January 9th…“WHAT WAS A HOBBY OF YOUR FATHER’S THAT YOU ADMIRED?”

My father’s propensity of reading books was likely fueled by tales he’d heard as a child of the romanticism of The Old West.  That, and seeing the lifestyle of Cowboys and Indians lived out right before his eyes on a daily basis.  For you see, Dad learned many ‘ways of The West’ by growing up under the auspices of his own Norwegian farmer father who carried out his entire tenure of farming days in northern Minnesota with handsome teams of horses.  Grandfather Edwin Noorlun, I’m told, never drove a tractor.  Seems that would’ve made him a kind of a farmer cowboy, in a way.

Plus, another factor of influence was that my father’s family lived either on or near the Chippewa Indian Reservation near the northern Minnesota town called, Mahnomen.

Many Chippewa Indian children attended our father’s country school.  His daily play times with these friends could only help to grow his appreciation for the Indian culture that surrounded him, and with that, kindled a flame of love for all that composed the American story of The Wild West.

It wouldn’t surprise me a bit that, as a boy, this dear patriarch of our family, who only completed the 8th Grade in the public school system, would have loved to own a complete set of Zane Grey Western novels……..that is, if he could’ve afforded them in those youthful days.  Mr. Zane Grey was world famous for being an illustrious writer of Western Adventure stories.

On many an evening, both in our farm days of Minnesota and after we moved to Washington State, one could walk by our parent’s bedroom and view this hardworking man supine in his bed with a reading lamp attached to the headboard and an open “Zane Grey” book resting upright on his chest.  In these cherished moments of relaxation, Dad devoured page after page of adventures with sagas of thundering herds of buffalo or the lonely call of a wolf in a quiet forest while a full moon emanated an eerie light from the star-lit skies above.

Father’s love for reading was contagious to me and I found, like he did in his younger years, that no matter how poor you were, one could board a magic carpet of imagination and riches by just opening the cover of a book and venturing into the worlds that awaited you there.  When our father’s voracious appetite for Zane Grey had been satisfied by consuming every volume that author had published, our daddy turned to another, even more prolific Western author and the novels of the notable, Louis L’Amour.

Russell Conrad Noorlun lived out an honorable farmer’s life and yet, in a sense, he knew every trail and every ornery hombre that had ever swung up onto a saddle to ride to adventure and conquest.  Just as easily as he unwrapped a Christmas present, our wonderful dad unwrapped countless adventures each evening with a good western novel in his hands.  And the fun thing is, he didn’t need a cell phone or some other high-tech digital device….his medium was the classic printed page and the joys of imagination that dwelt within them.  His hobby made me glad to be his Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

January 8th…”DURING THE FROZEN WINTERS, WHAT INDOOR FAMILY ACTIVITY WAS FUN TO ENJOY?”

Outside of our quaint farmhouse walls, ‘Jack Frost’ was having a good old time decorating our windows with icy swirls, but inside our warm and cozy home, we were doing some swirls of our own.

Each week, my family looked forward to watching “THE JOHN DEERE BANDWAGON” television show that flew out over the airwaves from KEYC Channel 12 broadcasting station in Mankato, Minnesota.  “THE JOHN DEERE BANDWAGON” was brought to life in 1960 and, in its early heyday, was sponsored by many of the John Deere tractor dealerships of southern Minnesota.

Many local and national polka bands would come to entertain not only for the television audience watching throughout our Minnesota/Iowa region, but also for the many farm families that would drive to the studio, there in Mankato, to enjoy dancing to live music while the television show was being filmed for broadcast.

I loved to watch local couples dancing on the TV screen to this happy Nordic music.  Many of these dear farmers were from various Scandinavian backgrounds such as Norwegian, Swedish, German and other northern ancestries.  A smile would creep across my face as it was easily seen that these dear, balding men with amply fluffy farm wives were ensconced in the lifestyle of agriculture.  The main reason for this recognition was that the men bore the mark of the what I called ‘the farmer’s tan’.  You see, in order to protect their skin from the harsh elements of summer’s weather, any wise farmer would wear either a baseball cap or a full brimmed hat.  Day in and day out, while tending their crops, those head coverings protected these agrarians from the brutal Midwest sun.  From the midpoint of the man’s forehead, down to his chin and neck, these hardworking men were burnt brown, yet upward from foreheads to their bald or receding hairlines, their scalp was white as snow.

The device used to bring us this weekly musical merriment, was our little black and white television set that was tucked into the corner of our linoleum-floored Living Room.  Within that glowing picture tube were the sources for our gateway to avenues of  entertainment, learning, and in this case, a rousing good time.  Chairs and other furniture were sometimes moved off to the edges of our small Living Room to allow us kids a chance to wiggle and giggle as we knew the bandwagon show was about to come on the air.

