Chaska Herald newspaper office and embalming

Herald office today. Still open. Founded 1862.

Chaska Herald editor (and historian) Mark Olson discovered this photo recently of the Herald building and staff. As the one-time Chaska editor and publisher (1973-1978) he knew Stan would be interested and sent it along. It was taken in 1913, the paper was already fifty years old, and editor/publisher DuToit and staff were proud of the piles of mail sacks they produced to deliver to the post office. That's an undertaker and embalmer's office on the left, and also Stan's publisher office for a time. No comment.

Coming in August!

Jennifer and Maxwell with Aunt Mary Lou at last year's party. Mary Lou is in the sun, hence the angelic pose.
But she is an angel to many.

Mary Lou  at 80               
-- Photos by Stan Rolfsrud

Kathleen's sister, accompanied by her daughter Heidi and son Tony, will visit the Twin Cities and the state fair in August. Mary Lou and company will arrive from Durango, Col., and spend a week here, it was confirmed last week. Her last appearance here was on her 80th birthday at a fete in the New French Cafe in Minneapolis sponsored by her children. When not celebrating, she's at work in a Durango nursing home, taking care of the old folks. Honest!

Which way to the clubhouse?

Photo by Stan Rolfsrud

For our friends on Abbey Point.

Taken from Ezekiel 4:9

In The Vegan’s never-ending pursuit of good things to eat, he has stumbled onto a bread so unpopular it is kept alone in the freezer at Mississippi Market.

I finally got around to popping two slices from the frozen block into my toaster today, and slathered it liberally with fake butter.

It’s called Ezekiel bread. It’s an old recipe. It is found in scripture, Ezekiel 4:9 .

And I quote: “Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself.” Ezekiel bread is made of wheat, millet, barley, spelt, soybeans, and lentils.

Hmm. Not bad.

The fabulous flipper

Fearlessly the fifth grader at the one-room schoolhouse flew at Tommy Navratil’s ankle, grasped it and threw the big, muscled 7th grade farm boy to the ground with a satisfying thud. The rough-and-tumble game of pom-pom tackle was played without pads or helmets and certainly without mouthguards. Too bad.

When I tackled Tommy that day, he went down, and so did my front tooth, right on his heel. When I put my finger where the hurt was, there was nothing but a big hole.

It would be a life-changing event.

Dr. Steen introduced me to the partial plate. He called it a flipper. I knew the kids would call it a false tooth, something I needed to be ashamed of and hide, lest the stigma and teasing follow me. My parents forbade my siblings from betraying my secret.

At first, I discreetly slipped the pink flipper into my lunchbox whenever eating. By seventh grade in town school I could eat with it still in place. But I had trouble sometimes with gum. One day Science teacher Peter Reque spotted me with the forbidden item and challenged me. Fearfully, I said “may I see you after class?” Stunned, he said yes and I tried to think of what I would say, trying to explain how bubble gum legally chewed in a previous class had got stuck. I shouldn’t have worried, he was remarkably forgiving when I uttered “partial plate got…” He was embarrassed and I skedadled hoping classmates hadn’t overheard.

My partial served all the way through high school, even at dances in Glenwood featuring the “Fabulous Flippers”. In college I retrieved my partial a number of times from the toilet after vomiting it out accidentally. At this institution of higher education I soon learned to remove it first.

I had the partial plate through the Army, no problem, by now my taste buds in my upper palate were shot from lack of use and smoking. Didn’t matter much, of course, dining in an Army mess.

It wasn’t until years later that I met Dr. Appledorn in Chaska. He was just setting up practice and said he could make a permanent bridge over the gap and I could retire the flipper. But he’d never done one like it before, he’d like to give it a try, and I would get it cheap, $800 if I would agree to guinea pig. I did.

He fastened the porcelain bridge with gold and was quite pleased with his work. The tooth lasted longer than his Chaska practice did. Last I heard he was somewhere like Faribault. I started using Dr. Mayerle and maybe 40 times during our continuous 50 year relationship, Jim has examined my mouth and proclaimed “Boy. I really like that bridge.” My new dentist in St. Paul loves it and said they don’t make ‘em like that anymore. I wrote to Dr. Appledorn to thank him and commend him but he never wrote back. I suppose by now he’s got a lot of those bridges walking around the country.

