This news of Chuck so saddens me. Yet another of my good friends from high school is now gone. First Frank Kleckner, then Brad Harder, then Dick Lindgren, and Roger Mahre, John Hansen and now Chuck. On the positive side of the ledger—and it is a very positive side—I have a wonderful store of memories of my many youthful experiences with these old pals of mine. And, in the end, isn’t that, well, enough?
My experiences with Chuck date only to junior high as my family had just moved to south Minneapolis when I started 7th grade at Folwell. But we soon found each other in that not-quite-cryptic way young boys roaming around a neighborhood—like so many free-range chickens in a farmyard long ago—somehow managed to do so back then before the interaction of kids began to be constrained by—and, indeed, defined by—play dates.
And, of course, being young boys of a certain athleticism, Chuck and I spent many an hour together engaged in sport. Often tennis at Sibley Park, usually with Dick Lindgren, but sometimes getting our asses whipped by Frank Kleckner. And, of course, going with Chuck to Sibley to skate in the winter on Friday evenings when that event (a go or two at Pom-pom-pullaway)—along with those Friday night dances they held at the small, very crowded pavilion there—constituted pretty much the only way young boys back then met and interacted (such as it was) with girls our age.
Offhand, I’d say the strangest sport Chuck and I ever engaged in together was the time when we were nosing around in his garage and came upon two pairs of boxing gloves. Of course we had to try them on and square off right there on the garage driveway, exchanging blows for maybe 4 minutes, max, before it struck both of us—already with near-blinding headaches—that it was the dumbest damn thing we’d ever thought to do.
But it was touch football that took up most of our time together in sport. Even in high school, but especially after graduating when we were in college, in the late summer and fall we played touch football games every Saturday afternoon, often right after coming back from the Gopher games. These were played on a, err, repurposed, slanting open space on the south side of Powderhorn Park. Starting very early on we had long-standing 4-man “sides”, with Brad Harder being the one who originally picked players on his side and I on the other. Somehow Chuck always played on Brad’s side along with John A. Hansen and sometimes Paul Wold. Roger played on my side. BTW, these teams and games morphed into the famous Toilet Bowl touch football games that were played on Thanksgiving morning continuously for, now 50+ years, between The Plungers (Brad’s side) and my side, The Flushers!
Chuck played in these early Toilet Bowls for years as a proud Plunger before retiring.
Chuck and I got ourselves caught up in many an adventure together, at least one of which I won’t reveal for the sake of our everlasting reputations. But one, I recall, was just good fun of the kind young boys might get themselves into back then and, besides, it ends with a classically comic scene. By one of those enigmatic twists of fate, Chuck and I wound up dating two girls who at the time were best friends: Cindy Johnson and Carol Torstenson. And, continuing, Chuck had somehow managed to get his hands on some firecrackers. Not those little ones called lady fingers that hardly made a pop, but the next size up that made quite a bang.
And it was Chuck—it was always Chuck—who had the devilish idea late one fall evening of going over to Cindy’s house and—yeah, you guessed it—in the dark going into her backyard and setting off a few firecrackers under her bedroom window. [Or the window Chuck said was Cindy’s, but I always wondered why her parents wouldn’t have taken the one bedroom downstairs for themselves?]
Well, the Johnson’s house had one of those 4’ high chain linked wire fences connecting its side with the next house over, with, of course, a gate that opened up to allow one to get into their backyard. We had carefully and quietly opened that gate and for some unknown, likely unknowable, reason, once inside the backyard we closed that gate again. And hunched down we quietly made our way to just below that first floor bedroom window (but whose?) and Chuck held out a couple of firecrackers and I lit a match and started their long fuses burning. Of course after dropping the firecrackers on the lawn we immediately ran as fast as we could back to the side of the house where we’d come in. As it happened, I was in the lead by a yard or so and so when I saw that we’d closed the damn gate and knowing how hard it was to open, I simply leapt up and soared over the whole damn fence, in a manner I would later gain 15-seconds of fame doing over a mailbox in northern Wisconsin (see my photos on this RHS1961 site).
Alas, being just a yard or so behind me, Chuck didn’t have the time to think about—and so to prepare himself to jump—the fence that I had. With the result that he cleared that fence with all his body parts less his lagging foot, which misadventure I barely saw as I looked back hearing him groan as he tumbled onto the grass on the outside of the fence. Of course and as an excellent gymnast he managed the fall very well and quickly rejoined me as we ran down the street and the rest of our lives.
Any appreciation of Chuck would be woefully incomplete without mention of his passion for and excellence at cross-country skiing and the American Birkebeiner race in northern Wisconsin in particular.
