August 26th……...”WHAT WAS A FUN ACTIVITY IN YOUR MINNESOTA HOMETOWN OF KIESTER THAT MADE YOUR BROTHER, AND OTHERS, YEARN TO BE A PART OF ITS EXCITEMENT”??

The pelvis of Elvis held millions of young girl’s hearts in sway as ‘The King of Rock n Roll’ undulated his virile manhood all over small black n white television sets across the nation in the late 1950’s.

“I Like Ike” buttons had carried the sentiments of our country’s spirits whose enamor for the World War II hero, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had voted overwhelmingly to place him as our honored resident of the White House and our 34th President of these United States. Yes, there was so much of that American era gone by that was right in our world in those days…….and one of those ‘right’ things was when it appeared that King Arthur, himself, had come to Kiester Park at the north end of Main Street.

For there, below the cooling shadow of our village water tower, began the rhythmic ring of sledge hammers, being thrown in muscular cadence as workmen began sinking iron posts into the soil for anchoring ropes to help hold up the magnificent and immense tent that held all the royal looks of one of those regal tents of King Arthur’s day.

When finished, there in all its roller-skating glory, was a beautiful wooden floor, beneath that fabric-tented attraction, that seemed to stretch on for an oval mile with guard rails and benches along the perimeter for skaters and spectators alike to drink in the joys of skating the day or evening away.

There was magic in each moment that summer once the massive roller rink tent was set up and ready for business.

There was also a palpable charm in the air especially in the evenings after family farms in the surrounding countryside had completed the milking and bedding of their dairy herds. It was time for happy kids and parents to pile into the family car and bring a picnic supper along, and yes, maybe even spin by Flogstad’s Bakery, there on Main Street, for some cupcakes or donuts for dessert. Tempted by the roller rink’s fresh popcorn on the air, Dad n Mom enjoyed the comfort of a large army surplus blanket on the lawn near the rink while their energetic younger progeny popped in and out of the roller rink all caught up in the wonder as they watched big brothers and sisters, with their high-laced roller skates on, making the oval circuit of the ‘track’. Skaters, amid the wheel roar, enjoyed listening to the hit tunes of the day pulsating from the well-placed speakers in the rafters of the rink. Depending on the song, its tempo and its strong beat, skaters sometimes coursed the rink so fast that a continuous wind gust, fanned by human bodies flying by, made for joy to be had by all as various men’s colognes and ladies perfumes sweetened the summer air.

Big brother, Lowell, was elated that summer, and every summer for that matter, during his Kiester High School years, because of the draw in his heart to have some fun with his buddies and skating. He’d even devise ways to find some means to get to the roller rink tent to see his pals and some lovely young ladies, too, of course. 😉 His plans would go into action if our parents weren’t in the mood that evening to go into town. Lowell would just send out a quick phone call or two and BINGO! he hitched a ride to Kiester so he could join the crowd of high-energy youth who fed off the fun vibes of happy songs like Sheb Wooley’s funny ditty….“He was a one eyed, one horned, flying purple people eater”!!!

Earlier in our town’s history, it was 1951 on a chilly November 3rd evening when another skating era had its Grand Opening inside a lovely, large building located on South Main Street. Some years hence, this handsome facility would eventually become the home of our town’s John Deere tractor dealership, but all was warm and well and festive, that night, as townsfolk stepped out of the cold and into the joy of this new business enterprise of roller-skating. The winter coats came off and roller skates were pulled on for exercise and fun………..and even romance.

The “Kee Roller Rink” that evening was decorated to the max with festooned banners and the ubiquitous mirrored ball for effect to razzle dazzle everyone, including young lovers.

