Column for 10-28-26

     Our good friend, Wally Thyen.  What more can be said about a man so well known and admired.  We all have our “Wally” stories, and here is one of mine.

     Gaspar’s grocery store, where Richmond/Eden Valley native Wally Thyen got his start in Paynesville, was just two doors down from my dad’s and grandpa’s shoe and leather shop, Zapf’s Leather Goods.  But I knew Wally even before I started repairing shoes for my dad. 

     I had to quit my multiple paper routes to start working at Zapf’s after my older brother, Chuck, left for college in 1966.  But on a cold and blustery day before that – I believe it was in 1964 - I learned at a young age what Wally Thyen was all about.

     It was a brutally windy and cold day, but my customers needed their papers delivered.  My newspaper bag was sort of tucked into my handle-bar bicycle basket as I made my way around town, but right in front of Lerner’s clothing store (Sam Lerner’s Men’s Clothing), right across the street from Gaspar’s, I hit a patch of ice on the sidewalk and went down.

     Being a young eleven-year-old who was well-seasoned in the fine art of crashing my bike, I was fine.  But many of the newspapers spilled out of my bicycle basket and canvas satchel and the fierce wind was sending them down the sidewalk and street. 

     I only lost a few, though, because I was able to immediately cover them with my arms and body and hold on to them for dear life, knowing I would have to buy new ones at the drug store with my own money to replace any that were lost so I could get them all delivered.

     I was frozen in time.  I just laid there in the howling wind, and any which way I tried to move sent more copies flying.  It was a paperboy’s worst nightmare.  

     I distinctly remember thinking I was somehow doomed when, incredibly, this seemingly heaven-sent man appeared and did everything he could - and in the kindest and most encouraging manner - to help get me back on track and to the task that was so important to me – getting the St. Cloud Times and/or the Minneapolis Star delivered to my customers.  That savior of a man was, of course, a young Mr. Wally Thyen.

     These are the things we remember to our deathbeds, and I think Wally is a part of many of those kinds of memories for many people.  I was lucky to have known him, and have thought many times in my life, “I should be more like Wally.”

     Wally and his wife, Darlene, have always been big fans of the Trail Guards, and when Wally could no longer use his household yard equipment, he wished for it to go to the Trail Guards.  His family helped me load it up without him there to help.  He left us just three days later, before I had a chance to properly thank him.  Remembering and honoring him now with the fondness he so richly deserves is a great way for me to express my lifelong admiration and gratitude and help keep his memory alive.

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Tom KoshiolCrow River Trail Guards“Connecting Kids To The Outdoors”222 River StreetPaynesville, MN 56362320-250-0464www.trailguards.orgtom@trailguards.org