GaryOsberg.com

 Good evening from Collegeville,

 

I am in between cabins.  We spent three days on Big Bass Lake near Akeley and tomorrow we are heading up to Blue Lake near Aitkin.   We need to gather some more provisions and pack some clean clothes.  We had beautiful weather for the last two days and the lake we were on is a wonderful swimming lake.  There is a cabin for sale next door to Russ & Carols and of course I am tempted.  It is a crazy idea I know.  I hope that the weather holds for the next adventure.

 

The show this week is another summer compilation, this time it is made up of acts from shows at the Ryman Theater in Nashville, including an episode of The Lives of The Cowboys with Emmylou Harris and Sara Watkins and a young and hip Nashville duo called the Civil Wars.  Other guests include Chet Atkins, Buddy Emmons, Mary Chapin Carpenter and John Prine.  Enjoy the show.

 

“The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.” Henry Ford

 

 Good morning from Collegeville,

 

The cucumbers are very good.  These are also from seeds that I purchased from the oldest seed catalog in the US.  They even taste great after they have spent two days in the trunk of the car.  The cherry tomatoes do have to be picked every day and the mosquitoes make that a little tough, since the ripe ones are way inside the huge plants.  I did buy some very sturdy tomato cages from Ace Hardware in St. Joe that are holding up quite well.   The flimsy ones are kind of a waste of money.  Next week, Barby and I are going to a cabin near Ackley, so if you want some cukes and tomatoes, help yourself.  The garden is north of the parking lot behind Millstream Shops and Lofts.  It has white tape surrounding it.

 

On Saturday we attended our third outdoor concert of the summer.  No root beer floats, but an awesome pork chop for me and Wok noodles for Barby.  Two of the three acts that we caught were from Manhattan.  Natalia Zukerman is the daughter of famous violinist and conductor, Pinchas Zukerman.  I purchased her latest CD, “Gas Station Roses”, and there is not one bad song on the cd.  I love it when I spend money on something and have no regrets.  The other eastener was April Smith & The Great Picture Show.  The organizers of the Riversong Music Festival do an awesome job of picking acts and the Masonic/West River Park in Hutch is a great place to have a festival.  Put it on your calendar for next year and maybe they will add root beer floats.

 

Tomorrow we are going to my 50 year class reunion.  Fifty years is a long time.  We are going to gather at the newly built railroad depot in Bowlus.  The home of Duane Bobick, the heavy weight boxer who won the Gold Medal at the Olympics.  I think it was Ken Norton that took him out of the march to the title.  It should be fun to compare notes with some of the 32 classmates that show up.

 

The show this week is another compilation of past broadcasts, this time from Town Hall in New York City.  Special guests include the legendary Leon Redbone, troubadour Tom Rush, brother-guitarists Sergio and Odair Assad, young pianist Shai Wosner and a little taste of Broadway from the Stephen Sondheim Theater with Colin Donnell and Susan Foster.

 

“Out of quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry.”  William Butler Yeats   (1865-1939)

Good morning from Collegeville,

 

Today is forecasted to be a perfect summer day.  Sunshine, warm and not too humid.  It is hard to believe that this is the last weekend of July.  So much to do and so little time to do it.  I have yet to water the new St. Joe garden.  It seems to rain right on schedule.  Too much moisture has created some sort of root rot on the squash, so they may not produce.  And these are the special seeds from Connecticut from the oldest seed house in the United States.  The cucumbers seem to be ok and the cherry tomatoes are starting to ripen on a daily basis.  There may even be some sweet corn.

 

Last night I attended the Celebration of Life for Tom Ritsche.  It was held at the Eastside Boys & Girls Club next to Raymond Park.  Tom’s was a very successful business man as the CEO of Woodcraft Industries in St. Cloud.  Tragedy struck when he lost two of his three children to automobile accidents ten years apart and later on he was stricken by Parkinson’s disease.  In spite of the difficulties in his life, Tom was known as a very generous giver.  He actively supported the Boys & Girls Club, the Tri-County Humane Society and the Central Minnesota Community Foundation.  The Kimberly Ritsche Auditorium on the campus of St. Cloud State University stands as a memorial to his daughter. 

Contibutions in memory of Tom can be made to Central Minnesota Community Foundation, 101 South 7th Avenue. St. Cloud 56301.

