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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