GaryOsberg.com

 Good morning from Collegeville,

 

Christmas Eve is two weeks from today.  I think that I have it covered, but I still have a couple of gifts to buy.  I used to wait until Christmas Eve, but I have improved in the regard.  I trust that your plans are all coming together.

 

This week my old friend Wes had to bury his mother Ethyl.  Wes was one of the oldest members of The Black Knights Car Club in Upsala.  I was the youngest member.  He also was the driver of his dad’s 1950 Ford on the night that we were in a drag race with another member.  I was riding shotgun.  The Ford slid off of the gravel road into the left side ditch and hit a bridge.  I can still remember the horn blaring, the rear tires spinning and the sound of the windshield breaking.  I had put my arm up to protect my face and the force of the impact broke my wrist.  I was a sophomore at Upsala High and that fall I had to stand on the sidelines instead of playing football.  The sling that held my broken wrist did provide a perfect place to hide the “tools” that I shoplifted.  The car club had plans to drop a V8 engine into the 1936 Chevy Coupe that the club had acquired from our leader, Duane, (AKA “Punk”).  The car was stored in a garage that was behind the house that my mother rented on Borgstrom Street in Upsala.  When the County Sheriff showed up at my front door with a search warrant, Ma fainted dead away.  They were going to charge her with “fencing”.  We had hidden some stolen goods in the barn next to the garage.  The club house was an old chicken coop next to the barn that we had cleaned out.  The garage is still there, surrounded by trees growing out from the foundation.

 

The entire gang was brought to trial in the Morrison County courts and we each received a sentence of six months probation.  “Punk” was held in the county jail for almost two months without bail. Our school superintendent was named as our probation officer.  Two of the gang went to the reform school in Red Wing, but they both went on to lead productive lives.  One was a successful franchise salesman and the other is a lay minister in the Twin Cities area.

 

The show this week is a live broadcast from the Town Hall in New York City.  Special guests include poet emeritus of the known universe, Billy Collins, Broadway bandleader, Rob Fisher with cornerstone of the jazz keyboard, Dick Hyman and the DiGiallonardo Sisters.  The usual cast of characters will help us to get into the holiday mood.  Enjoy the show.

 

“All that a man does outwardly is but the expression and completion of his inward thought.  To work effectually, he must think clearly; to act nobly, he must think nobly.”  Channing