January 2nd…”WHERE WERE YOU BORN?”
Before a farmer’s plow ever sank its silver blade into the fertile soil of southern Minnesota, the Sioux Indian Nation roamed those expansive lands upon the backs of their war ponies.
It is, in my personal musings of history, a theory that when these first Native Americans watered their horses in the nearby Blue Earth River, they must have gazed upon the soil strata on the river bank and perceived that the super rich soil actually had a blue cast in its color. The Dakota Sioux named this river, “Mahkato Osa Watapa” (The River Where Blue Earth Is Gathered). I will even surmise, in a poetical aspiration of sorts, that even the blue sapphire sky above these Midwest plains paid homage by bending down to kiss that part of the earth, thus rendering and transferring some if its heavenly color to the soil of Blue Earth, Minnesota which is the city where this Norwegian Farmer’s Son was born on Thursday, January 14th, 1954.
My grand entrance into life began within the walls of Blue Earth Community Hospital. Even though our family farm was about 25 miles to the southeast of here, this dear community of Blue Earth, Minnesota will always hold a special place in my heart as the starting place of this gift called LIFE!!!
The Bible’s Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 and Verse 1 & 2 proclaims that there was a season for me to be born into and thus I came to take my first breaths and vociferous cries within the bulwark of that fine medical facility.
One of the claims to fame of the town of my birth is that it is home to one of the large canning facilities of the “Jolly Green Giant Company”. Local farming is prolific throughout south central Minnesota with crops of sweet corn, peas and other green abundance that fit perfectly to the needs of a nation that enjoys its vegetables. My birth town is also home to its very own Jolly Green Giant Statue that towers 55 feet high over the city. The famous green tourist attraction would be a hard act to follow in trying to fill his size 78 shoes!!! 😉
I think you’d enjoy visiting “my birth town” via its website at http://www.blueearthchamber.com. If you’re ever traveling through southern Minnesota on Interstate 90……..stop by to visit the birth-town that saw the beginnings of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.
Norwegian Farmer's Son 