Many a young Kiester youth like Arnold Bauman, Clair Hagen and Leroy Larson were just a few of the young men who tenderly helped lace up the high-topped roller skates of the young ladies with whom they were ‘head over heels’ in love with. Together, these young couples smiled and cuddled as they slow skated, under the spot-lighted mirror ball to love ballads of that era like…..”Because Of You (Tony Bennett)”, “Secret Love” (Doris Day) and “You Belong To Me” (Jo Stafford). Long, happy marriages came to fruition for these Kiester area couples who found love and enjoyed roller skating there in our beloved hometown of Kiester, Minnesota ……..just like, in another era later on, did this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

August 25th………..“WHAT WERE YOUR FEELINGS AS YOU SAW OUR GRANDPA RUSSELL APPROACH THE END OF HIS LIFE FROM PANCREATIC CANCER IN 1980”?

POEM – “Just A Few Days” by N. Elliott Noorlun. Created November 18th, 2016

Just a few days, Before Daddy died, And flew to God’s Shores, On the other side.

T’was hard to see him, Once strapping and strong, Now frail and weak, At the end of life’s song.

Cancer took its toll, Painful day by day, But I’m glad for the moments, That I took to say…….

“I LOVE you, Dad”!!!, “I love you, too, Son”!!! I cherished those moments, When our hearts were one!

On Valentine’s Day, Our clan gathered round, To show Dad we cared, His ears hear the sound,

Of his children’s children, His legacy dear, As his loving Lord called, Dad would soon draw near,

To our Great Physician, Who erased all Dad’s pain, Now forever in fellowship, All Heaven to gain!!

*********************************************************

Our beloved father, Russell Conrad Noorlun, left this world for Heaven’s Shores “just a few days”(as the title of my poem) later, on February 19th, 1980, after the February 14th photo was taken at the top of this poem. He had endured pancreatic cancer. His earthly frame rests at Evergreen Memorial Gardens in Vancouver, Washington.

August 24th………POEM – “Geezeritus” by N. Elliott Noorlun. Created November 13th, 2013

Geezeritus, Has dun set in, From thinning hair, To double chin!

Teeth fallin’ out, Both left and right, And when I smile, “EEEK”!! what a sight!!

Sweet years of food, Which I did indulge, Has left me a gut, Of big belly bulge.

The only exercise, That I get, Is tossin’ thoughts, Of how I bet,

That wrinkles now, All o’er my skin, Will just get worse, If I get thin!

This aging thing, Is such a blast, Like beans that help me, To get gassed!!! 😉

August 23rd…….“SHARE WITH US SOME OF YOUR FEELINGS AND SENTIMENTS ABOUT THE SEASON OF FALL”.

POEM – “Fall Slumber” by N. Elliott Noorlun. Created November 10th, 2015

In the fall, Earth tilts her slumbering head, Upon God’s loving chest,

Like tottering head, Of weary child, Upon her mother’s breast.

Though a chill may be, In earnest now, A quiet repose we know,

That as a child awakens, Soon spring returns to glow.

Take this peaceful time of season, And winter’s season, too,

To count God’s blessings upon your life, And all He’s given to you!!

August 22nd……“FARMING IS A GRIMY AND DIRTY BUSINESS. DID GRANDPA RUSSELL GET A CHANCE TO DRESS UP ON OCCASION? DID HE ENJOY SMELLING AND LOOKING GOOD FOR CHURCH AND FAMILY GATHERINGS”??

POEM – “My Dapper Dad” by N. Elliott Noorlun

A tiller of the soil, And animal’s care, Gladly was my father’s trade,

But at the end of day, Work done HOORAY!!, Overalls aside were laid,

Our hard working dad, Was glad, not sad, Cause he knew it was time to go,

To shave and shower, With soap’s good power, And let his handsomeness show.

With hairstyle combed, He’d glance in the mirror, And giving “Old Spice” a splash,

Our good-looking Norski, That strong young buck, Was ready and willing to dash,

Whether to church or family affair, He won the ribbon “Best Dressed”,

And gladly passed Mom’s standard, Given a kiss that he passed the test.

With his homburg hat, Jauntily worn, Russ was easily a “Dapper Dad”,

We were all so proud, Of our Norwegian Pa, Right down to this happy lad.

