Merlin D. Gorowsky

Of St Paul

Met his Saviour January 28, 2017. Father of Carrie Micko (Robert), Craig (Jennifer), and Glen (Laurie); Grandfather to Ten Grandchildren, Two Great-Grandchildren; Brother of Delores Lewis (Bill). Preceded in death by Wife, Marilyn (Tegge); Brother, Donald; Sister, Darlene. Visitation (2-4pm) followed by Funeral Service (4pm) on Sunday, February 12, 2017 at Divinity Lutheran Church, 1655 E. Cottage Ave, St Paul.

Eulogy Presented at Service:

My father, Merlin Dominic Gorowsky, was born October 25, 1932, the third child of Catherine and Dan Gorowsky.

From the start he was an inventor. I’ve often said if I were stranded on a desert island and could only have one person with me, I’d choose him. He’d keep us alive, and probably figure out how to get us off the island. I’m pretty sure we’d feast on fish…

It never occurred to him to buy something already made. If he needed it, he just made it himself. He wanted a riding snow plow, so he made it. If he wanted an apple corer for pies, he made one. In the army it was his job to make sure there was ink and paper available for the teletype machines, and to collect the broken teletype machines to send back to the fixit shop. Within a month the fixit shop wasn’t getting any machines to repair anymore and they wondered why. They discovered my dad was bored, so he would take apart one machine and use the parts to fix the other two or three that were broken, so there weren’t any broken ones to send back. Incredibly, he got in trouble for that.

He was always building a better birdfeeder. He loved Zig and Zag, two backyard squirrels that he eventually trained to eat peanuts from his hand. But he wanted to keep them out of the birdfeeder. My dad was ingenious, but Zig and Zag outwitted him every time. They clung to strings suspending the birdfeeder. They jumped from nearby trees when the grease made climbing the pole impossible. They slid off the guard Dad built, but still managed to get into the seeds. We had daily updates on those squirrels for quite a while.

He might have been consigned to be a welder in the family business, but he was still an inventor. He made 8 cubic yard buckets for the sand shovels and big equipment used to build roads. His buckets lasted 8 times longer than anyone else’s. He recently told me the secret had something to do with heating the special alloy to a certain temperature that made it much stronger. But he didn’t patent the method because he didn’t want someone to change just one little thing and copy him. He retired in 1994, but Craig spotted his distinct design on one of his buckets still in use to update I35E near Maryland Avenue last year.

Well, his buckets became famous. One day a salesman came to the shop and asked how much the dealer price was. Dad told him in his usual tactful way that his price was his price and he didn’t care if the buyer was the president or a bum. The salesman persisted. My dad stood firm.

They tried one more time. They invited him to their fancy, carpeted, paneled office and tried to sweet-talk him into a reduced price. My dad showed up after work covered in soot in his welding clothes and again told them his price was his price. The buyer insisted that his equipment had to have a Gorowsky bucket or he wouldn’t buy their machine.

Dad got his price.

He loved to go shopping for a car or some other large expense with a pocketful of cash. If they treated him well, he bought the item. If they scorned his humble attire, he left, but not without flashing his cash at them to let them know they should treat everyone with courtesy, no matter how they looked.

It didn’t always go both ways, however. A customer walked in during the 1970s with a full head of flowing hair. Dad shooed him out of the shop and told him he was a fire hazard.

Dad was very physical. He loved gymnastics and hockey and tennis. Luck wasn’t on his side, however. He played the same position as Wendall Anderson, who eventually became the Governor of Minnesota, so he didn’t get much ice time, but they had a splendid class reunion! He also played tennis and won the citywide championship in 1950, the only year they didn’t award a trophy. His mom felt so bad about it she had a trophy made for him.