Indeed, in a wonderful display of his generous character, Chuck graciously took me out one Saturday and by example showed me how to x-c ski in a regional park, when I decided I wanted to take up the sport in 1977. And he and his wife, Joyce, graciously invited me to dinner at their home in Cottage Grove after the ski. And then later he took me out a second time at Wirth Park to make sure I hadn’t picked up any bad habits on my own. Of course, I would never achieve anywhere near the skill level he did, but he was instrumental in introducing me to that sport.
He skied the American Birkebeiner race in northern Wisconsin no less than 19 times, a grueling 55 km (34 mi) race and had some outstanding times in his age category. He skied many other races and devoted himself to training for the x-c skiing season pretty much the year around. Even right up until his cancer stopped him a few years ago.
I’ll end this note of appreciation for Chuck with a fond memory I have of his wry wit. [But see, as well, his wonderful anecdote about Lyle Eakins’ math class for another example.] Some years ago Chuck and I started going out to lunch together and he would drive to my house from Cottage Grove with his bike in the back of his van and we’d bike someplace in Minneapolis for lunch. On this particular occasion we’d biked to Whitey’s Saloon in NE Minneapolis to have their famous and famously good walleye sammich. And riding back I immediately began to have trouble with a loose kickstand on my 1954 Raleigh Sports bike that I proudly rode. I’d started out a bit ahead of Chuck since he had to wait for traffic to clear to cross University Ave and I’d become so exasperated by my kickstand that I stopped and very quickly yanked the broken kickstand off my bike and simply tossed it on the boulevard of the church I had stopped by. I remounted Old Blackie and rode the rest of the way home without incident with Chuck right behind me. At my house he said: Gestur, when I saw you throwing pieces of your bike on the grass there by the church I didn’t know if you were going to make it home on that old bike of yours or not!
Chuck was a devoted family man and stayed in love with his wife, Joyce, his whole life. I recall with enchantment, even now, his recounting to me at one of our recent lunches of how they had met, both working at a state agency, eyeing each other across empty tables as they ate their lunches alone.
Chuck will be sorely missed by me . . . but again, I have that trove of fine memories and, well, isn’t that enough?
I remember Charles (always Charles) from grade school (Miles Standish). We were, I believe, in the same class all six years (kind of felt like family). I loved his smile and his big ears (which he eventually grew into). He was always the nicest boy and apparently he never out grew that. My deepest sympathy to his wife, children and family. I am saddend greatly that Charles no longer walks this earth.
Gestur Brent Davidson
This news of Chuck so saddens me. Yet another of my good friends from high school is now gone. First Frank Kleckner, then Brad Harder, then Dick Lindgren, and Roger Mahre, John Hansen and now Chuck. On the positive side of the ledger—and it is a very positive side—I have a wonderful store of memories of my many youthful experiences with these old pals of mine. And, in the end, isn’t that, well, enough?
My experiences with Chuck date only to junior high as my family had just moved to south Minneapolis when I started 7th grade at Folwell. But we soon found each other in that not-quite-cryptic way young boys roaming around a neighborhood—like so many free-range chickens in a farmyard long ago—somehow managed to do so back then before the interaction of kids began to be constrained by—and, indeed, defined by—play dates.
And, of course, being young boys of a certain athleticism, Chuck and I spent many an hour together engaged in sport. Often tennis at Sibley Park, usually with Dick Lindgren, but sometimes getting our asses whipped by Frank Kleckner. And, of course, going with Chuck to Sibley to skate in the winter on Friday evenings when that event (a go or two at Pom-pom-pullaway)—along with those Friday night dances they held at the small, very crowded pavilion there—constituted pretty much the only way young boys back then met and interacted (such as it was) with girls our age.
Offhand, I’d say the strangest sport Chuck and I ever engaged in together was the time when we were nosing around in his garage and came upon two pairs of boxing gloves. Of course we had to try them on and square off right there on the garage driveway, exchanging blows for maybe 4 minutes, max, before it struck both of us—already with near-blinding headaches—that it was the dumbest damn thing we’d ever thought to do.
But it was touch football that took up most of our time together in sport. Even in high school, but especially after graduating when we were in college, in the late summer and fall we played touch football games every Saturday afternoon, often right after coming back from the Gopher games. These were played on a, err, repurposed, slanting open space on the south side of Powderhorn Park. Starting very early on we had long-standing 4-man “sides”, with Brad Harder being the one who originally picked players on his side and I on the other. Somehow Chuck always played on Brad’s side along with John A. Hansen and sometimes Paul Wold. Roger played on my side. BTW, these teams and games morphed into the famous Toilet Bowl touch football games that were played on Thanksgiving morning continuously for, now 50+ years, between The Plungers (Brad’s side) and my side, The Flushers!
Chuck played in these early Toilet Bowls for years as a proud Plunger before retiring.
