Today is homecoming in Upsala. In my day, the football team was the Upsala `Cardinals’, but some time ago Upsala football merged with Swanville and now it is the USA (Upsala Swanville Area) `Patriots’. I am planning on being there, but it is too warm to wear my letterman’s jacket.
In 1957 I was an overweight freshman on the Upsala Cardinal football team. Freshmen wore the old uniforms and old helmets, and we did not win any fashion awards. John Atkinson, a senior running back, ran with his knees pumping up and down high and hard. He still managed to make forward yardage. In practice, I would simply bounce off of his knees. The memory of the pain is still with me. That was the year when no other team even scored on the Upsala team. Clarissa got to our three-yard line, but our defense held.
A couple of years ago, the 1957 Upsala football team was inducted into the Upsala Sports Hall of Fame. I was one of nine of the twenty-nine original members of the 1957 Upsala Cardinal football team who showed up for our induction into the Sports Hall of Fame. One of the guys, Dave Chuba, came all the way from Ohio. Bob Soltis was the quarterback and captain of the 1957 team. That same year Bob was named to the All-State Football Team.
It was the second year that inductees were chosen for the Upsala Sports Hall of Fame. Bob’s brother Ralph was chosen the previous year and another brother John, who was a junior on the 1957 football team, accepted an individual award for his brother Bob that same year. There were lots of Soltis boys and they all played football. No one lifted weights in those days, they just threw bales of hay all summer. Us “village kids” had a tough time keeping up. “GO PATRIOTS”
“Man’s finest hour is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle victorious.” Vince Lombardi’’
The MPR Net Underwriting Sales Team annual retreat was supposed to be held this coming Sunday through Tuesday at Breezy Point Resort, but it had to be postponed until spring.
One of the cabins at Breezy Point that is available to rent is the 11-bedroom Fawcett House. It was Breezy Point Resort’s founder Captain Billy’s personal residence. My mother, Bernice “Bee” Larson was a nanny for the grandchildren of Captain Billy Fawcett in the 1930s. She had a bedroom in the Fawcett House and spent the winters in Los Angeles with Captain Billy’s son Gordon Fawcett, his wife Vivian and their two children, Gordon Jr. and Dennis.
Wilford Fawcett, better known as Captain Billy, was a millionaire publisher from Robbinsdale, Minnesota. His most famous publication was the Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang magazine. The book “Humor Magazines and Comic Periodicals” noted that “Few periodicals reflect the post-WWI cultural change in American life as well as Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang. For much of the 1920’s, Capt. Billy’s was the most prominent comic magazine in America.” Harold Hill refers to the magazine in the song “Ya Got Trouble” in “The Music Man”.
Captain Billy purchased Breezy Point Resort in Pelican Township, from Fred LaPage in 1920 and soon the main lodge was built along with his personal residence. The original lodge was destroyed in a fire in June of 1959. Of course, he rebuilt the lodge, and the “Fawcett House” still stands. With 11 bedrooms it is perfect for large family reunions. It was recently renovated. For details on rates and golf packages, go to www.breezypointresort.com
“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we know what to do with it. Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” Emerson
It has been twelve years since Auntie passed. There are many stories to tell about Auntie, but my favorite comes from her son Kevin. They had been visiting Kevin’s uncle in Alexandria and Kevin told Auntie that he wanted to get back to her house in Upsala in time to watch the Preakness horse race on television.
The speed limit on County Road 17 is 55, so Kevin was doing 60. Auntie said, “You drive slow Kevin”. Kevin stepped it up a bit and a little while later, Auntie spoke up again. “We’ll never get there on time at this speed.”. Kevin responded: “Ma, I don’t want to get a ticket.” , but he dutifully stepped it up again.
There was silence for a while and then: “Kevin, why don’t you just pull over and let me drive”. Kevin was driving a four-wheel drive pickup. Auntie was 90 years young at the time. We miss you Auntie.