He was fascinated with flying. At age ten or so he tried to fly by jumping off the garage roof, but couldn’t flap his arms quite fast enough. The son of a welder with a family business, he of course worked as a welder, but flying never left his heart. He eventually had to content himself with model airplanes, which became a passion. He flew with the Sodbusters model airplane flying club for decades, and invented the first successful self-launched catapult, but never marketed it. Flying filled his soul, and last spring as 6 doctors were all scrambling to save his life, he told them one of his favorite jokes through the oxygen mask. Here it is:

Joe and Schmoe were seated on the airplane which was getting ready for takeoff. Joe got more and more nervous as the plane taxied down the runway. Eyes wide with fear he turned to Schmoe and asked, “How high do you think we will be flying?” Schmoe answered, “Oh, I think we will be cruising about 30,000 feet.”

“Thirty thousand feet!” cried Joe. “Ooooh, that’s terrible!”

“Now, aren’t you a Christian man?” asked Schmoe. “You have nothing to fear. Remember, Jesus said he would be with you always.”

“You go back and read that again!” moaned Joe. “It says, LOW, I am with you always!”

His initials were MD Gorowsky, and it seemed he thought that meant he was an actual MD. When he was in the army he landed off a ski jump poorly and dislocated his shoulder. So he backed up to a tree for leverage and popped it back in. But it needed surgery, which the army botched, and it became a problem for him for the rest of his life. Swimming and gymnastics became rather tricky. But he learned how to roll it back into place and save himself the trip to the doctor.

There were times he did have to go to the doctor. I remember hearing that he drove himself to the doctor with appendicitis. It was so bad he crawled into the doctor’s office on his hands and knees, whereupon they quickly got him to the hospital.

He was hunting in Canada when he thought he might be having heart problems. He just moved his decoys around a little more carefully, and after he got his quota he returned home and then to the hospital to have a stent put in.

He had some back problems, and I remember him being driven to the hospital with him in the back on the floor on his hands and knees. He tried chiropractic for a while, but only long enough to figure out what they were doing, and then he’d come home and assume the same position and tell me to push here—hard! He welded some rings on the ceiling in the basement and quite often we would come downstairs to do laundry and find him hanging by his knees, twisting and using gravity to move bones into place.

While he was in the Army in New York, my mom, Marilyn, was also in New York living at the YWCA with her best friend Mary. Mom had grown up in the UP of Michigan and found that she liked Polacks. But so far she had only met Catholic Polacks. She told her friend, Mary, that she wanted to find a Lutheran Polack. Dad had dated Mary a few times, but she was interested in Dick Neuder. When she found out that Dad was a Lutheran Polack, she set up a double date. They all got along well and had a good time. The girls knew the boys were soldiers and on a tight budget, so they ate lite. Everyone said goodbye and walked home. After the guys left, Mom and Mary looked at each other and said, “I’m hungry!”, so arm in arm they walked to a nearby restaurant. Everyone knows my mom had a distinctive laugh. As they passed by where Dad was staying, he heard her laugh and thought maybe she had a date with someone else after him. He was discouraged, and almost gave up. But he saw her singing in the choir loft at church one day, he determined she was his angel. They would skate in Central Park and have a good time. Eventually Dad was sent home to Saint Paul and Mom went back to Michigan.

Long distance dating is a challenge. Dad would work hard all week and jump in the car and drive like the wind across Wisconsin for 6 hours to see Mom on the weekend. Of course, he got a little fishing in while he was there. I’m guessing seeing him in the weeds in his waders fishing is probably how he got the nickname Moses of the Bullrushes, which eventually was shortened to Mo. No “E”.

Well, all that driving took its toll on him and he ended up with a nervous stomach. He said they watched the barium on the xray machine just bounce at the opening to the stomach. He had to reduce the stress. He had to make Marilyn his wife.

So one night they stopped at the park after dark. Dad began to talk sweetly to Mom. Suddenly a bright light blinded them as a policeman told them to move along. The park was closed. Dad said, “I’m trying to ask this woman to be my wife. Can I have 5 minutes?” He asked. She accepted. The rest is history. He never regretted his decision, either. As we went through mom’s saved papers and photos we found many anniversary and birthday cards and poems declaring his love, and most were signed with the words, “Thanks for marrying me!”

After they were engaged Dad drove up to Michigan to celebrate Thanksgiving with her family. Her father, My Grandpa Al, basted and fussed over that turkey for hours. After they served everyone Dad looked around and asked for some ketchup. I think Grandpa Al nearly cried as he saw Dad slobber the red stuff all over that carefully roasted bird.