 

Later on last evening, Barby and I attended the final Sunset Stage concert at the Darnall Amphitheater on the campus of CSB.  Prudence Johnson brought a cellist and a guitar player along to entertain us with folk songs, some of which were written hundreds of years ago.  This will be the third time that I have had a root beer float at a summer outdoor concert.  These concerts were free due to the Legacy Amendment.  Let’s hope that the folks at CSB/SJU Fine Arts can bring these concerts back next summer.

 

Today and tomorrow the River Song Music Festival is at the Masonic West River Park in Hutchinson.  This is a great event that the whole family can enjoy.  There are multiple stages and lots of great food booths.  Check it out at

www.riversongfestival.org  I hope to see you there.

 

The APHC show this week is another summertime compilation featuring bits and pieces from the shows run last fall at the Fitzgerald Theater.  Special guests include Ricky Skaggs, Heather Masse, Storyhill and Butch Thompson.  Enjoy the show.

 

“When I come to the end of the road and the sun has set for me, I want no rites in a gloom filled room.  Why cry for a soul set free?  Miss me a little, but not too long, and not with your head bowed low.   Remember the love that we once shared, miss me but let me go.  For this is a journey we all must take, and each must go alone. It’s all part of the master plan, a step on the road to home.  When you are lonely and sick of heart, go to the friends we know and bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.  Miss me but let me go”   from the service for Tom Ritsche   July 28, 2011

 

 Good morning from Collegeville,

 

It was too hot this week.  Yesterday, the weather turned just in time to enjoy an evening at a free concert on the campus of the College of Saint Benedict in St. Joseph.  Also, Kim Poganski, the Director of Events and Conferences, hosted a Business After Hours in the Gorecki Center late in the afternoon.  The food was awesome.  The new chef at CSB is living down the way from me in the Millstream Shops & Lofts.  He and his wife have two beautiful Collies and one of the two of them can be seen taking long walks with the dogs every evening. 

 

At the BAH, I met a lovely couple that are retired and every summer they rent an apartment on campus.  It was so typical of CSB to invite them to the BAH.  John and Judy met at St. Cloud State in the late fifties.  They are sad, because soon the students will be back and they will have to go back to Fort Meyer, Florida.  If anyone knows of a short term rental in the St. Joseph area with no stairs to climb, let me know and I will forward the info to Judy.

 

Next Thursday evening, Prudence Johnson will be on campus at the Darnall Amphitheater on the north side of the Benedicta Arts Center.  The show starts at 7:30.  Just follow the folks walking along with their chairs and blankets.  If you come late, you may be able to sit on the stage like I did last night.

 

This morning Greg and Tama Theis hosted Chamber Connection at 912 Regency Plaza in downtown St. Cloud.  The founder of Helps International, Steve Miller, was there and he did a marvelous job of explaining the mission and focus of the organization.  Greg took 12 days in January to go to Guatemala to help in providing some of the folks with a special stove, the Onil Stove, which saves thousands of trees and provides a safer environment in the huts.  It costs only $150 to provide a stove and I plan on doing that.  Should you be interested in doing the same, please contact Greg at grege@gethomeinspections.net

 

The show this week is compiled from events onboard the ‘MS Maasdam’ as the cast sailed the Northwest Atlantic, the Canadian Maritimes and the Saint Lawrence River.  Special guests include the master of foot-stomping French Canadian folk music, LeVent du Nord and Genticorum, the reunited Hopeful Gospel Quartet and some of the regulars like Peter Ostroushko, Storyhill, Andra Suchy, Vern Sutton and Butch Thompson.  Enjoy the show.  During the summer months, you can also catch the show on Sunday evening from 6 to 8 on the news network of MPR stations.  If you need a station location and frequency map and program schedule simply contact me.

 

“Clear thought requires courage rather than intelligence.”  Thomas Szasz

Good rainy morning from Collegeville,

 

Here we are at the mid-summer point already.  Barby has two days of summer school left and then she gets to relax for a while.  Teaching English to 11th & 12 grade ALC students is no picnic.  That reminds me, I hope that this summer we can find an old picnic basket and get that one scratched off of our “bucket list”.    Wow, it is dark as night out there.  Batten the hatches folks.

 

A lot of new businesses are opening in downtown St. Joe.  The Minnesota Street Market, a food

co-op, is opening  where Loso’s Grocery was.  Closet to Closet is opening next door in August.  The St. Joseph Chamber has reached 75 members and is growing.  There may be a ice cream cone drive up opening soon.