No matter how dirty, He’d get on the farm, Dad could clean up in a wink for fun,

And out the door we’d fly, With this good-looking guy, Made me proud to be, That farmer’s son!!! 😉

August 21st………“SHARE A STORY, GRANDPA, OF WHEN YOU BEGAN TO FEEL GROWNUP AS FAR AS BEING ALLOWED TO DO SOMETHING YOU’D ONLY DREAMED OF ON YOUR FARM NEAR KIESTER, MINNESOTA”.

The gleaming, glamorous grillwork gloatingly grinned at me that first day of school as big sister, Rosie, Cousin Lyle and First Grade me posed in the doorway of our old 1950 Ford F-1 pickup truck. Chalk it up to my vivid imagination, but I felt it was as if our old Ford had the platitude of an attitude against me of …..”Nyah, nyah, little twerp, you’ll never be old enough to ever drive ME”!!!

Our sweet mother, Clarice, had trotted after us that morning to snap our photo for this special occasion. Mom was the family ‘princess of photography’ in capturing so many moments of our clan’s life on film. This shot was to be one of them. It seems, though, that my eyelids never could co-ordinate in harmony with a camera lens, thus, when she pushed the shutter of her 1931 Kodak camera, I appeared to be asleep before my first hour of school had even started.

The cold, killing crispness of fall had come early that year and the treed windbreak around us was quickly loosing its canopy of leaves. The resultant brisk chill in the air caused Cousin Lyle Noorlun to hunker down his head as low as possible into the pulled up high collar style of shirts and jackets that were popular and the ‘in thing’ of young men’s fashion during the era of the early 1960’s.

Once us passengers were inside this black, bumpy, black ‘bus’, the metal passenger door was popped shut and Lyle trotted around and hopped into the Ford’s driver side. To the right of the pickup’s steering column, Lyle twisted the ignition key to the right for electrical current to the starter in the engine, then on the left side of the steering wheel, our cousin’s finger found and depressed the starter button to bring that 239 cubic inch Flathead V-8 to life. What was left of the old muffler system below us let out an audible growl as we rolled down the bevel of the south driveway and onto the gravel road towards Kiester and school. Being the tiny rider in the center of that pickup’s bench seat, I had to keep my legs spread wide and clear to allow my cousin enough room to shove in the foot clutch and go through the floor shift gear patterns. Sure didn’t want Lyle, with his intense wild shifting, to cause any YOWSA’s to my ‘private property’ down yonder!! 😉

Our handsome Norwegian farmer father had come from and deeply appreciated the beauty and power of farming with horses. From his youth in northern Minnesota up to and including when we first began farming this land in 1946, Dad used and enjoyed God’s original version of horsepower. Yet, when it came to our black, 1950 Ford F-1 pickup, our father had to admit that a convenient 95 ‘horses’ were his for the asking right below the hood of the truck. That faithful old Ford was well used for everything on our farm from A to Z and then some. When winter’s ferocious weather layered our farm yard with two or three feet of snow………on went the heavy-link tire chains and Dad just kept on grinding away at hauling everything from hay to wood to feed from our Purina store in downtown Kiester.

With a year or two ‘under my belt’, some growing had occurred and my day had finally arrived. It was time for me to prove my mettle to that metal, gloating old Ford. Dad’s voice was like music to my farmer boy ears when he said, “Elliott, with your brother in the Air Force now and your Cousin Lyle gone back to the “Cities” (Minneapolis/St. Paul), I need you to learn to drive the Ford and do some chores for me around the farm. Ya think you’re up to it”? Like a miniature cowboy I let out a YEEHAWWW…….errr, um….“Sure, Dad”!!! 😉

I had been transfixed over the years as I watched Dad and brother Lowell and Cousin Lyle drive the Ford. I had the basics fairly down to a science, yet, this was to be the real deal and I was no taller than a hiccup in comparison to my elders. With Dad alongside me, to the passenger side, I slid behind that black steering wheel that was so gigantic, it felt like I was trying to steer the outer rings of Saturn. Even with my little boy butt cheeks on the very edge of that bench seat, I could just barely depress the clutch deep enough to the pickup’s floor to allow me to shift gears. I was scared and thrilled at the same exhilarating time.