Our beloved sister, Rosemary, was the happy ignition switch that usually sparked a party attitude wherever she went.  When the television master of ceremonies turned over the microphone to “Harold Loeffelmacher and His Six Fat Dutchmen”, Rosie often would grab either myself or our little sister, Candi, and would spin us around the Living Room as the polka music would fill the house with danceable songs like, “You’re Too Old To Cut The Mustard Anymore”.

It may have been dark and dreadfully cold on the outside of our farm home, but inside we basked in the warmth of smiles and outright laughter as us little tikes sometimes stepped up on and rode upon the feet of big sister as she attempted to teach us to waltz, polka and even try the schottische dances.  Our loving parents couldn’t help but giggle right along with us kids as their progeny not only made memories there in front of them, but also, in a childishly quaint way, maintained the heritage of the Scandinavian ways from timeless eras gone by.  Those truly were warm memories inside our warm home for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

January 7th…”WHAT WAS YOUR FATHER’S FULL NAME?”

Russell Conrad Noorlun was “Laid on a rock by a crow!”.…..at least that’s what his mother used to say as far as his birth on September 1st, 1918.   Daddy’s first squalls of life emanated from within the boundaries of the Chippewa Indian Reservation near the northern Minnesota town of Mahnomen.  Farmers were always good neighbors to other farmers, even when it came to a baby’s birth.  When Grandma Marie’s moment of childbirth arrived for our father, a dear lady down the road named Mrs. Slette arrived just in the nick of time to assist in helping see that baby Russell arrived into this new life safely.

The etymology of our farmer father’s first name, Russell, basically means a ‘RED-HAIRED ONE’.   Albeit our father’s hair was not red in color, specifically, but it was a handsome dark brown that looked so stylish as he’d comb it into a masculine curl that fell dashingly over and onto his forehead a bit.  Now Dad’s middle name, Conrad, (meaning BOLD COUNSELOR) fit him to a “T” in that, our daddy was never shy to share his open opinions or counsel on life as he saw it around him.  For instance, our mother would chastise him for going into our hometown of Kiester, Minnesota with dirty bib-overalls and muddy boots on.  Our patriarch would retort to her, “Awwww, if they don’t like my gate (also construed as ‘gait’ or my way of life), they don’t have to swing on it!!!”   Of course, the first letter of Dad’s name could’ve stood for a R-omping good time in life, too!!   Nothing pleased our patriarch more than to tease, prank or have fun with any and all who came near him.  For instance, telling our blossoming teenage girl cousins to eat burnt toast cause “It’ll put hair on your chest!!”, to which they’d gasp in shock for no young lady would ever want hair on her chest!!! 😉

Amazingly, my father’s birth certificate was lost when the local city hall burnt down in their northern Minnesota town.  In later years, that omission of documental protocol proved to be a trouble point when it came to Dad trying to verify his existence for the purpose of obtaining Social Security.  What a challenge THAT must have been for the father of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

January 4th…”WHAT WAS DAILY LIFE LIKE FOR YOUR FARM ANIMALS IN THE WINTER?”

Permeating every nuance of life, for both our family and livestock, was the piercing bitterness of winter’s sting.  Like innumerable farmers before them, my parents spent a good share of their energy and resources during the spring, summer and fall season to prepare for the caring and feeding of our animal ‘family’ during the bitter cold of winter months.

Ears of dried field corn from our cylindrical, wire-walled corn crib were ground into feed for our hogs and their piglets.  As ‘Old Man Winter’ whipped his winds around their hog house ‘heaven’, futilely looking for a way inside, these porcine parents, grunting placidly, were fed by my father, Russell C. Noorlun, while happily rutting in their straw bedding.  Baby piglets, with their exuberant energy, gaily played under the cozy warmth of the large heat lamps that held the sub-zero temperatures outside these walls at bay.

Even our sheep had the benefit of a warm sounding name to combat the winter chill…..her name was “Cheetah”, just like the fast feline that races across the hot plains of Africa.  Our cousin, Ron Sletten, would take a large, glass “7Up” soda bottle and fill it with milk from one of our cows.  Then, he’d pull a rubber nipple over the top and climb into “Cheetah’s” pen.  What a happy task he enjoyed as our little woolly wonder voraciously vacuumed out those tasty delights till that bottle was dry.

