cabin nestled in the woods on a small environmental lake near Aitkin, MN. It’s a great place to get away from it all, and the warm orange glow inside the cabin has a way of refreshing your soul.

This little lake doesn’t have much in the way of BIG fish, but it does have a healthy trout population. We’ve never really tried to fish for trout over Labor Day weekend, however, this year my son Willie demanded we give it a shot. Uncle Brian took Willie & I out in his 14 foot boat powered by an electric motor. We trolled the deep water with small crankbaits & “cow bell” rigs with crawler harnesses. Sometimes keeping it simple makes for a more enjoyable day on the water. No electronics, no big boat, no big motors. Just three guys trolling around hoping to feel the heavy strike on the end of the line. Low & behold, it worked. We managed to catch 3 nice eater sized trout that made the annual Labor Day feast even more memorable.

Keep in mind, just because Labor Day has come & gone, & it feels like summer is over, that doesn’t mean we are going to stop “feeling Minnesota”. Fall brings some of the best fishing of the year & hunting is going to be in full swing soon. As always, remember it’s not about having time, it’s about making time!” Erik Osberg

Walleye Willie, age 4 at the time,  is showing off his catch.  The picture of the shoreline was taken by Erik’s wife Jena this Labor Day weekend.  As always, a great time was had by all.

Live from Here this week is live from New York City at the Town Hall.  Special guests include Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Natalie Lafourcade, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sarah Jarosz, Matt Braunger and Holly Laurent.  Enjoy the show.

“The willow which bends to the tempest, often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of loftier character.”  Walter Scott

Category : General

Comments Off on September 6, 2019

Ninety eight years ago today, a boy-child was born in Pretare, Italy. A village in the Apennine Mountains on the coast of the Adriatic Sea.  Anthony Caponi grew to be a giant in the art world.  In his lifetime, Tony created hundreds, maybe thousands of sculptures, many of them from rocks.  He also established the Caponi Art Park and Learning Center in Eagan, Minnesota.  Google the park and you can enjoy videos of Tony and his favorite fans, the children.

Forty six years ago today, the “Granite Trio” was dedicated on the mall in downtown St. Cloud.  The Granite Trio was commissioned by the St. Cloud Community Arts Council, which became Visual Arts Minnesota.  The SCCAC was lead by the late Arlene Helgeson.  Arlene found out that the mall was going to be redesigned to become a two way street once again so the city was planning on moving the Granite Trio.  Arlene told the city that she would chain herself to the rocks in protest.  The rocks stayed where they were and now the street winds around them.

Seventy six year ago today, another boy-child was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, 25 miles east of Upsala.  In his lifetime he sold Herman Miller office furniture, Xerox copiers and 15 second branding messages on Minnesota Public Radio.  For almost twenty years now he has been helping folks to “get the word out” about their companies and special events in central and southwestern Minnesota, Sioux Falls and Sun Valley, Idaho.  A picture of these two boys as they appeared in 2013, on the eve of a celebration of the “Granite Trio”, is attached.

Live from Here this week is the last of the reruns for a while.  The new season kicks off from New York City next Saturday. 

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your wild and precious life?”  from Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day”, a poem beloved by Arlene Helgeson.

Category : General

Comments Off on August 30, 2019