Ketchup was very important to Dad. So, of course for their first Christmas together Mom wrapped up a bottle of ketchup for him and put it under the tree. Dad put ketchup on eggs, turkey, potatoes, anything you can think of. He used to put a base of mashed potatoes on his plate, add meat, top it with creamed corn and splash it with ketchup. Then he’d try to get me to do the same. I cringed. He said, “What? It all goes in the same stomach.” I’d reply, “Yeah, but it doesn’t have to look like it’s already been there!”

Dad had a dog when he was young that died tragically. He swore he’d never have another one. But one snowy day he looked out the back window to see a tan dog, skin and bones, wander through the neighbor’s yard and fall in despair as he approached our fence. He had no energy to go around. Dad went outside and opened the gate and the dog fell into his arms. That was it. He was hooked.

We fed Rusty and let him roam free, hoping he’d find his way home. The school down the street called often complaining that he was stealing the kids’ hats and hockey pucks and was just being a nuisance. One day he didn’t come home right away. My mom slept on the couch and just woke up and knew to go to the door. He hadn’t barked. But there he was. He had been shot in the abdomen and was going into shock. Dad rushed him to the vet and paid a wad to give him lifesaving surgery, and Rusty became our dog. Dad and the boys had many adventures with Rusty.

Eventually he bought property on Mille Lacs Lake, which was known for its walleyes. His sons helped him build the garage, which he partitioned off a third of to make a little living area. It had a big picture window where, you guessed it, they could watch the squirrels and birds. Many good times happened there with him and mom and his grandkids and Rusty. He eventually named it Emilor Park, after his granddaughters Emily and Laura who came up to the cabin often. Eventually it became too much to keep up both properties, so they sold the cabin, but we still get to keep the memories.

When my kids were little, Grandma and Grandpa would take them up to the cabin on Mille Lacs. One day on the way up, they stopped at a restaurant to eat. Little Laura was with them. The food came and Dad grabbed the ketchup and began to shake it up before pouring it out on his food. Mom started screaming, “Stop!” and then Dad realized the top had come loose and ketchup had shot everywhere all over a very nice painting above them. The waitress ran over to see what the commotion was. Grandpa paused, winked, and then said, “The kid did it!”

Dad relaxed at Mille Lacs. I remember one time standing by the table in the cabin looking out at the golden sunlight while my mom watered her flowers near the door. Dad looked up from his lunch and nodded toward Mom. That’s the kind of thing heaven is made of.

Heaven was important to dad. He was a fisherman who was also a fisher of men. He never missed an opportunity to point you in the right direction spiritually. Details were important, and it was important to him to seek out the truth. He would study things and call me to discuss his thoughts right up to the end. He told me he was writing out a prayer for a friend’s family the last week he was alive.

Details mattered to him. Whether it was balancing a checkbook to the penny and proving the bank wrong, or discussing a theological matter, the details were important. And he was always right. Except the time he thought he was wrong.

He gave me a powerful lesson in integrity when I was maybe 5 years old. He had gone to the grocery store and didn’t get a cart. He needed one more thing than he could carry, so he dropped the aspirin into his pocket. When I got up for a glass of water I saw him in the kitchen on the phone with the store asking them to stay open for another 5 minutes so he could dash out the door and pay for the aspirin he’d forgotten about.

Dad had his own vocabulary.

*He referred to his reading aid as his GLASTICLES.

*Any container was a BUCKET. Could be a cup, a bowl, a piece of Tupperware, or construction equipment. They were all referred to as a bucket.

*That SUCKER was any fish that had given him a struggle.

*A SCHLUCK is a scoop of something. The amount is determined by the tone of voice and context. For example a small schluck of potatoes would be referred to like this:

Give me a schluck of potatoes right there. A large schluck of potatoes would be referred to like this: Give me a SCHLUCK of potatoes, right there!

