Paul Strandberg 1947-2014

Courtesy Tegland archives

A couple of honors students behind their piles of books.  Paul, left, with his friend, Karl Tegland.

Paul was also senior class president. Karl was a valedictorian.

A life-long friend, who endured a multi-year struggle with a rare neuro-degenerative disease, finally succumbed to it this morning. He was 66.

Paul Strandberg was Stan's classmate in Alexandria. They continued their friendship while both served in the U.S. Army and then during Paul's distinguished career as an attorney with the Office of the Attorney General for the State of Minnesota.

Here is a link to his obituary in the StarTribune. Click here.

With his very good friend, Rev. Ron Olson,
in Paul's back yard in 2010.

Stan will remember Paul as an upbeat, intelligent observer of the world around him, always with a wry sense of humor and a keen eye for the absurd.
Drafted in 1969, Paul was made a military policeman, charged with returning AWOLs captured at the Dallas airport back to the Fort Hood stockade. It seemed an odd assignment for this gentle man, but he made the best of it, never easy with the braid and spit shine or the .45 holstered on his hip.
"It's better than the jungle," he would sigh when dropping by for a chat at Stan's brigade information office. Paul's intimidating uniformed presence always unintentionally and amusingly created a ripple and a stir amongst co-workers during these impromptu visits.

Clever and brilliant in so many other ways, Paul was no mechanic. He was riding shotgun when Stan threw a rod in his mother's Oldsmobile the fall of 1964. The big engine clattered and banged as the teens pulled into the Strandberg farmyard, frightened and stunned. Paul suggested shutting off the engine and restarting it just to see if the noise would "go away."
It didn't work.

2012 in a Roseville coffee shop.

Now whenever Stan confidently restarts a balky computer, he often remembers the day he and his pal tried rebooting Mom's Oldsmobile.

Paul's long goodbye was well underway back in 2009 when friends gathered in our basement for a mini-reunion. So used to seeing their classmate sharp and robust, his newly-acquired fumbling and speech pattern were heartbreaking to his old friends, some choking back tears as they parted, sadly realizing that they were losing Paul, ever so slowly.

Paul was introduced to Pick's disease when his father contracted it back in the 60s. It was difficult to explain to classmates what was happening to his Dad, who sat quietly in the kitchen, frail and vulnerable, somewhat confused, unable to speak to us anymore, not at all the happy farmer we had known just a short time before.

According to Wikipedia, "Pick's disease is a rare neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive destruction of nerve cells in the brain. Symptoms include dementia and loss of speech (aphasia). While some of the symptoms can initially be alleviated, the disease progresses and patients often die within two to ten years."

Paul, Stan, Karl and Sue Tegland, the late Michael Bolin, Karen Schjei Benson, the Rev. Ron Olson, Mark Benson.
Paul showed early signs  at this 2009 mini-reunion of the Alexandria Class of 1965.