My Story

By Eldon Oldre

Born in a small community in southwestern Minnesota, Eldon Oldre was the oldest of four boys whose early life was shaped by his veteran father's nervous breakdown, his parents' divorce, and his mother's determination to support her children by selling cosmetics door-to-door without relying on government support. Now, after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, he reflects on these events and how they helped him become the man he is today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543997620

Book preview

© All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1-54399-193-2

eBook ISBN: 978-1-54399-762-0

Contents

Prologue

My Story

The Family Vacation

My Interest in Racing and Motor sports

My Interest in Art

CFG Business Philosophies and Operations

The Final Chapter

Prologue

One of my company’s top sales persons sent me copy of this statement. His attached handwritten comment stated, ‘Reminded me of you, Jon.’

A master, in the art of living, draws no distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence to what he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always seems to be doing both.

This is the story of my life. Some of it is chronological—the years and ages are to the best of my memory. In some cases, I share life categories such as business life, or sports. I describe events that I feel had an impact on me, and my growth as an individual. I will use pictures as well. However, while preparing this document, I discovered that there were very few pictures of me and my family from when I was ten till I was eighteen. I’m sure my mother had other priorities, which you will come to understand as you read the story. There were also not as many pictures available since we did not have cell phones with built in cameras back then.

My Story

I was born in Luverne, MN, July 31, 1947.

Shortly after I was born, my mother and I flew to Florida to be with my dad who was stationed there in the Navy. My younger brother Randy was born in Virginia as Dad had been transferred to a navel base in Virginia Beach. Randy was born on August 16th, 1948.

After dad left the Navy, he purchased a farm in Magnolia, MN, from his dad, my grandfather. Magnolia was a small town and had a population of less than thousand.

Mother Elaine and four brothers swimming in a river

Eldon at age six with favorite toy tractor

We lived in an old farmhouse, which was heated with a stove in the family room. It had no running water. There was a hand pump connected to a well. This was placed in the kitchen sink. If you wanted hot water, you had to use the hand pump to pump it into a large pot, and heat it on the nearby kitchen stove. There was no indoor bathroom. Baths were taken in a canvas bathtub which folded to be stored in a closet. Typically, once per week the tub would be placed in the kitchen or living room. Pails of water filled by the hand pump were carried to the tub. Hot water from the stove was added to the water. The toilet facilities were in an outhouse. We did have electricity. Television was available, but we did not have one. One of Dad’s friends had a black-and-white television, and we would visit them on Friday evenings to watch the Friday night boxing fights.

Magnolia had a school that had grades 1-12 in the same building. I attended that school through third grade. For a brief time, my Uncle Virgil lived with us at the Magnolia farm, and we rode the same bus to the same school even though he was in grade 11th or 12th at the time. The younger kids sat towards the front of the bus, and the high school students sat at the back of the bus. It was in this house that my other younger brothers, Dallas and Clifford, were born. Dallas was born on July 28, 1951. Clifford was born on October 23, 1953. Because of the age difference between me and Dallas and Clifford, I did not play much with them until later.

Magnolia School Building Picture was found on the internet.

I think I was in the second grade when Dad took Randy and I to the Magnolia football game. The school was small and played against other small schools. They played either six-men or nine-men football, because the small schools could not field an eleven-person team. I fell in love with football. Do remember that we had no television, and this was probably before there was much televised football anyway, so this small school’s football game was the only exposure I had to football. Within the next week, I took an old rubber ball that no longer held air, cut it in half, and made what looked like football helmets out of it. I also used cardboard from a box to make shoulder pads. Dad realized my interest in football. He bought two complete football uniforms with shoulder pads, helmets, pants, and a jersey. Mine was red, and my brother Randy had a blue one. We would put the uniforms on, and play football in our back yard. Here is how the game went. I would ask Randy to go to one end of our yard, and I would place myself in the middle. The other end of the yard was the imaginary goal line. I explained to Randy that he had to attempt to run past me to cross the goal line. I would always catch him before he reached it. I did not just tackle him, I would ‘cream’ him. After a day or two of our football game, Randy didn’t really want to play ‘my football game’. In retrospect that is very understandable.

At about age eight, I was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer and traveled to Sioux Falls, South Dakota to get stomach X-rays periodically. As a result of this diagnosis, I was put on a strict diet. I was required to eat baby food (because it was easy to digest). I also had to get out of class twice every day, and go to the school lunchroom to drink a pint of milk. As you might imagine, third graders were not sympathetic about an eight-year-old eating baby food in the school lunchroom. There was no public concern about ‘bullying’ at that time, but I was able to take care of the teasing. As an aside, I think there is far too much concern about bullying in school or elsewhere, in today’s world. Dad owned 16 oz. boxing gloves and, before my first day at school, taught me how to box. I used that skill a couple of times at Magnolia School when I was teased about my diet. I lived on the Magnolia farm until about age nine. Dad then sold the farm including all equipment and livestock.

The entire family moved to Minneapolis. Dad was to be treated at the Veterans hospital for what I recall was a nervous breakdown. When we moved to Minneapolis, we lived in his elder brother’s (Gorlyn Oldre) unfinished basement. I don’t recall what the sleeping arrangements were, but the basement essentially was unfinished, with the exception of a finished family room where the television was located. The Veteran’s hospital was about five minutes away. I attended the Minneapolis Grade School. Mom bought a used bicycle that Randy and I shared. We worked it out so that it was one of our bicycles every alternate day. If you wanted to use the bicycle on the day it was not yours; you had to ask permission from the brother who had ownership for that day. This led to a number of sibling fights and disagreements. Fortunately, Dallas and Clifford had not yet started riding bicycles. We also had use of a television because Gorlyn’s television was located in a finished family room in the basement.

The symptoms leading to Dad’s diagnoses were wide mood swings, as well as gambling and drinking. Dad received shock treatment. After his release from hospital, he attended the Brown Institute to learn how to repair televisions, which at the time were expensive and operated on tubes—not transistors. After Dad graduated from television repair school, our family moved to eastern Bloomington, MN. I was still in the fourth grade. I liked the Bloomington house even though it was small by today’s standards (I’m guessing 800 square feet). It had indoor plumbing, running water, a TV, and an unfinished basement to play in. While living in that home, I developed interest in model airplanes as a result of enjoying two airplane-related television shows—Sky King and Captain Midnight. I supported my model airplane habit by collecting pine cones from the nearby woods. I painted them in various colors, put glitter on some, and put picture wire on them so they could be hung on Christmas trees. I sold them door-to-door in the neighborhood as Christmas tree decorations. I did pretty well with this small business.

Every child has dreams of what they want to become when they grow up. I wanted to be a fighter pilot, flying a P51 Mustang, and a professional football player.

Dad wanted to farm again, so he rented a farm (the Rogeman) at the corner of 36th Avenue North and Highway 18 (now 169) in New Hope, MN, and the family moved from the home in Bloomington to this farm house. The house there was very old. There was no running water, and therefore no bathroom. Once again, our baths were typically once per week, taken in a folding canvas tub, placed in the area between the living and dining room.