“I was born to have fun”. Leone Larson Hagstrom 1922-2013
In 2000 I took my first trip to Sun Valley, Idaho. I had been representing Minnesota Public Radio for almost one year and my boss decided to take the Brainerd territory away from me and give me the classical music station in Sun Valley to cover instead. St. Cloud, Worthington, Appleton, MN and Sioux Falls, SD were also my responsibility.
I flew into Hailey, Idaho on a Sunday in September and I would work in the territory for three days. On Thursday I would get into the rental car and head towards Bozeman, Montana to visit Aunt Maggie and Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill was my mother-in-law’s half-brother.
One of my Sun Valley underwriters was a record shop, and the owner gifted me a “Pavarotti& Friends” CD. For the first time I heard Luciano Pavarotti and popular rock stars performing at a special venue in Pavarotti’s hometown, Modena, Italy.
Michael Bolton singing “Nessun Dorma” blew me away. Driving through the mountains with the volume turned way up was thrilling. I now own six “Pavarotti & Friends” CDs. All were purchased in Sun Valley and accompanied me on the road to Bozeman.
Yesterday was the 24th anniversary of 9/11. Eric Clapton was part of one of those special concerts. He and Pavarotti performed a song that Clapton wrote, “Holy Mother”. Enjoy and may peace come your way.
“It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” Lloyd Perry
Culture shock occurs when folks from one religion and background encounter folks from another religion and background. I experienced “culture shock” when I moved to Upsala in 1956. I was pulled out of St. Louis Park Junior High School and my mother and six of us children moved into an apartment above a grocery store in Upsala Minnesota. Ramlo Grocery belonged to my mother’s mother Laura and her second husband Bert Ramlo. I was 13 years old and because I had not one, but two paper routes in St. Louis Park, I owned a brand-new Schwinn bicycle. It was bright red with white trim. It had streamers coming out of the handlebars, a tank with a horn, mud flaps and white sidewall tires. The first day I rode it up to Upsala High and when I got out of school, I discovered that someone had let the air out of the tires.
That evening, I stripped the bike of all the fancy stuff and the next day there were no problems. Danny Lillestrand did beat me in a game of marbles and took my favorite aggie.
Here in central Minnesota, there has been another more serious culture shock. There have been many refugees from Somalia and other regions of Africa that have relocated to the St Cloud area to get away from terrorism and starvation. In the interest of building trust through collective impact , Abdikadir Bashir started the Center for African Immigrants and Refugees Organization, branded as CAIRO Minnesota.
A year ago, CAIRO asked me to be the MC at their first Gala Fundraiser. I was honored to be there, and it was a marvelous evening.
CAIRO is inviting everyone to their second annual fundraiser gala, “Seeds of Synergy”. Once again, the event will be held at The Park Event Center in Waite Park. The date is Friday October 10th from 5:30pm to 8pm. Tickets are available at www.cairomn.org. I hope to see you there.
“Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.” Henry James
In case you missed me, I was at “the cabin” last week. In 1981, my younger brother Brian and his wife Jean Marie Hamilton purchased a lot on a lake near Aitkin. It was “Lot 1” of the development and the first lot that was purchased. The lake is a small “natural environmental” lake with Rainbow Trout. They built a beautiful log cabin in 1989. I have been spending the third week of August there for many years.
For a lot of those years my old friend Bob Andrews and his girlfriend would drive up from Des Moines and join me. We would go to town to buy a Dairy Queen cake to celebrate his birthday. Bob died a few years ago. He would have celebrated his 81st birthday on the 17th. I miss him a lot.
In 2018, after breakfast at the Birch Café in town, I took a ride around the lake, and I spotted a “For Sale – Waterfront” sign on the south end. I called the real estate agent, and we met at the log cabin. I signed a purchase agreement. After the real estate agent left, I went back to walk the lot. It was 2 ½ acres of solid oak and maple with a gorge in the middle. I had to climb over a lot of fallen logs to get down to the lake. “Lot 11” was the last lot that had been owned by the Healy family. Grandpa Healy once owned all the property around the 50-acre lake. His granddaughter, Doctor Josephine Ruiz-Healy, a pediatric surgeon who lives in San Antonio Texas flew up for the closing on September 21st, 2018.
