Mike Langan recalls 53 years in grocery business

Mike Langan grew up with four brothers and three sisters in Marshall. His mother was a stay-at-home mom and his father worked one full-time and two part-time jobs. His mother died three years ago at the age of 95. His father at age 98, a WWII veteran, is a Renaissance man with a big heart and a healthy brain.

Mike remembers going to church on Sundays and they were always a little late. The 10 family members would march up front and sit in the first or second pew. Of course, all eight of the kids were well behaved, or at least the two sitting next to their dad. 

Mike started delivering papers with his brothers until he got his own paper route. When he was 15 he got a call to come to work at the Super Value store and that began his 53 years in the grocery business.

While in high school, Mike, being the hard-working and brilliant financial guy, paid cash for a new Mercury Capri and later traded it in for a new Mustang convertible, which he also paid for in cash. Mike graduated from Marshall High School in 1972. He then attended Pipestone Vocational School in the two-year Supermarket Management program.

There he met his wife, Lou, who was enrolled in the Fashion Merchandising program. They were married in 1975 and loaded all their belongings into the Mustang and a 1967 Ford LTD station wagon and moved to Rochester.

Mike was hired by Erdmans at the store next to the old K-Mart and worked there for the next five years. They bought their first house in Rochester and moved in a couple of weeks before the big flood in 1978. They had just finished residing on three sides of their house when Earl Erdman asked Mike if he would go to Kasson as the store manager.

They moved to Kasson in 1980 and were able to purchase a house where they lived for the next 18 years. They currently live in Mantorville.

Lou has had a few different jobs since they’ve been married. Starting in 1988 for 25 years she operated her own travel agency office in Kasson. Together they organized and escorted vacation groups to places in Mexico, Costa Rico, and the Caribbean. Through this, they met lots of great people all of whom they consider friends.

When Mike first started in the grocery business, store items prices were hand stamped. Once bar codes were added it got much easier. Additions to the Kasson Erdmans store took place in 1983, 1988, 1993, and 1999. As the population grew, so did the store.

Mike was involved in the Care and Share program from the beginning until a couple of years ago. He was in the Kasson Chamber of Commerce for many years and is a past president. He was also a member of the Kasson Jaycees until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 40.

Mike mentioned the fun times which were almost every day. Such as Lucy and Sandy Morris serving up hundreds of hot dogs during Crazy Days. Running a 72-hour outdoor produce sale when Craig Allen manned the overnight shifts.

“We worked hard, but also knew how to have fun.” He commented that he misses his morning store walks where he would greet the staff on duty. Mike said he could go on and on, but like everything else that was yesterday, the “Good Old Days”!

Mike would like to explain to those who have wondered why he disappeared from the store in the spring of 2017. He was a minority owner in Erdmans with two other families. They did a forced buy out which was totally legal but was handled in a very unappreciated way after being with the company for 42 years, he said. Two other managers with 28 and 22 years were also let go at that time. He said he was told he was not a ‘company guy’.

Mike said he wants it known that none of them were guilty of crimes or wrongdoing. He always thought of Erdmans as “my store, my family and friends who worked and shopped there,” he said. Then one day, he said, it was over, no going-away party, no thank you, just clean out your desk. The owners blamed it on the store sales being down, but Mike feels it was more about positioning the store to sell and the two owner’s greed.

After leaving Erdmans Mike worked at the Byron Marketplace for 10 months and then was offered a job at Nilssen’s Grocery Store in Zumbrota. He told them he planned to retire in two years and they were ok with that. He did retire in July 2020. After being home for about two weeks he decided he needed something to do. He started delivering prescriptions for Hy-Vee and working for a bread company, both part-time, he said. Then Zumbro Valley Golf Course needed someone to mow, so he did that also until the end of the season. He decided this was the best retirement job he ever had!!

Mike was anxious to get back to mowing the golf course and started again in the spring of 2021. Life changed on June 25, 2021, when Mike wanted to finish mowing a small area under a sign near the course entrance and wrap it up for the day.

He pushed to the wrong pedal and ended up slamming into a bar on an overhead sign, breaking his back, breaking five ribs, and damaging his spinal cord. He ended up on the ground and when he couldn’t move his legs asked a couple of nearby golfers to call 911.

The First Responders from Mantorville were first on the scene, followed by a Dodge County Deputy and the Dodge Center Ambulance crew. They decided to send Mike by helicopter to Saint Marys. Mike says they were all good people!

Mike was in the hospital for 47 days and then he started outpatient therapy. He said he had great people taking care of him and he really misses them. Mike recalled a huge amount of cards and flowers he received while being hospitalized and the people that showed their appreciation for him. He commented about a couple, who formerly lived in Mantorville, Noel and Linda Frana, who had moved to Rochester. They opened their home to Mike and Lou for nine months to stay there, which was amazing and very generous!

The Langan’s home in Mantorville, where they had lived since 1999, was not able to be modified to be wheelchair accessible or at least to be done at a reasonable cost. They moved into their new one-level house in Mantorville in June 2022. Now Lou only has three miles to drive to work at Hy-Vee rather than the drive from Rochester.

Photo: Photo by Wayne Hendrickson Mike Langan enjoyed a 53 year career in the grocery business.