 

 I live in a loft in the Millstream Shops and Lofts on the corner of College Avenue and Minnesota Street in downtown St. Joe.   My loft is above a space that has been designed for a bistro or café .  It  has a terrific, sunny patio attached. If you know someone who might have the talent and be interested,  in opening a cafe, here is the information:  http://www.millstreamshops.com/shops_restaurant.php The building owners would love to  show you the space. 

 

The show this week is a summertime compilation featuring bits and pieces from last year’s show in Seattle.

Special guests include, Brandi Carile, The Wailin’ Jennys and Nellie McKay.  Enjoy the show.

 

“There are two days in the week about which and upon which I never worry. Two carefree days, kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension.  One of these days is Yesterday….and the other day I do not worry about is Tomorrow.”  Robert Jones Burdette

 Good morning from Collegeville,

 

Another beautiful summer day in central Minnesota.  Last weekend was awesome, three straight days of sunshine.  The 26th annual Hagstrom/Osberg Golf Tournament was one of the best ever.  My son and his friends built a hog roaster this past winter and he hauled it down to Brother Bill’s place in Little Falls and cooked a number of pork shoulders.  A whole pig would have been too much pork.  It is a state of the art cooker that has remote temp sensors and a built in fan that does all of the work.  You load the charcoal and the meat and then simply wait 9 or 10 hours.  Susan had placed a handmade sign near the cooker that warned folks, “DO NOT OPEN” or you would have to deal with SUSAN.  (Susan is from Chicago and no one messes with Susan.)

 

Cousin Kevin and his brother Tom plus myself and Jeff Smith formed the MING DYNASTY team and as is tradition, we were the last team to come in.   We were at 4 under on the ninth tee and we were positive that we had the trophy in hand.  I actually looked like a golfer by shooting a very good approach shot onto the ninth green.  Cousin Kevin, a scratch golfer, placed his shot inside mine and I sunk the putt for a par.  We soon found out that Cousin Lynn, who like me, plays golf once a year, had sunk not one, but two twenty foot putts and her team was at 5 under par.  Oh well, there is always next year. 

 

The show this week is the first in the summer time compilations with bits and pieces from recent Cincinnati performances.  Special guests include local boys Jake Speed and the Freddies, playing the “Queen City Rag”.  Howard Levy joins Pat Donohue and The Guy’s All Star Shoe Band.  Poet emeritus Billy Collins recites “The Hangover”.  Enjoy the show and enjoy the festivals.

 

“Think like a person of action and act like a person of thought.”  Henri Bergson

 Good summer morning from Collegeville,

 

Hot and humid.  The corn should grow another inch over night.  They say that in August you can go into the corn fields during the middle of the night and hear the corn growing.  My new garden in St. Joe is coming along slowly.  I have to rope it off to protect it from the parked cars for the big concert this Sunday.  Bobby Vee is playing his last Joetown Rocks.  Fireworks are at 10 pm and the MLC Band starts to rock at 10:30 pm.  I have yet to attend, since Barby’s daughter Alyssa has a 4th of July party that day every year.  The church offers to put residents in the area up in a motel overnight due to the noise level so they must live up to their name.

 

The other big news in St. Joseph is the opening at 10 am today of the Minnesota Street Market in the old Loso Grocery building.  The plan is to be open every day Monday-Saturday from 10 to 6.  Minnesota Street Market is a food and art co-op providing local produce and products.  They will feature organic and whole foods. They will be open this Sunday to take advantage of the crowd of visitors.

 

Aunt Maggie is doing just fine.  It takes two days to drive out there and two days back but the ride was uneventful.  The mountain peaks around Bozeman are still covered with snow and the contrast with the black spruce and the green grass is spectacular.  The artists and camera fans must be having a great time.  On Tuesday we drove up the Gallatin River to West Yellowstone for an ice cream cone.  The river was running wild and the white water rafters were doing a booming business. 

 

The show this week is the last live broadcast of the season.  It will be coming to you from the Koussevitzky Music Shed at Tanglewood in Lenox, Massachusetts.  Special guests include Broadway actress Christine DiGiallonardo, Nickel Creek alum Sara Watkins, Gospel singing sisters Jearlyn and Jevetta Steele and Chris Thile on the mandolin.  Enjoy the show.  This summer the show can also be heard on Sunday evening from 6 to 8 on the news network of stations including KNSR 88.9 here in central Minnesota.