My fine farmer father was very patient with me as I went from popping the clutch (and killing the engine) to forgetting to push in my foot clutch deep enough to the floorboards and ended up grinding the transmission gears. Over time, though, for a little squirt, I got more and more adept to running that Ford as good as anyone else.

Pretty soon, I was so confident driving the Ford, I felt like the wild-driving actor, Robert Mitchum, in the 1958 movie, “Thunder Road”. My favorite chore had to do with feeding hay to our dairy herd. There was an old wagon that rested in the center of our muddy cow yard. No longer usable in fieldwork, it was to be the happy hay haven for feeding our cows. The pasture land was still too wet to graze the herd that spring, so, our Holsteins got exercise roaming the yard and were fed at the old wagon. It was early spring, so Dad still had the tire chains on the Ford for traction in the mud and quickly melting snow cover.

Loading the truck bed with bales of hay, I brought my black chariot up to the swing gate by the barn and drove through into the muddy morass, quickly shutting the gate behind me. It didn’t take too long to toss some hay bales into the old wagon and cut the twines. While our bovine beauties bunched and crunched away, it was my time to play.

On the edge of the bench seat and barely able to look over the dashboard, I slammed that floor shift into 1st gear, revved the engine and popped the clutch. YOWSA how that 239 responded with my tire chains spinning gleefully while they began slinging mud pies 20 yards behind me!! I was gaining enough ground speed in that marvelous mansion of mud to be able to clutch and hit 2nd gear………now we were really ‘making hay’ (wellll, o.k……..MUD)!!! The slime n grime below me was allowing me to ‘spin cookies’ in gliding 360 degree truck circlings while my wild-eyed gleeful gaze drank in the fun while causing some mini-mayhem in the bog of bounteous bouncing fun!! I was in kid heaven, that day, with my very own power plant of boy joy beneath the happy bouncing butt of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son!!! 😉

August 20th……….“WHAT ARE SOME SIMPLE FARM PLEASURES THAT MADE FOR LOTS OF FUN IN THOSE DAYS ON OUR FARM NEAR KIESTER, MINNESOTA”??

POEM – “Fun Times On The Farm” by N. Elliott Noorlun. Created October 30th, 2015

Fun times on the farm, In Dad’s jalopy,

With chains on the tires, When it got sloppy!!

Or riding big wagon, Through our farm yard,

It sure was bumpy, Cause them wheels were HARD!!

Big brother and sister, And a cousin or two,

Still had a great time, When farm laughter was through!! 😉

August 19th……….”ONCE ALL THE FIELD CORN WAS HARVESTED AND IN THE WIRE-MESH CORN CRIBS ON YOUR FARM, HOW DID YOUR DAD GET ALL THE KERNELS OF CORN OFF OF THE COBS FOR THE ANIMALS TO EAT”??

On that late October morn of 1962, there was only one ‘General’ in command of his small army that day on our farm, but I sure did see A LOT of Colonels around………well, o.k…….. I’ll reword that to kernels …..of corn, that is!!! 😉 The ‘General’ I mentioned earlier was actually our “general contractor/business owner”, Leroy Aske.

What may seem archaic in comparison to today’s high tech corn harvesting operations, our farm family, at the time, considered this truck-mounted corn shelling operation to be ‘right up town’. In years past, our father and his agrarian fathers before him used to do everything by hand, so this fascinating, gas-driven device on wheels and truck frame was a godsend.

T’was a very windy fall day that found me to be one elated, eudemonic Elliott basking in the wildness of the winds that had dried down our ample corncribs that were full of the marvelous maize that had been harvested from our cornfields just a month or two before. Even with the earflaps of my winter cap pulled down, I could hear those exceedingly chilly, dry winds as they sang a song while they whistled through the wire mesh construction of our corncrib walls. Those whipping winds had accelerated the drying of the corn to the point of being able to now be shelled and hauled to the Kiester Co-op Grain Elevator in town to be sold and added to our family’s income.

