OT: RIP Ralph Jon Fritz...

[purplefaithful]

Us locals darn near grew-up with him...

Ralph Jon Fritz, the long-time WCCO sportscaster, has passed away after a long struggle with stomach cancer. He was 78. Mark Rosen, who worked for decades with Fritz, said his friend never forgot the fact that he was a small-town kid from Sleepy Eye, Minn."He never lost that folksy, homespun way of doing his work," Rosen said Wednesday. "Cornballish? Yeah, sometimes. But Fritz could pull it off."
http://www.startribune.com/longtime-wcco...462366533/

[Guest]

Damn.  I got to know RJ when I worked in the ski resort biz in Michigan's UP.  But we reconnected after I moved to Colorado.  He came out several times when I was Marketing Director at Beaver Creek.  That's where I met his wife Deb.
Last email I got from him was two years ago after he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and he was ready for the good fight.
I remember one time at Beaver Creek we were up at Trappers Cabin, and he told me a joke...and we were above 10,000', sitting having a drink before sundown out on the deck of this rustic, private cabin, not a human within a couple miles and certainly nobody at this elevation...you had to be there, but in his best Minnesota Scandihoovian accent, he told me about "Ole and Lars who got together for their 30th class reunion. Ole was the braggart and he bragged about living on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and he could go out on his back deck and yell out PEEETTERSSOONNNNN! (he said it loud and it echoed off the canyons)...and in a few minutes it would come back PETERSON, Peterson, peterson.... Lars said 'ya, dats nice, but I live up in Nordern Minnesota, and I can row my fishing boat out into da middle of any one of dose ten sousand lakes and yell out PEEEETTTERSSOONNNNN!!! (RJ yelled it just as loud, and it echoed again), and it would come back to me..."WHICH PETERSON?"
Yeah, we laughed. I still tell that joke and the most important part is to yell out PEEEETTTERRRSSSONNN at the top of your lungs!
I have a photo somewhere that hung my wall for years of him and me at the summit of Beaver Creek that I can't find right now. But it's a sad evening. RIP RJ. Sleepy Eye, Minnesota kid does good.

[Guest]

@Montana Tom said:
Damn.  I got to know RJ when I worked in the ski resort biz in Michigan's UP.  But we reconnected after I moved to Colorado.  He came out several times when I was Marketing Director at Beaver Creek.  That's where I met his wife Deb.
Last email I got from him was two years ago after he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer and he was ready for the good fight.
I remember one time at Beaver Creek we were up at Trappers Cabin, and he told me a joke...and we were above 10,000', sitting having a drink before sundown out on the deck of this rustic, private cabin, not a human within a couple miles and certainly nobody at this elevation...you had to be there, but in his best Minnesota Scandihoovian accent, he told me about "Ole and Lars who got together for their 30th class reunion. Ole was the braggart and he bragged about living on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and he could go out on his back deck and yell out PEEETTERSSOONNNNN! (he said it loud and it echoed off the canyons)...and in a few minutes it would come back PETERSON, Peterson, peterson.... Lars said 'ya, dats nice, but I live up in Nordern Minnesota, and I can row my fishing boat out into da middle of any one of dose ten sousand lakes and yell out PEEEETTTERSSOONNNNN!!! (RJ yelled it just as loud, and it echoed again), and it would come back to me..."WHICH PETERSON?"
Yeah, we laughed. I still tell that joke and the most important part is to yell out PEEEETTTERRRSSSONNN at the top of your lungs!
I have a photo somewhere that hung my wall for years of him and me at the summit of Beaver Creek that I can't find right now. But it's a sad evening. RIP RJ. Sleepy Eye, Minnesota kid does good.

Are you sure you're not "one of us?" Maybe your name should be Minnesota Tom? 

[Guest]

I was a "Minnesota Tom" until the late '70s.  But as I tell my friends who question why I am such a staunch and vocal Vikings supporter, you can take the kid out of Minnesota, but you can't take the Minnesota out of the kid.  

Here is that photo of me and RJ at the summit of Beaver Creek in Colorado.  I had no gray hair!  (And I had a full head of hair, too) This would have been April of 1988.  Fashionista Bolle sunglasses LOL.  That would have been the trip when we stayed up at that cabin on the other side of the mountain.