 

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”  Mohandas K. Gandhi

 

Good morning from Collegeville,

 

Barby and I drove to Sioux Falls on Sunday.  One of her classmates lives there and they love to shop while I meet with underwriters and try to find new ones.  I got a good reception from a number of new contacts.  We always stay at the Holiday Inn in downtown Sioux Falls.  Tom Bosch is the “inn keeper” and he is always a joy to work with.  Every year the downtown area is filled with wonderful sculptures.  “Sculpturewalk Sioux Falls” is worth the trip alone.  There is a People’s Choice Award Ballot with 49 sculptures on the ballot.  My vote is going to go for the one on the corner of 9th and Phillips Avenue, ‘Joy of The Dance’ by D.E. McDermott.   You can check it out at www.sculpturewalksiouxfalls.com 

 

Tomorrow I am heading west to visit Aunt Maggie.  She turned 90 in May and she still lives with ‘Blue”, a cat that she adopted, on her ‘ranch’ on the ‘bad corner’ which has a pond and an artesian well.  She manages to pick up a 40 lb bag of crushed corn from the feed store in Bozeman every other week which she feeds to a herd of deer that pass through her back yard.  There is still lots of snow in the mountains out west, so I hope that I don’t have any trouble getting there. 

Maggie is unique and the stories are wonderful. She once was “Queen For A Day” and had a career as a model in LA. 

 

The show this week is a live broadcast from highly-esteemed Center for The Arts n Northwest Lower Michigan.  Special guests include Montana Folk Duo Storyhill, Chris Cunningham and John Hermanson.  Smoky Mountain legends Robin and Linda Williams and student musicians, violinist Yuri Popowycz and harpist Charles Overton will join Garrison along with the usual characters.  Enjoy the show.

 

There will not be a note next week.

 

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into”  Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Good morning from Collegeville,

 

What a week of weather.  The temp hit 100 degrees this week and then a cold snap brought it down to 48 degrees later in the week.  Only in Minnesota does it swing that quickly. 

 

Hopefully the forecast for clearing after midnight tonight will hold so that the 11th Annual Carmel Roll Bike Ride scheduled for tomorrow will be another record setting event.  The start of the ride is in Albany next to City Hall on Railroad Avenue.  I will be there by 8 am handing out caramel rolls.  There will be tables and rolls at Holdingford, Bowlus, Avon, Freeport and maybe in St. Joseph.  You can start anywhere on the trail as long as you get to Albany to pay the entry fee and get your wrist band.  Details on the Carmel Roll Ride are online at www.lakewobegontrail.com  

 

Tonight in downtown St. Cloud there will be another in the series of Art Crawls.  There will be many awesome opportunities to buy art to raise your spirits.  There is a new gallery opening up soon.

 

The show this week is a live broadcast from beautiful Chateau Ste. Michelle winery in Woodinville, Washington.  Special guests include singer and formidable multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz and tantalizing cabaret trio Bodacious Ladyhood. 

 

“If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.”  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow  (1807-1882)

 

 Good morning from Collegeville,

 

Well I finally cut the cord.  I moved my garden to St. Joseph.  The hardest part was finding a flat bed trailer large enough to transport a 20 foot by 30 foot garden plot.  I was able to cut a deal with a house mover and it went quite well.   I figure that with the cost of gasoline on the rise, making a 55 mile round trip every Saturday was simply not a good use of resources.  I left the asparagus.  I will be buying asparagus from the Farmers Market in St. Joe from now on.  Brother Bill is interested in transplanting some and Cousin Tim is planning on spraying the asparagus bed to get rid of the clover that has taken over.  For those of you in the Upsala area that are interested, check it out once in a while.  Usually in June, when the weather gets hot, there is such an abundance that it goes to waste.

 

Last night we celebrated Auntie’s birthday at The Local Blend in downtown St. Joe.  The food is local, organic and delicious.  The Minnesota Street Market, a food co-op, is coming along nicely.  There is still some work to do in the back rooms before they can open for business, but you can join now.  They had a “Meet the New Manager” get together Wednesday and I signed up.  Check them out at www.minnesotastreetmarket.com 

 

The show this week is a live broadcast from the Amphitheater at Fort Tuthill County Park in Flagstaff, Arizona north of Sedona.  Simply get on Route 66 and head west.  Special guests include, but are not limited to, country renaissance man Jimmie Dale Gilmore and The Wronglers plus brilliant writer and humorist Ian Frazier.  Enjoy this high altitude show on 90.1 classical and 88.9 news in central Minnesota.  If you need a map of the station locations in Minnesota, send me an email.

 

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”  Henry David Thoreau  (1817-1862)