GaryOsberg.com

It was in 2001 that I first noticed an old man kind of shuffling towards Wimmer Hall where the studio of Minnesota Public Radio is located. His bib overalls were covered with saw dust. I stopped and introduced myself.  I asked him what he did on campus and he responded in a gruff voice, “My name is Brother Willie and I work in the woodshop.  I make a table and chair set, haven’t you seen them?  They are for the little ones.”   Since I had a six year old granddaughter at the time, I asked him if he would make a set for me.  “Oh, I don’t know, there are many orders ahead of yours, I don’t know if I will live long enough to make a set for you.”   I responded,  “No problem, I will pray for you every day and I am sure that you will live long enough to make them.”   

During the next few months, I visited Br. Willie in the woodshop many times. Once, I noticed a small wooden wagon filled with blocks. He made the blocks out of scraps of oak wood harvested from the Abbey forest. I always left him with one of my calling cards and reminded him of my order for a table and chair set.  One day the phone rang and it was Brother Willie.  My table and chair set was finished.

Over the years I took delivery on two children’s table and chair sets plus 8 of the small wagons filled with blocks of many shapes and sizes.  Years later old age made it necessary for Br. Wille to stop working in the woodshop, but he still would make his rounds going thru the garbage searching for aluminum cans.  He donated the money from the cans to the poor.

At one time Brother Willie was the Monastery dairy herdsman, but he was best known for his role as the self-appointed night watchman on campus.  The pub in Sexton Commons is named after him and George Maurer wrote a song named “The Brother Willie Shuffle”.   

In 2005. my friend Dave Phipps drew a caricature of Brother Willie Shuffling, from which my granddaughter, Kaylin, has made a T shirt.  Kaylin was the 6 year old granddaughter who got the first table and chair set. The T shirts are available at the St. John’s Abbey Gift Shop in the Great Hall.  The Gift Shop is open Monday thru Saturday from 10 until 2 and Sunday from 11:30 until noon.  A picture is attached. 

“Success has nothing to do with what you gain for yourself.  Success is what you do for others.”  Brother Willie (William Jerome Borgerding, OSB)   1916-2009 

Category : General

Comments Off on March 24, 2023

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day.  The song “Oh Danny Boy” is a very popular Irish song.  Malachy McCourt wrote a book titled “Danny Boy. “The Legend of the Beloved Irish Ballad”.

The tune, known as the “Londonderry Air”, originated in the northern most county of Ireland.  The story goes that sometime in the 1600s, Rory Dall O’Cahan, a blind harpist, left a gig at a castle in the Valley of Roe and having had a little too much to drink, he fell asleep in the ditch alongside the road. He was awakened by the sound of fairies playing the most beautiful tune he had ever heard, on his harp.  He returned to the castle and proceeded to play the first rendition of what became known as the “Londonderry Air”.

Around 1850, Miss Jane Ross of Limavady, County Derry, heard a blind fiddler playing the tune and she wrote down the notes and the tune spread all over western world. Some say that Jimmy McCurry was that fiddler. Many tried to come up with words to the tune, including some of the best known poets of the time, but none seemed to work. 

Finally in 1913, an Englishman, Fred Weatherly, a teacher and a lawyer, who had written nearly 1,500 songs in his life, was sent the tune by a sister-in-law who lived in America.  Fred had recently lost his father and his only son.  His sorrow is reflected in the words to what became known as “Oh Danny Boy”.  Especially the second verse:

“And if ye come and all the flowers are dying, if I be dead as dead I well may be, ye’ll come and find the place where I am lying and kneel and say an “Ave” there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me, and all my grave the warmer, sweeter be.  For you will bend and tell me that you love me, and I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.”

“Good judgment comes from experience and often experience comes from bad judgment.”  Rita Mae Brown

Category : General

Comments Off on March 17, 2023

In January I got a phone call from a fellow in Upsala.  They were looking for someone to be the treasurer of the Upsala Area Historical Society.  I had a bit of history with the organization, since they own the Borgstrom House in Upsala and that is where they keep the artifacts that represent the history of the area including the 1928 Rio Fire Truck that started the whole thing.

