GaryOsberg.com

When the family moved from St. Louis Park to Upsala in October of 1956, one benefit to myself was that I got out of having to serve two weeks of “detention” at Park Junior High school. My rebellious nature had already kicked in. The Upsala school population was divided into “farm kids” and “town kids”.  That fall I started hanging out with other “town kids”.

For some reason one of us decided to steal a gas cap off a parked car. I am not sure which “genius” came up with this idea, but in any case, the prank turned into a project. Everyone in town was talking about it and I am sure that old man Miller printed a story in the local newspaper. In time one of the “gas cap gang” confessed to his parents and we all got busted.

Earl Metzger was the local policeman. He gathered us up and forced me to reveal the hiding place of the gas caps. We had hidden them in a gunny sack in a culvert. All of those who were missing their gas cap were told to come to Earl’s garage in Uptown Upsala and sort through the lineup of gas caps on his desk to claim theirs. We appeared in front of the Justice of The Peace in the backroom of the Upsala City fire hall. Justice Bernard Lunder sentenced each one of us to “six months of church attendance”.

Many years later I would visit Bernard at a nursing home in Sauk Rapids, and we would talk about the “separation of church and state”.  He simply laughed and said he thought we would benefit from his punishment.  Not all of us learned the lesson. The “Black Knights Car Club” was born a few years later.  That lead to another crime spree. 

It may not be too late to get a ticket to see “Hadestown Teen Edition” performed by the St. John’s Prep Theatre in the Stephen B Humphrey Auditorium on the campus of St. John’s University.  I saw it last night and it was wonderful.   www.sjprep.net. 

“It is unwise to pay too much, but it’s also unwise to pay too little. When you pay too much, all you lose is a little money, but when you pay too little, you stand a chance of losing everything because the thing you bought is incapable of doing what you bought it to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It just can’t be done. So, when you deal with the low bidder, it is wise to put a little something aside to take care of the risk you run. And, if you do that, you can afford something better.” John Ruskin