Sisters

 In 1995 Stan's late Uncle Richard sketched this watercolor of his sisters, Beverly and Kaye, visiting at his house. He never finished the project, but in 2000 he sent it to Stan's mother Beverly for her 80th birthday anyway. Recently, Sosie found the birthday card in mother's things and so she sent it to her again, along with Richard's note . . . and Mom enjoyed receiving the card all over again.

A note from The Continent

Our neighbors write from sunny Spain!

Buenos Dias
We are back in Barcelona, getting ready to go to the airport. It has been a great trip.

We were at the Casino in Monte Carlo and reserved a place for St. Paul Katie.

See you late tonight ... Well maybe in the a.m.

Tom & Sandy

Prepping for another Big Day

That's not a kerchief on Jen's head. That's the color of her hair!

Jennifer and Joe paused for a hearty breakfast this morning on what may be one of the best days of the rest of the year. They're busy closing up Jen's house for the winter. Today they blew a ton of cellulose insulation into the attic, using a rental blower from Menard's.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Turns out, they needed all the energy they could get, insulating a narrow attic is a hard, dirty job but someone has to do it. All in all, it went pretty well. It's handy having Menard's a block away. They were short nine bales of cellulose, so Stan made a dash for refills so the blower could keep blowing.
Later, Stan continued to sand down the 100-year-old boards salvaged from the interior house walls, then he filled the holes from the square nails and polished the surface to make an eight-foot counter top in a temporary kitchen set up.
It's a free counter top. . . if you don't count labor... which you don't when you've got a willing retired guy who finds such a project amusing. It's fun working with materials that aren't available anymore, he says.

The dark board is the original condition of the 100 year old planks.
The finished planks under it have been glued edge to edge, holes filled.

Closeup of project materials, before and after.

Brian Berglund 1947-2013

He was in a lot of Stan's classes throughout junior and senior high, starting with Mr. Woodward's math class in seventh grade where they struggled to learn to use binary numbers because it was going to be important someday if they ever wanted to use something called a computer.

Bowling with pals Byron "Gopher" Peterson and
Bobby Watson at the Garden Center Lanes.

Most recently, Stan and Brian renewed friendships in Phoenix with other classmates from Jefferson in Alexandria, Minnesota.
Cancer claimed Brian this week. He was a kind man and lived a good life.
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Brian Berglund, 66, Fountain Hills, AZ died Oct. 2 after a hardfought battle with cancer. 
Born to Joe and Toby Berglund in Alexandria, he moved to Phoenix in 1967 to follow his parents and two siblings. Following graduation from Arizona State University with a BS in Business Administration, Brian began a career in the insurance industry that would span 40 years, much of which was spent as the owner of a family-owned agency. 
He enjoyed fishing the coves of Roosevelt Lake, the occasional golf outing and hosting cocktails and hors d'ouvres with his loving wife Rosemary to catch up with family and friends. 

Brian is preceded in death by Joe, Tibby, brother Michael and other loved ones. He is surveyed by his wife and five sons, their wives and grandchildren.

Classmates gathered in 2010 in Surprise, AZ. Phil Noonan, Mike Foss,
Stan Rolfsrud, Brian Berglund, Tom Tessmer, Sara Smith Sevey. 
In the photo below, that's Foss again (far right), Tessmer (far left) and Berglund
(center) in toga at the Ninth Grade Latin Banquet.

And, oh, by the way, a tree fell on your house

Our family friend, Joe Simenstad, was helping Jennifer and Stan this weekend in Dundas, getting Jennifer's house ready for winter. Joe moved a sink and hooked up the plumbing, while Stan worked on a counter top.
Joe took a phone call from his Mom with some family news, then she mentioned another detail: a wind storm dropped a tree on Joe's old log project house. Joe's been restoring this family heirloom near his parent's home, adding a nice new metal roof among other things. He's been at it off and on for a few years. . . now there's more to do.
Two steps forward . . . one step back, Joe.

R-19

Cold weather is on its way, so we are sealing up an exposed wall adjacent to Jennifer's living space. Should be snug now, the tricky part was the random widths between the studs. When they built the house over 100 years ago, they weren't planning for 14.5 inch insulation batts. So some of the cavities are 16 inches wide, some are 12. Makes for an interesting afternoon.
Another interesting thing: the two by fours. They are actually two by four inches.

Sensation at 7:07

Photo by Stan Rolfsrud

Stan's drinking buddy dies at 85

When it was quitting time at the Chaska Herald back in the mid-70s, it often meant a visit to Butch's Tavern a few doors down the street. And, to Stan's delight, it often meant a visit there with Curly Roberts, a thoughtful and charismatic gentleman who was busy designing projects for Jonathan Development Corp.
Jonathan was the new town in Chaska, controversial, loved, hated, always interesting.

Herald file photo

Curly was a first-class architect, and shared insights into design principles with his eager junior drinking partner. He explained the esthetics of the Martini (the reasons the olive, delicate stemware and clear liquid work so well together),  he explained the elements of fine design in a Manhattan, with its heavy red hues and bulky glass, and he explained to his student the compelling tension and balance in the unique geometry of the female breast. A few graceful lines rendered in an architectural hand on a cocktail napkin made his point.