Axel Borgstrom was born on August 8, 1888 and his father built the Borgstrom house in 1913.  Sometime in the seventies Marcia and I, along with another couple, had dinner together at our house on Cedar Lake west of Upsala.  Axel and his wife Carrie had a cabin on Cedar Lake.  Since I was in sales, it fell to me to ask the touchy question, “Axel, would you and Carrie consider willing your house to the Historical Society so that we could have a museum.”  I was expecting a negative response, along the lines of “What kind of question is that?”  Instead, Axel smiled at his wife of 70 years and said, “That’s okay, Carrie and I will build a new house and you can have the old house now.”

True to his word, at the of age of 92, he hired a contractor and built a wonderful rambler across the street from the bank that he, his father John Borgstom and Pete Viehauser had established in 1914.  They left almost all of the furniture and belongings in the old house to give the Historical Society a head start on the collection of artifacts.  The Borgstrom house will be open for tours during Upsala Heritage Days on August 12^th.  I hope to see you there.

Secret to a long life:  “When you think that you are going to die, brace up.”  Axel Borgstrom 1988   

Category : General

Comments Off on March 9, 2023

I am in the habit of listening to a podcast every morning with my first cup of coffee. The host highlights important birthdays and other anniversaries and ends the broadcast by reading a poem. One day a few years ago, the poem was “Yard Sale”, by George Bilgere, the first line of which is “Someone is selling the Encyclopedia Britannica in all its volumes, which take up a whole card table”.

I wish that I could remember the name of the salesman that came to our basement apartment in Richfield in 1965 and refused to leave until I signed the sales agreement. For only $10 a month, for three years, we could own a 30 volume set of the “Encyclopedia Britannica” and for only $1.50 more each month, we could get a genuine walnut bookcase to hold the set of invaluable information.

He guaranteed that our children would be brilliant and success in life would be theirs, if only I would sign the contract. I held out until 11:30 PM. Today the 30 books, in the original bookcase, are in the finished attic room of the 131 year old Swedish Mission Church Parsonage that my daughter owns in Upsala, Minnesota. By the way, both of my children are brilliant and cute too.

“It’s the birthday of the host of This American Life: Ira Glass, born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1959. He got into radio, he says, “totally by accident.” It was 1978, he was 19, had just finished his freshman year of college, and was looking for a summer job with an ad agency or a TV station. He managed to talk his way into an internship with NPR despite the fact he’d never listened to public radio. He started out as a tape cutter and as a desk assistant, graduated from Brown University, and continued working for public radio as newscast writer, editor, producer of All Things Considered, reporter, and substitute host. He moved to Chicago in 1989, and in 1995, he launched This American Life. The programs usually feature an in-depth look at the lives of ordinary people; sometimes the stories are sad, sometimes ironic, sometimes funny.”   Source: Wikipedia    

You can listen to This American Life every Saturday at 1pm and every Sunday at 9pm on KNSR 88.9 MPR News or the MPR News station in your neck of the woods.   Go to www.mpr.org to find your station. 

“No one can excel in everything. The decades demand decisions. Choose wisely. Your choices pinpoint your priorities and determine your destiny. Use it or lose it.” Patricia Souder

Category : General

Comments Off on March 3, 2023

I heard the first Cardinal call from afar on campus this week. It seems to be right on schedule. Spring cannot come too soon.

To continue with my career path, the drafting field led me to a job at Control Data Corporation at the Data Display Division in Roseville.  In 1967, my boss, Ron Crew, was hired away by a fellow who had launched the very first computerized drafting service bureau in the United States, Norwood Engineering Systems.  Ron then hired me to work as a Franchise Manager for Norwood.  The founders had raised over $250,000 in startup funds, but it did not take long for us to burn through the money.  The software simply was not ready.  The $70,000 6 foot by 9 foot Calcomp plotter was idle most of the time.  The founders were let go.

I ended up being the last General Manager of Nowood Engineering. I was 26 years old. When I called a stockholders meeting to try and raise more funds, they laughed and said “Close it up.” I wrote letters to 14 creditors telling them that NES was filing for bankruptcy and we could not pay their bill.  I did put my home telephone number at the bottom of the letter.