Dad was a jokester. When I was a teen a boyfriend called. Dad picked up the phone and said with an accent, “Wong’s Chowmein. No Carry in, Carry out!” My boyfriend apologized and tried again. Rrrriinngg! “Wong’s Chowmein. No Carry in, Carry out!” My boyfriend stuttered, “I’m so sorry! I’ve dialed this number for years and I’ve never had this happen before.” He hung up and tried a third time. “Wong’s Chowmein. No Carrie in, Carrie out!” explained Dad and emphasized the name. Dead silence on the other end. Then my dad burst into laughter and handed me the phone.

When Glen brought Laurie home to meet the folks for the first time she was worried and wondering if she’d be accepted. When she got off the plane, she saw both Mom and Dad with arms outstretched running toward her. They ran right past Glen and wrapped Laurie in a bear hug, my father lifting her from the ground as he did so. She thought to herself, I’m gonna be ok!

Another time, when I was a teenager and had taken out my contacts in preparation for bed, my dad hollered up from the basement to come quick and see “this”. I dashed down the stairs to see in my blurry vision a small round creature with arms or tentacles or tongues or something snapping out in every direction every second or two and jumping about. I screamed and ran up the steps, whereupon my father grabbed it and ran after me to let me see it was a golfball that the cover had come off of and the rubber bands inside were letting go a little at a time making it hop about.

Dad not only played practical jokes, he could tell a good joke. So here is an encore performance of some of his favorites:

We’ll start with a couple of Polack jokes in Honor of his heritage.

A painting contractor was speaking with a woman about her job.

In the first room, she said she would like a pale blue.

The contractor wrote this down and went to the window, opened it, and yelled out "green side up!"

In the second room, she told the painter she would like it painted in a soft yellow.

He wrote this on his pad, walked to the window, opened it, and yelled "green side up!"

The lady was somewhat curious, but she said nothing.

In the third room, she said she would like it painted a warm rose color.

The painter wrote this down, walked to the window, opened it and yelled "green side up!"

The lady then asked him, "I’ve given you three different instructions, but each time you call out the same thing. Why do you keep yelling 'green side up'?"

"I'm sorry," came the reply. "But I have a crew of Polacks laying sod in the neighbor’s yard.

Two Polish hunters, Joe and Schmoe, managed to kill a deer. They started to drag it back to the truck by the hind legs, but the antlers continually got stuck in weeds, making their job very difficult. It took them hours to get with in a couple hundred yards of the road, where they met a third hunter.

"Hey," the third hunter said, "I don’t mean to tell you what to do, but it's a lot easier if you drag the deer by the antlers."

The two Polacks took the advice. A while later, one said to the other, "That hunter was right. This is a lot easier."

"Yeah," replied his partner. "But now we're over a mile from the truck!"

Joe and Schmoe were flying across the country. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the captain announced, "One of the engines has failed and the flight will be an hour longer. But don't worry we have three engines left".

Thirty minutes later, the captain announced "One more engine has failed and the flight will be two hours longer. But don't worry we have two engines left".

An hour later the captain announced "One more engine has failed and the flight will be three hours longer. But don't worry we have one engine left".

Joe turned to Schmoe and exclaimed in frustration, "If we lose one more engine, we're gonna be up here all day!"

Dad was an avid hunter, taking trips to Canada to hunt ducks and geese. I think he mainly went to Ontario. Early on he shot a huge snow goose and brought it to the taxidermist to have it mounted. It was the worst mounting job any of us had or ever has since seen. None of the feathers had been cleaned, the beak and feet were painted pink. It was just an eyesore. He was so mad. Eventually he took it to someone else to clean it up, but it was never really good. But he was determined to display it anyway. In the living room. Over the couch. Where my mom often slept to avoid waking him due to her snoring. She would awaken at night and be so startled to see that wingspread over her head. Finally she put her foot down, which wasn’t very often, but the bird moved downstairs. Where it still hangs. Just as ugly as it ever was. Many more trophy birds and fish were added to the collection over the years. But my favorite has always been that comical snowgoose.

But I think the sport my dad was most well known for was fishing. Streams, lakes, frozen or open. It didn’t matter. Every weekend he dipped the line. Mom said he left a grizzly bear and came home a honey bear, so she was fine with his trips.

