[August 27, 2010] Ruthie and I, at the same time in different places, made separate, conflicting “dates” for last evening. So, we began with new friends, those whom we have met since moving back to Alex. At Camp Ballentine, on the shores of beautiful Lake Darling, we watched the sun set perfectly over Arrowwood’s water park. Then we tried to organize the assembled masses into photo opportunities. In the photo with the Owens’s house in the background, we have Don Waldeland, “Crazy Dave” Owen, Jim McElwain, Mary Owen, Ruth Obert, Ruth McElwain, and Beryl Waldeland (a reunion of the Alaska cruisers). The Owens and the McElwains are the Camp Ballentiners – thanks be to them for a lovely evening. Then since it was Thursday night, and class reunion week, we hustled off to SAWA to join old friends, high school classmate, Sara [Smith] Sevey, her husband, Jim (bookending Ruthie), here from Los Altos, California, and Al (class of ’67) and Kathy Grundei for a regular performance by Sax Appeal [photo by Traci Ness – photo of Traci taking photo by Tom Obert]. The class photo from the 1965 yearbook is of Sara sitting in front of me in Ms. Habstritt’s English class – I did not, to my recollection, ever dip her pigtails in an inkwell (that is Sara’s comment extolling my “vitality”).
[Like herding cats!]
[September 8, 2010] Thanks. And was glad I could provide a missing artifact from Karl’s youth. And others may also recall our reverend, Henry Hoover – during Sunday school he would take us on “lion hunts,” which I recall were great fun. ~ Me
[September 17, 2010] Hi Terry,
Well, imagine my pleasant surprise to awake this morning to find your e-mail forwarded by Stan Rolfsrud! Wow, 50 years, huh? I’m going to hustle these photos off to you now before I head out for my morning walk. Initially, you can find out a lot about the Obert siblings and family, the Heights, and Heighters, by checking the class of ’65 blog site (run by Stan) at: www.65roundup.blogspot.com, and type “Tom Obert” in the search box.
[Lee and Ray Lang on the ends; Elsie and Herb Robinson in the middle.]
[Mom and Dad Obert (r) with the Robinsons. I think it was the first anthropoligical proof of “Casual Friday.”]
[Looks like Elsie, Lee, Mom, and Granny Obert.]
[Ray, on the far right, was “The Voice of the Cardinals” in his day.]
[Ray on the right, Dorothy Dyke on the left, Percy Sherry behind Mom, at the folks’ Bon Voyage for a year at Harvard, 1956.]
[Terry, Barbara Hutchinson, Dayton Lang, and Obert sibs at some obviously major event at the Alexandria Boat Works.]
[Terry gives Gretch the “hairy eyeball.”]
[Terry and me, far side, at someone’s birthday.]
[Another major Victoria Heights birthday at the Obert’s. Anyone you know?]
Great to hear from you (hi to Rita!) ~ Tom
p.s. Dayton? Ross? Mike? Pam? [1st contact with Terry Lang, who left Alex in 1960, and his wife Rita, nee Robinson, in 50 years. This, and the following two posts, are remembrances of the Lang and Robinson families. The Robinsons were neighbors in Victoria Heights; the Langs moved to the state of Washington in 1960.]
[September 26, 2010] The photo of the kids I think came from Kathy Sherry (I wish it was a bigger format!). Great photo – probably ’57-58, I’m leading Pete Hintzen, Jim Sherry, Gretch, Kathy Sherry, and I can’t tell who the two kids are in the back.
The other photo was taken the day of Mom’s funeral, April 18, 2009, of Heighters:
Back row, l-r: Cam, Shelly Karnis, Chris, Gene Karnis, Kathy Sherry Skadsberg, me;
Front row, l-r: Larry & Laura McCoy (bought our house in ’66 and have lived there ever since), Karen Nyvold, Jay Nyvold, Perry Dyke, Gretch, Dorothy Dyke, and Paul Dyke.
[September 27, 2010] In July 2007, Pam and I flew to Minneapolis and Rita drove to Minneapolis where we spent time at Mall of the Americas heading for Fargo and a family reunion on my Mom’s side of the family.
We drove to Alex intending to spend the night and just drive around and look at old residences. Dummy me, I didn’t think about looking up anynames! When we got to town, we drove to Victoria Heights and spent a lot of time going around the neighborhood shooting photos of the homes, the park, Pam calling her Mom while standing in Lake VIctoria and talking about various families.
Then, we drove out to City Park and decided to see if the Interlachen was still there. We had heard that it had burned down but that someone had rebuilt it. What a nice surprise to see it still there so I made reservations and we went back and got a motel room.
We drove to the house on McKenzie and then tried to find the duplex we lived in when I was 6 and Rita was 2 when the families first met but it’s gone and I think a funeral home is there. We also spent time at Central, the church across the street, Lincoln, Washington, and looked for the Catholic hospital where Pam was born. Then went and took photos of the hospital where Kalle was born (Douglas County).
We went back to eat and got our tables and noticed all the old newspaper photos in the back room so we went around and looked at those, had a glass of wine and went back to our table. I wear a baseball cap that says “US NAVY MCPO RETIRED” on the front so when I walked out of the back room, this guy points at me and says “Buy the sailor a drink”. I thanked him and did a double-take! The gentleman was Vern Jackson who had been my Navy boss in California in 1979 when our son Scott was born!
He didn’t recognize me at first (I had gained some weight and shaved my head) but then it came to him and then he recognized Rita. He came to the hospital the day after Scott was born and I was trying to convince Melissa, our 4 year old, to go and see her new brother but she wanted a sister so bad, she wasn’t going to even look at him! Vern took Melissa, picked her up and took her down the hall and was gone for about 15 minutes. He never told me what they talked about but Melissa came back bragging about her new brother!
Vern was from near Alex and when he retired from the Navy, settled in Alex. He is a building contractor, or was, and supplies other contractors to resorts. He and his wife live in Alex and she is in real estate.
Anyway, we took off the next morning for Detroit Lakes, then Fargo, and then home. I wish now that I would have taken the time to sit down with Rita, her great memory, and the phone book. Well, hindsight is 20/20.
Take care you guys. It is so great to be able to “talk” to you guys again.
Thanks, Love, T (Terry Lang)
alexandriacardinals 