One of the creditors was General Office Products in St. Louis Park.  Their sales manager, Jim Helstrom, called me and wanted his furniture back.  I had to tell him that the previous management had borrowed funds from a bank and had put the furniture up as collateral.  The bank had repossessed the furniture.  After a long conversation, Jim said, “If you need a job, let me know.”   Doing the right thing had paid off.

I started working for General Office Products in 1971. The office furniture industry was very, very good to me.

If you feel like going out tonight, I have two tickets to “Voctave: At the Corner of Broadway & Main Street” in the Escher Auditorium on the campus of College of Saint Benedict.  I can leave them at Will Call for the first one to respond to this email. 

“Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient evidence.” Samuel Butler

Category : General

Comments Off on February 24, 2023

“You just need to find your authentic swing!” Advice from Bagger Vance, a character in the movie “The Legend of Bagger Vance”, released in 2000 and directed by Robert Redford. Doing well at the game of golf is akin to doing well at the game of life. I am here doing what I do, loving what I do, to a large degree because of luck. Being in the right place at the right time.

I had no idea what I was “going to be when I grew up”. My two quarters at the U of M in 1961/62 were a disaster.  I once signed up for the “Phillips 66 Gas Station Management Program”. Those of us in the program wore company uniforms but I don’t remember having to wear “the cap”. They taught us how to properly check the oil and wash the windshield while keeping an eye on the gas pump.

One day in 1962, my sister’s boyfriend Barry Larson asked me if I had any skill with “drafting”. He had a side job that he needed help with. I was living with my mother recovering from a back operation and I told a fib, but I got the job. When he came to pick up the finished work, he was not happy. “Don’t you know the difference between an object line and a dimension line?” Clearly, I did not. I bought an instruction book on “Drafting” and did the work over again. I ended up working as an Engineer Aid on the Polaris project at Honeywell and I even designed a part for a gyro used in the missile. I own a tie clasp with a submarine on the face of it. I probably still have that instruction book in a box somewhere. When I left that job in 1965 to go back to college, they gave me a very nice compass set and a briefcase to carry my books.

Over the last 61 years I have had twenty three jobs, in three different industries, drafting, office equipment and radio.  I started my radio career on the third floor of Wimmer Hall on the campus of St. John’s University in October of 1999.  It is hard to believe that soon, it will be 24 years working with Minnesota Public Radio.

“Wisdom is what is left over after we’ve run out of personal opinions.”  Cullen Hightower

Category : General

Comments Off on February 17, 2023

It is still winter and I for one am growing weary of it all. The days are getting longer, but I have not heard any Cardinals singing their songs looking for love.

Tuesday is Saint Valentine’s Day, “an annual holiday celebrating love and affection between intimate companions.” (Wikipedia) The day is named after one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentine, established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD.

Some claim that the first recorded association of Valentine’s Day with romantic love is in Parlement of Foules by Geoffrey Chaucer who wrote: “For this was sent on Valentine’s Day, when every bird cometh there to choose his mate.” This poem was written in 1382 to honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia both of whom were 14 years old.

The sending of “Valentines” probably started in Great Britain. Esther Howland developed a successful home-based business in Worcester, Massachusetts making Valentine cards based on British models. The US Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately one billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, second only to Christmas. There are many ways to demonstrate affection to those that you feel love towards. Gifts of music is one.

If it is romance that you are looking for, check out Allie Sherlock’s cover of “Unchained Melody” on YouTube. https://youtu.be/6uecFirb4T4   Allie was 15 years old when this was recorded.

I have a close personal friend that unwittingly revealed his unique love for his wife. He is a retired business-man who has a cell phone, but the only person that has his cell phone number is his wife. Every time his cell phone rings he knows that it is the love of his life who is calling him. Now that is romantic.

“There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.”  Leonard Cohen

Category : General

Comments Off on February 9, 2023

Sixty four years ago today will forever be known as “The Day the Music Died.” Rock and roll pioneers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper”, J.P Richardson, were killed when their plane, headed for Moorhead, MN, crashed into a frozen cornfield near Clear Lake, IA, just six miles from take-off. Holly chartered the flight after his tour bus broke down and fellow musician Carl Bunch ended up in the hospital with severe frostbite. Don McLean referred to that day as “The Day the Music Died” in his 1971 song, “American Pie”.

