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“Tubby was one of 17 kids in his family and he never liked to get out of the bathtub when it was somebody else’s turn and that’s how he got his name,” said Kieth, who admitted, “Joan has had tickets to Gopher basketball for 50 years.”

“It’s true,” she said. “My father and my brother and I have had tickets since 1957. I’ve always liked sports. I like sports more than Kieth does.”

***

In 1982 the Geskes moved from Hartwood to the east shore of Victoria’s Schutz Lake, where his brother Darel had built a couple of new homes. In 1990, as retirement loomed, Kieth and Joan moved to another new home, this time at the Green Crest Townhomes of Deer Run, also built by Geske Construction.

Joan retired from teaching in 1991, and Kieth retired from Anderson Cadillac in 2003. Do they still drive a Cadillac? “No,” stated Kieth. “When I retired I already had a Jeep. Joan likes to sit higher, so I drive a Jeep most of the time ... I still keep in touch with the longtime service manager at Anderson Cadillac. So many of the others have died, it’s terrible to say.”

In retirement the Geskes have taken up antiquing on a rather large scale. “When we first started, we were novices,” said Joan. “We belong to the Red Wing Collectors Society. We specialize in butter crocks with advertising.”

“Our favorite haunts are Door County, Red Wing, Cannon Falls, and Litchfield,” said Kieth.

“Our mentors were Harold and Marie Stege in Chaska,” said Joan. “Marie got us started in copper and, you know, one thing led to another.” Their various collections are, in fact, quite numerous.

“We became friends with the Stege’s,” said Kieth. “They knew Joan very well through their daughter. We’ve also got a friend in antiques in Excelsior. We grew into the hobby.”

Kieth explained how their antiquing avocation paid off the mortgage a few years ago on the addition to their church, Lake Auburn Moravian, when he and Joan initiated the popular and well attended annual event called the Victoria Antique Show and Sale. Its years were approximately 1985 to 2000.

“We needed to find a way to help pay off that building and that’s how we did it. We said we’d pay to rent the Hall in Victoria, and we took a whole list of vendors from the New Prague Show and got guidance from our friends in Door County. We printed 3,500 flyers and I don’t know how many we distributed by hand! The church got all of the income without any expense to them. Many people volunteered in that effort in many ways.”

Kieth also tells how the popular antique show came to an end in Victoria. “The city put new carpet in the Hall and there were issues and also parking pressures that pushed us right out the door. But we had fifteen good years. There was always a challenge and that made it interesting. Also, the quilting ladies were getting older. We used to include a quilt raffle with the show.”

The Geske don’t just travel to find antiques, they travel for fun -- and not just across the country but practically around the world. “We’ve gotten into cruising,” said Joan, mentioning two cruises to Alaska, one to the Caribbean, another through the Panama Canal, and a cruise from Norway up to the Arctic Circle.

Click here to continue Geske Gravitas.