Local News

WINONA, Minn. (AP) ― Ernie Streng didn't know what to do with his spare time, so he walked.
  
He'd rise hours before his 8 a.m. shift at the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant, put on headphones and walk to a gas station from his downtown apartment for his morning coffee. He walked to Lake Winona, then around it. He walked to work. He walked home for lunch, and back to work five minutes later.
  
People around town came to call him Winona's Coca-Cola Walker, since he usually wore his work uniform on his strolls.
  
"He was Winona," said Marge Fricke, his friend. "Everyone knew him."
  
Ernie walked, then he walked some more.
  
So perhaps it is fitting that Ernie died doing what he loved best.
  
Police say he tripped and fell on the train tracks near Johnson Street, when he was struck and killed by an eastbound train last Monday. The scene was captured on a train-mounted camera, and the footage shows "kind of a trip and a stutter step," Police Chief Paul Bostrack said. Friends guess he was probably heading to the lake, or maybe to get coffee at the Kwik Trip on Sarnia and Huff streets.
  
He was 51.
  
Down at the Redman's Club, Ernie's favorite hangout, friends remember him as a simple man. He was quiet around people he didn't know and could easily be embarrassed. Even a stranger's wave could make him uneasy.
  
But the more you got to know Ernie, the more you wanted to be like him, said Wade Elliot. He was polite, loyal, the kind of man who would listen to your problem over a beer or offer a helping hand without being asked.
  
Ernie would have given his money away if he had ever become rich, his friends said. He was more comfortable with the small things in life: watching the Vikings on TV, being with his brother Dave Streng and sister Julie Holtegaard, playing with his nieces and nephews, joking with his "honey bunny," Diane Spalding, the Redman's manager.
  
Most of his friends didn't know he had a driver's license, or two cars. Or why he walked so much.
  
Ernie's lifestyle made you think, Elliot said, about the things you've accomplished in life, and that in the end, they don't mean much. It's the little things that matter most.
  
"Those things, they have an effect on you," he said.
  
Years ago, Ernie decided he didn't want his body to go to waste when he died and arranged for it to go to the University of Minnesota for medical science. He never told anybody why.
  
"I guess he just wanted to help people," his sister said.
  
Not many people have a shrine dedicated to them while they're still alive, but Ernie did. A picture of Ernie hangs on a bathroom door inside the Redman's Club, with one-liners called "Ernieisms" taped around it. Most of the quips came when Ernie was sitting at the bar, listening to a conversation. And many of the lines, like "I says to the guy, I says I says," and "that's all a part of growing up," mean something only to the people who were there to hear them.
  
Not one to make a scene, Ernie rarely announced an exit. He'd wait until a conversation started, friends were distracted, and then he'd slip out the door. He didn't like to say goodbye.
  
"He didn't realize how many people, how many lives he touched," Holtegaard said.
  
Even those who just got a wave and a smile when they saw him walking.

By NOLAN ROSENKRANS
Winona Daily News

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