Chuck and I got ourselves caught up in many an adventure together, at least one of which I won’t reveal for the sake of our everlasting reputations. But one, I recall, was just good fun of the kind young boys might get themselves into back then and, besides, it ends with a classically comic scene. By one of those enigmatic twists of fate, Chuck and I wound up dating two girls who at the time were best friends: Cindy Johnson and Carol Torstenson. And, continuing, Chuck had somehow managed to get his hands on some firecrackers. Not those little ones called lady fingers that hardly made a pop, but the next size up that made quite a bang.
And it was Chuck—it was always Chuck—who had the devilish idea late one fall evening of going over to Cindy’s house and—yeah, you guessed it—in the dark going into her backyard and setting off a few firecrackers under her bedroom window. [Or the window Chuck said was Cindy’s, but I always wondered why her parents wouldn’t have taken the one bedroom downstairs for themselves?]
Well, the Johnson’s house had one of those 4’ high chain linked wire fences connecting its side with the next house over, with, of course, a gate that opened up to allow one to get into their backyard. We had carefully and quietly opened that gate and for some unknown, likely unknowable, reason, once inside the backyard we closed that gate again. And hunched down we quietly made our way to just below that first floor bedroom window (but whose?) and Chuck held out a couple of firecrackers and I lit a match and started their long fuses burning. Of course after dropping the firecrackers on the lawn we immediately ran as fast as we could back to the side of the house where we’d come in. As it happened, I was in the lead by a yard or so and so when I saw that we’d closed the damn gate and knowing how hard it was to open, I simply leapt up and soared over the whole damn fence, in a manner I would later gain 15-seconds of fame doing over a mailbox in northern Wisconsin (see my photos on this RHS1961 site).
Alas, being just a yard or so behind me, Chuck didn’t have the time to think about—and so to prepare himself to jump—the fence that I had. With the result that he cleared that fence with all his body parts less his lagging foot, which misadventure I barely saw as I looked back hearing him groan as he tumbled onto the grass on the outside of the fence. Of course and as an excellent gymnast he managed the fall very well and quickly rejoined me as we ran down the street and the rest of our lives.
Any appreciation of Chuck would be woefully incomplete without mention of his passion for and excellence at cross-country skiing and the American Birkebeiner race in northern Wisconsin in particular.
Indeed, in a wonderful display of his generous character, Chuck graciously took me out one Saturday and by example showed me how to x-c ski in a regional park, when I decided I wanted to take up the sport in 1977. And he and his wife, Joyce, graciously invited me to dinner at their home in Cottage Grove after the ski. And then later he took me out a second time at Wirth Park to make sure I hadn’t picked up any bad habits on my own. Of course, I would never achieve anywhere near the skill level he did, but he was instrumental in introducing me to that sport.
He skied the American Birkebeiner race in northern Wisconsin no less than 19 times, a grueling 55 km (34 mi) race and had some outstanding times in his age category. He skied many other races and devoted himself to training for the x-c skiing season pretty much the year around. Even right up until his cancer stopped him a few years ago.
I’ll end this note of appreciation for Chuck with a fond memory I have of his wry wit. [But see, as well, his wonderful anecdote about Lyle Eakins’ math class for another example.] Some years ago Chuck and I started going out to lunch together and he would drive to my house from Cottage Grove with his bike in the back of his van and we’d bike someplace in Minneapolis for lunch. On this particular occasion we’d biked to Whitey’s Saloon in NE Minneapolis to have their famous and famously good walleye sammich. And riding back I immediately began to have trouble with a loose kickstand on my 1954 Raleigh Sports bike that I proudly rode. I’d started out a bit ahead of Chuck since he had to wait for traffic to clear to cross University Ave and I’d become so exasperated by my kickstand that I stopped and very quickly yanked the broken kickstand off my bike and simply tossed it on the boulevard of the church I had stopped by. I remounted Old Blackie and rode the rest of the way home without incident with Chuck right behind me. At my house he said: Gestur, when I saw you throwing pieces of your bike on the grass there by the church I didn’t know if you were going to make it home on that old bike of yours or not!
Chuck was a devoted family man and stayed in love with his wife, Joyce, his whole life. I recall with enchantment, even now, his recounting to me at one of our recent lunches of how they had met, both working at a state agency, eyeing each other across empty tables as they ate their lunches alone.
Chuck will be sorely missed by me . . . but again, I have that trove of fine memories and, well, isn’t that enough?
Gestur
Dennis Dvorak
My sympathy to Chuck's wife, children, family, and friends. Dennis Dvorak
Linda Akerson (Towne)
I remember Charles (always Charles) from grade school (Miles Standish). We were, I believe, in the same class all six years (kind of felt like family). I loved his smile and his big ears (which he eventually grew into). He was always the nicest boy and apparently he never out grew that. My deepest sympathy to his wife, children and family. I am saddend greatly that Charles no longer walks this earth.
Linda Akerson Towne