Ya know, it even seemed (teasingly) that Leroy Aske (pronounced Ahh-skee), and his crew, appeared to know when my little sister’s birthday was each year, for that was when we’d hear his caravan of grain trucks and his sheller truck grinding their gears as they slowed down to navigate the driveway into our farm from the south.

I swallowed in awe right along with our barn swallows above me as their lyre tails harped a silent salute to the marvelous mechanical wonder of Mr. Aske’s corn sheller in all its metallic glory . To take this all in, I leaned up against the trunk of a shade tree near the corncrib to observe while Mr. Aske slid the truck’s stout shift lever into reverse gear. The transmission gave out a pumping whine and the whole truck moved in gentle jerks backwards towards the doorway of the corncrib until a crew member’s whistle and a loud holler of, “WHOA”!!!, stopped the rig in a perfect spot to catch the corn.

Built into and cutting straight across the center of the round cement flooring of our corncrib was a long, narrow, rectangular trough. Within that trough lived a chain-driven series of vertical, metal plates or paddles all interconnected with the chain drive. When energized by an engine’s power source, those vertical plates, conjoined to the chains, and would actually drag the ears of corn above them out of the crib and into the corn sheller……thus, this system was known to us as the “drag line”.

Our father, Russell, smiled broadly as Leroy revved up the engine powerhouse of his truck and pulled levers, pushed buttons and did whatever was necessary to bring his sheller machine to life. Boards, that had closed the doorway of the corncrib during harvest’s filling, were now yanked away to allow workers to fork and shovel out the ears of corn into the roar of elevators that lifted the corn up into the sheller. Even in my little boy mind, it was obvious that engineers had truly created a machine that could multi-task this operation.

With a 1,500 bushel capacity or more, per corncrib, it took a number of hardy workers to shovel, fork or even use a silage hook to keep the moving ‘drag line’ below them full of corn for the sheller to ‘eat’. As the ears exited the corncrib, an “incline drag” carried the crop up and inside the sheller. The machine stripped the kernels off the cobs and sent the kernels of corn through a long auger that deposited the ‘gold nuggets’ into a waiting grain truck that, when full, lugged it’s heavy load out of our driveway and on to Kiester’s elevator three miles away.

The sheller had a powerful circular cage cleaning fan aboard that would blow the light, thin corn husks far away into their own gradually growing pile. The empty corn cobs were separated and sent up a separate auger called the “cob stacker” which they could then be loaded into a waiting truck or allowed to ‘mountain’ on the ground nearby. Our farm home kitchen contained a side by side stove that could operate by gas on one side and burn wood, coal, or in this case, corn cobs on the other side. Mom was grateful for the free corn cob fuel for our kitchen stove even if it did burn rather quickly and needed to be stoked more often from a corncob pile near our house.

Corn harvest had come a long way from the time of doing everything by hand. And, even though today’s modern methods are amazing, in 1962, it was a fascinating adventure to to watch for this awe-struck Norwegian Farmer’s Son! 😉

August 18th…….”DID OUR GRANDMA CLARICE FEED FAMILY AND NEIGHBORS THAT CAME TO HELP ON YOUR FARM NEAR KIESTER, MINNESOTA”??

POEM – “Delicious Pay” by N. Elliott Noorlun created December 13th, 2018

Reminds me of, The days back when, Our farm table was, Surrounded by men.

In from the field, And hungry for, Some great cooking that, Our mom had in store.

Whether putting up silage, Or baling hay, They all showed up, To save our day.

A grand farm meal, Was just one means, Of showing love to heroes, In bib overall jeans!!! 😉

August 17th…………“WAS ANYONE YOU KNOW EVER INJURED DURING A CORN HARVEST IN YOUR AREA OF KIESTER, MINNESOTA”?

Vociferous, flying V’s of velvet-winged Canadian Geese flirted with the early morning full moon above our farm. In the frosty chill, their untold hundreds above us trumpeted what seemed to be their goose approval of what was about to transpire on our family’s acreage below. Honking along to each other’s song, these large, majestic waterfowl could have stopped by for some snacks of our corn crib’s contents, but, instead, they were drawn to the anticipated luxury of a cozy winter’s comfort in the more amiable reaches of our warm, southern United States.

