"Fritz sent me the link to your blog and the story about Chris. I tried to answer via the blog and couldn't make it work so I will e-mail.I really enjoyed it and it sure brought back memories. Chris was a real Dane and had come here when he was about 18. He worked on farms and tried it for himself, but he was one who needed to work for someone else. He was as reliable as the come and honest. He never had much. In fact it was in his late years that he finally got running water into the house. I gave him a new water heater at that time. I was out on a farm service call the morning he died. I came back into town as Jesse Jackson was loading him into his old ambulance.I think it was about 1967. The story was well written, there was no dog. The spelling was Rassmussen. His wife was a sister to James J. Jensen out by the north church.The old chair in the office had been donated by the Creamery by Lyle Anderson. Chris spent some time in it as well as most of us. I gave the chair to Jack and as far as I know he still has it. Jack worked for me at the same time as Chris and I know he has some fond memories of him too.The station was a hangout for a lot of young guys in the 60's and 70's. What a good bunch. I don't think there was a bad apple in the bunch and they all turned out good.Another story that came to mind was the day that Chris told me his brother ( he hadn't seen him in years) was in the hospital in the cities and very ill. I said let me take you up there. He said no he didn't need to go as his brother was a alcoholic and lived as a bum on the street in Mpls. J insisted and he said he would take the bus. Next day when he came to work he said that he had got to the hospital just as they rolled the body out of the room. I said funeral and he said he didn't care to go. Just let them bury him."
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
A Follow Up to Chris Rasmussen
From Everett Jensen, the owner of the gas station. I remember a dog. Must have been another station. Anyway, we are seeking truth here, not facts. ;-) :
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Thanks for the memories, Gunnar. I, too, remember Chris Rasmussen, but in a roundabout way. I'm sure I ran into him at Everett's when I was a kid, and I also remember he lived about a mile from the tile plant on the road to Hollandale, in a nice grove of trees. It's that grove that plays into this memory.
Like most of the girls in Clarks Grove, I was a Girl Scout. I can't claim I was the best Girl Scout ever, since I always chose to do the easiest badges and I once ate the box of Thin Mints that an older couple had ordered from me. Evidently I had no compunction about doing that, since they hadn't paid for them yet and I really wanted more Thin Mints. (They probably wondered what happened to their cookies!)
Anyway, many Girl Scout activities involved walks in the woods, identifying flora and fauna. On one trek, we and our leaders were hiking through Chris Rasmussen's woods when, lo and behold, we came upon a cache of dry bones in a clearing.
We fell on the bones like birds of prey and quickly decided we had found a pile of dinosaur bones! Nothing our leaders could say could convince us otherwise; such as, aren't they a little too fresh? Shouldn't they be covered by some dirt? We hauled home leg bones, ribs, pieces of the jaw, etc.
After a few days, we came to realize that our leaders were right. Instead of a dinosaur, we had found the skeleton of Chris Rasmussen's old horse that had died out in the woods. Chris figured it wasn't bothering him, so let nature take its course. Which nature was doing very nicely, until we came along.
I don't know what happened to the bones we brought home, but I always hoped my mom at least gave it to Sausage, our overweight dachshund. It would've made her day!
Take care -
Gail Ravenhorst De Boer
momcat@uslink.net
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