We grew up on fresh walleye and trout and sunnies. He took trips with his sons to Oregon to fish salmon on the ocean. He thought nothing of jumping in the truck and driving all the way to the Brule river on the border of Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan to fish for a day and drive straight through home in time to clean the fish and give a lot away and work hard making buckets all week and do it all over again on the weekend.

I often watched him clean the fish. One time he took a lot of care and filled a baby food jar full of fish eyes for me to take to show and tell in kindergarten the next day. The teacher nearly fainted, but I thought it was cool.

Dad was a passionate sportsman and loved to catch, clean and give away his fish. But he was also a gardener, often harvesting close to a thousand tomatoes a year. He tried many kinds, but finally settled on Jetstar. He gave many of those away, but I think the reason he didn’t need glasses was because of all the tomatoes he ate! He also loved apples and planted many trees in the back yard. He loved apple pie, so when the apples were in, he took his homemade apple corer and we all lined up in the kitchen in an assembly line filling pie crusts and freezing them to eat later. In later years the pies became much smaller, but he still made and loved them. So now you know why we are having fish, tomatoes and apple pie for this meal!

He fished till his last year, and was so proud of Susan who became his fishing partner the last couple of years. He said she was a good fisherwoman and he taught her to clean them too.

In 2011 we had a reunion in the UP at Hilbergs Cabins where Uncle Dick and Auntie Lucy lived. Much fishing and much shinanigans happened there. Andie tells the story about when she fell asleep with a bag of chips in her hand. She woke up from her nap to see Grandpa sneaking chips out of her bag.

Dad liked surprises. Many was the time Mom and I would come home from shopping to see that Dad had stripped and waxed the kitchen floor for her while we were gone. And it wasn’t uncommon for him to surprise us with a $20 bill on our pillow with a note. One time he put a snowball in a cooler and took it on the plane to bring it to his grandkids, Andie and Kai, in Alabama who hadn’t seen one before. After he had me scour the newspapers for two years looking for a used piano under $200, I came home from school one day to find a brand new spinet in the basement waiting for me.

He loved playing Santa Claus. One time I mentioned I was looking for a used fridge to put in the basement. I came home one day soon after to see a huge brown one on the front porch waiting for me. Trouble was it wouldn’t fit through any door. He just couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t cut a hole in the door or wall to get it in.

But most of the time his gifts were amazing. One time he was out hunting in Canada and acquired a bell from a farmer, which he then donated to the church. Well-timed gifts of money came to kids, congregants, and charities. He was a generous man. He received a large inheritance from a long-time friend who died this summer, and his hope was to live long enough to receive it so he could play Santa Claus one more time. The lawyer suggested he do all sorts of wise things with it. But he said, “No. I want to have fun with it.” And he did. He gave about half of it away to family and needy people and had the most fun ever.

No one wants to lose a parent. No one wants to become an orphan. But if there is any comfort to be had in the loss, it is this. My dad knew his Savior and he had unwavering, unshakeable confidence in where he was headed after death. But he had a bucket list of things he wanted to accomplish before that day arrived. Some I had heard all his life, others I learned this last year.

When we were making mom’s funeral arrangements, he looked at me and said, “You realize I am on borrowed time.” I looked at him for explanation. “I only prayed to live one more day, one more hour, actually one more minute than Marilyn so that I could fulfill the promise I made to Pastor Tiefel who married us that I would take care of her all the days of her life. I didn’t ask for any more.” He was granted that prayer and got a bonus 15 months.

He also had insisted for years that he wasn’t leaving his house until they took him out feet first. And don’t you doubt, I made sure that’s the direction they aimed him!

When he found out he had received that inheritance last summer he said he wanted to live long enough to hold the check in his hand and hear them say it was his.

And I had a prayer that he would go peacefully.

We were granted all those prayers.

So in addition to the Pastor having said the official grace over the meal, I’d like to remember one of my dad’s alterations to it:

The one who eats the fastest gets the most!

And If you go home hungry, it’s your own darn fault!

Rest in Peace, Merlin Gorowsky. And Thank you. We have enjoyed your generosity one last time.