It was early fall and Dad had fired up the old Farmall Model F-20 tractor whose muffler was near non-existent. As a result, when the old beauty ‘came alive’, staccato reports of noise from that old engine could be heard all the way south to the Chet Ozmun farm and north to Charlie Heitzeg’s farm, too. As the F-20’s years of service came and went, during its early years for our family, our father was blessed to now be in possession of enough tractors to allow the F-20 to take residence and stay attached to his two row, International-brand corn picker.

Once that trusty old tractor’s engine had warmed up, the pulling power of 20 horses moved that machine and our farmer father out to the ripe, golden cornfield to begin picking that year’s crop of field corn. Pheasants chattered with anxiety as they leapt into the sky and out of the way of this human and what they saw as their noisome nemesis. This two row mechanical marvel, though, was truly a miracle blessing to Dad in comparison to the fact that, in earlier years, our corn crop had to be picked by hand, one ear at a time and thrown against the high-sided ‘bang board’ of a wagon pulled by our draft-horse team, “King & Colonel”.

As our Norwegian Farmer revved up the F-20’s engine, he pushed levers and let out the tractor’s foot clutch. The tractor’s power-take-off (PTO) created a clankety, rattle, chain-driven roar that emanated from the metallic machine as it became a corn-thirsty ‘beast’. Chain-driven teeth ‘ate’ the cornstalk, ripping it from the root ball at about 6 inches above ground . The cornstalk was then pulled through “snap-rollers” whose pass-by clearances were so narrow, the ears of corn were snapped (more like POPPED) from the stalks and sent through the machine and elevatored up and into a wagon following the corn picker.

I would surmise that farming and combat during a war could’ve almost gone hand in hand when you think of the potential danger and death that could await you as a farmer. Especially when you take into account one military person’s perspective of combat being “Long periods of monotony, punctuated by sharp moments of sheer terror and pain”.

Such an occurrence of pain actually happened to our beloved ‘other grandpa’ Harry Bauman. In the past, during one of his early years of running a similar corn picker, cornstalks had become clogged in the “snap-rollers”. With the machine still running, Harry had attempted to free the clog, only to have his hand yanked into the “snap-rollers” when the cornstalks flew through. He painfully lost most of two fingers with only stumps for the doctor to sew up.

Numerous wagons, burgeoning to their brim with our elongated ears of that year’s golden corn harvest were pulled by tractors to our three, tall, wire-framed corn cribs to hold and dry the corn to perfection.

A very long, vertical transport device, known as a corn/grain elevator, was cranked up high into that early fall sky and positioned at the top of the corncrib’s metal roof hatch. The elevator was the means to lift the harvest from the wagons up and into the corncrib.

Our tried and true Farmall Model H tractor was driven nearby the elevator and a very long, wide pulley belt was attached to a spinning drive wheel from the tractor to the elevator’s gear mechanism. As each wagon load of corn was backed up to the active elevator’s hopper (catch basin), the farm helpers began to disgorge wagon load after wagon load until each wire corn crib was filled to its peak.

No matter what operation was being carried out by Dad and our faithful neighbors, our beloved mother, Clarice, was always constant to see that everyone’s tummy was chock-full of delicious home-cooked food and coffee whenever there was a break in the harvest action. Whether the crews came into our farm house to feast around our modest kitchen table, or Mom took the meals out to the field, either way, Russell Noorlun’s lovely bride was a yummy part of the total success of the harvest day that God received our praise for.

Now, with the corn safely sheltered into the tall corncribs, we stepped back to feel the prairie winds begin to whip through those cribs to begin a thorough drying time so that the corn would be ready for the next phase of harvest; that would be shelling the kernels off their cobs before hauling it to market.

What a delight it was to live in those dear days of farm life. We were not rich monetarily, by any means, yet we were wealthy in treasures that were beyond a bank calculator’s abilities. God is to be praised for that golden corn and those golden years that enlarged the grateful heart of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.