After obtaining a lot of permits and carving out a spot in the middle of the lot that met all the criteria for building on a “Natural Environmental Lake”, there now is a “Tiny Cabin” on Lot 11.
This Sunday, the annual Millstream Arts Festival will come to downtown St. Joseph. The festival is a free event held from 11 am until 5 in the afternoon. The arts-and-crafts exhibition will include a staggering variety of work. Outdoor entertainment will be provided. I will be back at the cabin, so enjoy. www.millstreamartsfestival.org
“The easy bus never comes around. Learn how to handle hard better.” Kara Lawson Basketball Coach Duke University.
It has been four years since the death of my ex-wife Marcia Julia Rudie Osberg. We were married on August 21, 1965. I could have gone to see the Beatles at Metropolitan Stadium that day, but I got married to Marcia at St. Olaf Catholic Church in downtown Minneapolis instead. The wedding reception was held in the living room of the house on the Rudie farm northeast of Upsala. The wedding feast featured baked chickens that had been killed that morning. The beer and booze were served in the milk house.
Marcia was born in the downstairs bedroom in that same farmhouse on May 8, 1942. Her dad had built the house along with the barn, the shed, and the milk house. During her final days, Marcia told our son Erik that her happiest times were ones on that farm. She used to say that she could run barefoot across a newly mowed alfalfa field, and she was proud of it. Three of Marcia’s older siblings lived in California, so the evening of our wedding day we left on a four-week honeymoon to California. Her mother’s half-brother Bill Heisick and his wife Maggie, who had been a model, also lived in California. Maggie made quite an impression on Marcia. So much so that when we got back to Minnesota, she enrolled in the Patricia Stevens Finishing School in downtown Minneapolis. Quite a change for a girl from a farm northeast of Upsala.
Perhaps one of the most dramatic events in our marriage was the purchase of a small farm on the north side of Cedar Lake 3 miles west of Upsala. Marcia’s mother Irene had mailed an auction flyer to Marcia. They both had a lot of experience going to farm auctions. We lived in Coon Rapids, Minnesota at the time. So, on September 15, 1973, we drove to Upsala and parked in the hay field near the house. There was a huge turnout for the “Mrs. Agnes Olson Auction”. The small farm featured 900 feet of lakeshore. Marcia took me into the barn and said “Gary, I want this place, and this is how you win at an auction. When it is your turn to bid, you do not hesitate. Understood? You react immediately.” I said OK and went to see the banker who was a very close friend of my father. In fact, he was Best Man at my parent’s wedding. I had to tell Roland that I wanted to bid, but that I didn’t have the $3,000 earnest money check. I told him that we would go to town and get the check from Marcia’s mother if we were the high bidder. He took a long time thinking about it, but he finally said OKAY.
The auctioneer started out and I jumped in. After a while I bid $50,000 which was the maximum that Marcia and I had set. The auctioneer milked a bid for $50,500 out of the only other remaining bidder. The coaxing went on and on. Finally, the other guy said yes to $50,500. The auctioneer turned to me and asked for $51,000. I did as Marcia had instructed and simply nodded my head. It was over. Later it was reported to me that the other bidder stormed away with the comment. “That kid will never stop!” (I was 30 years old at the time) Marcia was 100% correct. We never would have had the enjoyment and fun of 16 years of living on Cedar Lake if had not been for Marcia.
We were married for 32 years, 1 month and 8 days and we were friends for nearly 24 years after that. May my first date and my first love rest in peace.
“The city of Upsala Minnesota had its beginnings as a settlement of Swedish immigrants. It remained primarily Scandinavian (and Protestant) well into the 20th century, even though German and Polish neighbors were located in surrounding areas.
Some of the first settlers in the area, however, were not Swedish, but Danish. Jurgen (J.J.) Schultz cleared land a couple of miles to the east in 1868. Ib Hanson Misfeldt and Knut H. Gunderson settled in the Elmdale area. John Henry Peterson, who was a Swede, settled just south of what became Upsala in 1872. In 1880 the Northern Pacific railroad company began to sell land in the area, with John Kulander as their agent. Then the flow of homesteaders increased and included Gust Nelson, Ola Pehrson, L.M. Larson, John and Ola Bengston, August Johnson, John Swedback and many others. Swedback operated a sawmill and built a general store, which was run by his wife Ericka.”