Stan had wanted to be an architect when he grew up, but Curly's inside view of the rough and tumble of the business made Stan grateful for his own career path.

When Jonathan Development Corp. went belly-up and the economy brought a halt to building projects, Curly faced some struggles supporting his family. He proved to be quite resourceful bridging hard times.
There's a modest car wash on Marschall Road in Shakopee that bears his unique architectural style, no job too lowly when there's a family to feed. Stan used it once to wash up a suckling pig for a Hawaiian-style luau at Rich Lyman's farm. Can't remember if Curly came. . . he was certainly invited. That car wash still stands, a reminder of good times and of a good friend.

For a time Curly flirted with an AmWay franchise, mysteriously inviting all his friends over for a "secret meeting" at his house, revealing its disappointing purpose after it was too late to escape. Not sure if he sold any soap or got any investors to sign up that afternoon, but he sure got an A for effort, even slipping a shill into his eye-rolling audience. Curly's shill actually stood up and with a straight face said "Curly, can we talk more about some of the products?" 

Curly died last week, visitation is Friday in Chaska with burial at Ft. Snelling. 

Stan will carefully mix a Whiskey Manhattan in his memory, remembering to enjoy the light that casts a warm red and amber hue through the walls of the weighted tumbler, all the while thanking his old drinking buddy for helping him to notice this, and so much more.

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Here's the obituary that appears in this week's Herald.

By Mark W. Olson 
editor@chaskaherald.com
One of Jonathan’s early designers has died.

Reynold “Curly” Roberts, 85, of Chaska, passed away Friday, Oct. 4.

Roberts was hired in early 1972, as the senior architect for the Jonathan Development Corporation, to work on the “New Town” of Jonathan.

Today, Jonathan is considered a homeowner association or Chaska neighborhood. However, when it was first announced by developer and state legislator Henry McKnight in 1967, Jonathan was revolutionary.

Although it was part of Chaska, Jonathan was separated by farm fields from historic downtown. The development relied heavily on federal funding, initiating design ideas that were a 180-degree turn from then common practices -- trails instead of sidewalks; preserving natural landscapes; innovative residential architecture.

Roberts moved his family back to his home state of Minnesota from Shaker Heights, Ohio, to take the job, recalled his daughters Susan Prather and Becky Earl.

NUMERIC NEIGHBORHOODS

Roberts was part of the team that brought the Jonathan Development Corporation's ideas to fruition, reporting to Ben Cunningham, Jonathan's chief architect.

Even the numerical names of the Jonathan neighborhoods were revolutionary. The neighborhoods were assigned numbers because Cunningham didn't like names, Roberts explained in a 2001 Herald interview. Names elicited a variety of positive and negative responses, so Cunningham decided, "Let's not put names on them, just numbers," Roberts said.

Roberts opened his own architectural practice, Roberts Architects, in 1973. The firm designed 14 business/warehouse buildings in Jonathan’s Crosby Park, as well as the Jonathan Information Center.

“The concepts that he seemed to emphasize were separating the industrial [development] from the neighborhoods, and the greenways were important to him,” Earl said.

The Jonathan Development Corporation folded by the end of the 1970s, and the complete Jonathan plan never was completed. “He was every excited about the whole concept of [Jonathan]. Very excited to be part of it, and very disappointed when things kind of fell through,” Prather said.

However, many original Jonathan concepts, such as the trails, can still be found in Chaska today.

LOVED PEOPLE

Roberts went on to work with other architecture firms. One of his specialties was creating logos.

In 1982, Roberts suffered a massive stroke. He worked to get his speech back, Earl recalled. The stroke affected Robert’s right side, and since he couldn’t draw, he learned AutoCAD -- a computer program for design and drafting.

“We’re amazed with what he did. It’s that drive that made him so successful as an architect,” Earl said. “But also, he loved it so much, and loved people so much, it’s almost as though he insisted ‘I’m going to get better.’”

“He bounced back really well. He was able to carry on his career until beyond retirement,” Prather said.

In his retirement, Roberts enjoyed his local morning coffee group, which originated at the Chaska Bakery and later moved to The Lodge at the Chaska Community Center. He also frequently met with alumni from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis.

Roberts was a photographer, and held local shows of his work. During one show, Reynolds displayed his photographs with the work of Gary McLaughlin at the Chaska Community Center. In a 2004 interview, McLaughlin, who had worked as a designer and illustrator at Robert’s Architects, said his friend and former boss was the "best guy in the world, ever, to work for.”

Besides photography, Reynolds also loved gardening and playing with his grandchildren, Prather said. “He really enjoyed life and enjoyed his grandkids,” Prather said. “He was really a good man.”

Roberts is survived by his wife Stella and five children (see complete obituary on A6). Visitation is 4-7 p.m., Friday at Bertas Funeral Home, 200 West Third Street, Chaska.

Lots of work, keeping clean

Found this recipe in the folks' archives while moving some stuff around today. Handy info, you never know when you need to make up a bar of soap. Now, where does one get lard and lye?