Notebook
June 13th, 2014 by Gary Osberg

Good morning from Collegeville,

June 6, 1989 was the last day of school for my son in Charlotte, North Carolina. The school day ended at 2:30 PM and at 5:30 PM he left in his 1972 rust free Olds Cutlass Supreme for Minnesota. He had earned the money to buy the car by waxing office building floors during the middle of the night for a company owned by a woman who also hailed from Minnesota. I am not sure how he found the job. The Olds was hard to start when the engine was hot, so I told Erik not to shut off the engine if he was stopping for a short period. Very early the next morning he called and told me that he had run over a dead deer and when he was dragging it out from under the car, he heard a knock in the engine. He was calling from the Big Foot gas station in Shelbyville, Indiana.

I told him that I could not afford to have him take it to an Olds dealer, but to stick tight and I would think of something. He called back to say that he had met a backyard mechanic who offered to help. The timing gear needed to be replaced. I ended up wiring $400 to Western Union and Erik spent the evening fishing with the mechanics son and slept on their couch. The next morning he headed up the road to meet his Uncle Geoff at Denny’s for breakfast in Chicago.

The APHC show this week is live from the Fabulous Fox Theatre in Saint Louis, Missouri. Special guests include innovator and preservationist Pokey LaFarge, banjo player, guitarist and songwriter, Joe Newberry and guitar heavyweight Steve Wariner. The Royal Academy of Radio Actors, Tim Russell, Sue Scott and Fred Newman will entertain us with skits and stories. The News From Lake Wobegon will focus on the summer time. Enjoy the show.

“It’s widely known that among salesmen; as among fishermen, about 25 percent of them wind up with 75 percent of the winnings. And evidently it’s so much the flashy presentation or the persuasive personality that brings in the big money as it is the systematic perseverance in finding and following up leads” University of Chicago’s Industrial Center

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