I still have that bridge. It’s right next to a natural tooth that is darkening with age and medium grind coffee. Not so the Appledorn porcelain false tooth. It’s the same color it was 45 years ago. The result is uneven oral shading which is starting to bug me.

Should I have my teeth whitened? At my age? Reminds me of the buying green bananas joke.

But it seems the least I could do to honor Tommy Navratil and that crushing life-altering tackle.

Call security. A man is trying to abduct an 80-year-old?

"Sir", I said to the uniformed attendant pushing Danny’s chair out the door of the emergency department toward an ambulance. "Can I speak to my brother-in-law? "

"Who are you?" he demanded to know and I was immediately reminded of all the privacy regulations and security concerns of today’s world. The man was doing his job. Danny had his back toward me and so was unaware of what was going on.

"I can show you some ID", I said, trying to be helpful.

"Ok. What’s the patient’s name?"

Suddenly it occurred to both of us how ridiculous the situation was.

"Let’s ask him if he knows you." the attendant suggested. "Do you know him?"

 The patient turned and there was instant recognition. "Hi Stan, I didn’t expect to see you here."

"Nor I," I said. "where are they taking you now? "

"Oh. Okay then. You know this man." the attendant relaxed.

"Thank you, sir."

Turns out, Dan was on his way back to the nursing home where he is rehabbing from a recent blood infection. A nurse there had noticed his hemoglobin had dipped and immediately called for his transfer back to the world’s greatest heart hospital, Abbott Northwestern, for a blood transfusion.

Once there they decided that he didn’t need a transfusion after all because his hemoglobin was better than they once thought. It took an hour in the emergency room, barely enough time for us to get there to see what was going on, before he was gone again.

Back to the nursing home, with a sigh of relief for our energizer bunny, heart valve and frozen hip and all. We’re glad he’s back and well enough to complain about the food and follow his beloved Twins.

As always, we thank you for your concern and supportive “thoughts and prayers.”

Ingeborg Wessel 1940-2018

We note with sadness the passing of Ingeborg Wessel, 77, of Hannover, Germany, our dear friend and frequent house guest in the 1980s and 1990s. She is survived by three sons, one of whom was a foreign student staying in our Chaska home. That’s how we got to know her.

Ingeborg loved America and would visit the country for weeks at a time, enjoying its many sights, but always returning to our home for a stay before leaving. A friend recalls seeing her tearful emotion at the destruction of the Berlin wall, (Ingeborg was here at the time) and her joy at the reunification of her country. Then, a year later, her chagrin came through as she lamented the East Germans taking all the jobs and causing her taxes to rise.

She noticed everything. She was free with advice. "Why don't you take more immigrants," she wondered. "You have so much room!" She laughed when we spoke of some German brands as being “quality,” at our improper vertical hanging of the German flag; she brought back to her homeland our custom of waiting in bank lines at a respectful distance, and so on. For many a Christmas, there was a package from Germany with local flavors. A tea set became prized, easily making the cut when we down-sized.

Her English was superb, but some idiomatic expressions escaped as she sought German logic from the English language mess. One summer morning, instead of wearing my usual long pants, I was wearing short pants, you know, Bermudas, shorts. She noticed and commented: “Good morning Stan, It’s such a nice day. I see you are wearing your panties.”

Yes, we miss her.

The silver van returns. . . .

There are only two seats in this work van. Plenty of head room.

Jimmy and customer

We made it only two months with only one car.
The VW bug and a bicycle with basket was quite enough for our transportation needs. But then that changed today when our brother Dan said he would be discharged Monday from Abbott hospital to a rehab center near here.
Dan is doing fine, but will not return to the condominium in the Midtown Exchange building on Chicago and Lake that he's tootled around for 12 years.
There will be plenty of hauling in our future, it seems, so today we went out and bought a silver van, a Dodge Pro-master City. It's a Tradesman van.
Stan had a 1975 Silver Dodge Tradesman years ago, so what comes around goes around. Jimmy was pleased to take our money today, he had no idea we were coming, but somehow he found the time.
Yes, we know, sometimes the most popular guy on the block is the one with a truck. We shall see.