The plane was a Beechcraft Bonanza with room for 3 passengers and the pilot Roger Peterson. Richardson was suffering from the flu so Waylon Jennings gave up his seat on the plane to Richardson.  Another member of the band, Tommy Allsup, lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.

Fans of the late, great musicians call the plane crash “the first and greatest tragedy rock and roll has ever suffered.” Over the years several memorials have been created in their honor, including a steel guitar and three records bearing the three performers’ names, a giant pair of Holly’s famous Wayfarer-style glasses marking the crash site, and Don McLean’s hit song “American Pie.”

Fifteen year old Bobby Vee and his Fargo band, The Shadows, were called upon to fill in for Buddy Holly at the Moorhead engagement because he knew all the words to Buddy’s songs.  Bobby Vee went on to become a music legend of his own.  He had 238 Hot 100 chart hits. The Vee family lived in the St. Joe area and for many years they performed as the headline act for the annual Joetown Rocks fundraiser here in St. Joseph.  You may want to come to St. Joe this year to celebrate being alive.

“One kind word can warm three winter months.” Japanese Proverb

Category : General

Comments Off on February 3, 2023

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. Her family also referred to him as Grandpa Bill. Maxine and Dad never lived together, but they ended up living a few floors apart 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 2004, I set out to clean his room.

One of the items in the corner 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 into the curio.

A few years later my daughter bought the house from me. Every summer Kerry and her mother would have a garage sale. It happened again to Marcia while she was helping my daughter gather items for the garage sale.  After that I decided to dig a hole next to my Dad’s grave at Gethsemane Church in Upsala and bury the “egg” before there was nothing left of Maxine. 

“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

Category : General

Comments Off on January 27, 2023

55 years ago today, a telegram arrived at our studio on the third floor of Wimmer Hall on the campus of St. John’s University, authorizing KSJR to go on the air.  The first KSJR radio broadcast was on January 22, 1967. The first line uttered by engineer Dan Rieder was, “Heed my words, Earth People. You have 10 minutes to live.” The first concert aired was a pre-recorded concert by the Cleveland Orchestra. What began as Minnesota Education Radio became Minnesota Public Radio on January 1, 1975. 

Since then, MPR has grown to a network of 46 radio stations reaching nearly 1,000,000 listeners every week.  MPR has earned nearly 1,000 broadcasting and journalism awards, including seven George Foster Peabody Awards, six Robert F. Kennedy Journalism awards, a prestigious Alfred I duPont Columbia University Gold Baton Award and a Grammy Award. Programs and podcasts produced by Minnesota Public Radio’s parent company American Public Media, reach over 18 million listeners each week. 

This is a version of the story of how Bill Kling was selected to lead the creation of what has become the largest network of public radio stations in the United States. It was written by our first Collegeville Studio intern, Ellen Newkirk.

“The Saint John’s University monks chose Bill Kling to help start their public radio station, Minnesota Education Radio, because of his “bright mind” – literally. SJU graduate Marty Mahowald told Ellen the story of Bill Kling’s selection as the station’s first leader as told by his professor Fr. Gunther Rolfson. Fr. Gunther told Marty that in the 1960s, Saint John’s had a mandatory lights-out policy at 10pm when the faculty residents would flip a switch that turned off all power on each floor of the residence halls. However, one evening, during a walk around campus , Fr. Gunther noticed a light illuminating from a single room in Benet Hall.

The next day, Fr. Gunther used a master key to enter the room and found a system rigged to keep the power on after the switch was flipped each night. The room belonged to Bill Kling. Eventually, the monks decided Kling’s innovative and determined spirit was just what they needed for their new endeavor. According to Mahowald, “Fr. Gunther said that they knew that starting a new campus radio station would present struggles, budget challenges and many other issues to deal with and it would take someone with a lot of moxie to lead it through to success.” It turned out to be a very good decision; Kling served as president of Minnesota Public Radio until 2010 and created one of the greatest public radio station networks in the country. “  Ellen Newkirk, CSB, Class of 2013.

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping-stone. Close the door on the past.  You don’t try to forget the mistake, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.”  Johnny Cash    

Category : General

Comments Off on January 20, 2023