The words above are from the first page of a book written by Dan W. Hovland, a former resident of Upsala. The title of the book is “Upsala, Minnesota … the early year through the 1910s”. You may purchase the book and the accompanying book, “Upsala, Minnesota Views of city businesses and places from the 1920s through the 1990s” if you come to the Borgstrom House in Upsala tomorrow between noon and 3pm. The second Saturday in August is always “Heritage Day” in Upsala.
The parade starts at 4 and I might be riding in my son’s fishing boat as it is being towed by a Ram truck driven by my grandson “Walleye Willie”. My son Erik will be walking behind the boat.
I am not a shopper. I am a buyer. In April of 2018 I fell while crossing a creek in Sedona, Arizona. That was the beginning of my back pain. I noticed that my mattress had a sag in it, so I went to Slumberland and ordered a new mattress. The salesperson scheduled the delivery for the following week and sent me home with a new mattress pad. When I stripped my bed, I discovered that the feather bed on top of the mattress was the reason for the sag. I had forgotten that I even had a feather bed. There was nothing wrong with the mattress. It was just as firm as when it was new.
The next day I went back and cancelled the order for the mattress. I felt bad, so I bought a gift card. A year later, the store sent me a $25 birthday card, so I set out on another shopping trip. It was during Covid, and I reasoned that one more patio chair would be nice to have so that I could invite someone to join me on the back patio, and we would be 6 feet apart. Upon delivery I discovered that the chair came in a flat box, in pieces. A “shopper” would have been wise enough to ask before buying. Due to my sore back, I had to ask handyman Marcus to assemble it for me. I am happy with the chair.
In 2019, the art teacher at Upsala High School arranged an opportunity for her students to go to seven cities in Europe on an art tour. My granddaughter Christen was a freshman, and I signed up to go along. A total of 20 students and 12 adults signed up. Ms. P told all of us “Art World Travelers” that we needed to make sure that our checked bag would meet the maximum size requirement. Sure enough, my old suitcase was too big.
I walked into a local department store and went directly to the luggage display. There was a small black suitcase with a sign that said, “Lift Me”. I lifted it and headed for the check-out counter. My friend said that she had never in her life been in and out of Macy’s that fast. The suitcase was even “on sale”. That shopping trip ended well.
“The years teach much which the days never know.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Donald McNeely made his fortune in the warehouse business. “A savvy entrepreneur and a forward thinker, he joined his father’s business , The St. Paul Terminal Warehouse Company after the war and turned it into a national company called Space Center, Inc.” (St. Paul Pioneer Press obituary). Donald was instrumental in helping to launch many of Minnesota’s organizations including the Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins.
However, one of his passions is housed on the campus of St. John’s University on the third floor of Simons Hall. The Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship is dedicated to giving young men and women the skills to succeed in business. Every year the Entrepreneur Scholars participate in special classes and work with mentors to strengthen the entrepreneurial spirit. As a recovering entrepreneur, I deeply appreciate this educational resource. https://www.csbsju.edu/center-for-entrepreneurship/
I crossed paths with Donald McNeely in 1986. Jimmy Dorr and I had opened the Knoll Office Furniture showroom in International Market Square. Jimmy was big on design, but I insisted that we print temporary calling cards immediately, not to wait until his graphic designer perfected the final design of business cards. As it happened Jimmy’s locker at the Minneapolis Athletic Club was next to the locker of the President of Space Center. Jimmy apologized for the quality of the printing but wisely handed his new calling card to his friend and told him about his new venture. To make a long story short , that exchange led to an order for over $250,000 of Knoll Office Furniture including Knoll carpet which is top of the line. True to his frugal nature, Donald McNeely kept his old furniture, but all around him was the highest quality contemporary office furniture influenced by the Bauhaus school of design. Never go anywhere without your calling card.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred with dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with the cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
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