Something that I felt was magical happened to our barn every winter.  The bounteous blessings of bovine body heat resulted in a much higher moisture content inside those animalized walls.  That very comfortable animal heat source caused the barn siding to actually swell up and seal the barn and its precious source of ‘live’ heat.  Each chilly day, when I pulled open the “Dutch doors”(split top and bottom) of that red-painted animal refuge, I felt the wonderful, welcoming warmth that often rivaled that of our own home that stood at a distance across the yard.

Towering above our barn was our silo that held green, ground-up corn that was known as ‘silage’.  During the growing season, our father used special machinery to cut, chop and blow that silage up into the very tall silo to be used during the frigid winter months for feeding our livestock.

During those frozen, wild winters, it was one of my chores to climb up the tunnel-enclosed ladder to the top of the silo in order to begin tossing down silage for the morning or evening feedings of our dairy herd.  There was always a thick crust of frozen silage that required me to use a pick-ax to break through it to the softer silage beneath.  Now that the silage was busted loose from its frozen strata, I’d use a wide-tined silage fork to scoop up and throw it down the tunnel chute.  A challenge to me, in this task, was a back-draft blast of air that would come shooting up the ladder tunnel from the barn below.  After a blast or two of silage in the face from that draft, I learned to stand off to the side of the chute door when I tossed down the silage, for (as I found out the hard way) at least 40% of the silage blew itself right back into the silo from whence it was thrown.

A fun phenomena of winter life in the barn was our daddy’s daily feeding of our colossal clowder of cats.  The source of that feeding was our Holstein cows that were milked twice a day.  The device used to do that milking was sometimes known as a ‘belly milker’ that consisted of a large strap that went around the cow’s midsection and from that strap hung the vacuum-powered milker.  Every kitty cat knew that the place to park itself was close to a very large, white porcelain-coated metal feeding bowl that was in the alleyway of our barn.  Faithfully, during every milking time, Dad would take one of his freshly-filled milkers from a cow and then call out, “HERE KITTY, KITTY, KITTY!!!”  Cats flew towards Dad from every nook and cranny of that barn in a wild dash to be the first ones around that big milk bowl for their ‘breakfast’ or ‘supper’.

As Dad began to pour that warm milk into the large bowl, other late comer cats began to climb over the top of other cats around the rim of the bowl.  Many a kitty got their heads doused with milk.  That didn’t seem to bother them one bit, though, because they just continued to lap up the luxurious white liquid while neighboring felines would merely lick off the milky head of the cat next to them.  My parents loved their animals, and so did this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

January 3rd…“PLEASE SHARE ANY OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES OR HAPPENINGS RELATED TO YOUR BIRTH”.

Maybe it’s due to some of that ancient Norwegian Viking blood coursing through my veins, but I was a widdo bitty stinker even before I saw the first light of day in this life.

My precious mother shares how I wouldn’t even stay ‘in line’ in her tummy during those nine months of gestation.  This ornery little cuss was determined to ride transverse (sideways) within her.   Mom would have to, on many occasions, have my prenatal, in- utero body muscle-massaged within her tummy back into the proper vertical position by our old country physician, Dr. Lewis Hanson.

I’m sure that way back in 1954, the only folks present at my birth would have been my mom, at center stage, and then ol’ Doc Hanson and some nurses.  My dad, like all fathers of that era, were kept farrr, farrr away in some sterile, bland waiting room to smoke away pack upon pack of cigarettes as they fretted over the thought of …..”Did I come with ten fingers and ten toes???”

In the Bible, the Book of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 and Verse 2 it says, “There is a time to be born”……  I am SO thankful that I was born into the time of history that God chose for me!  Growing up in the 1950’s and beyond was an overall BLAST!!

As a member of the prestigious ‘January 14th Birthday Club’, I have a number of famous ‘birthday twins’ that also came into this world on ‘my day’.  Pictured within my story here is the world famous physician, Dr. Albert Schweitzer.  He was an amazing man of God, as well as a profoundly talented organist.  He used his many God-given gifts around the world to the benefit of untold numbers of lives that he touched while enjoying his full life of 90 years.

Other ‘birthday twins’ with me include Hal Roach, who directed the “Little Rascals” films.  Faye Dunaway, who is a talented actress.  The singer, Jack Jones also shares my special day.

And, one of my early childhood heroes, Guy Williams, is also a January 14th baby.  Mr. Williams was famous for playing the character of “Zorro” in the early Walt Disney television days.  Later, in the 1960’s, Guy Williams also portrayed the father figure in the sci-fi television adventure show called, “Lost In Space”.

And, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge my very first ‘birthday twin’ that lived just up the gravel road from our farm.   A birthday twin in that we both share the same day of birth.  Oh sure, there are 20 years between us former farmer boys, but, this dear man (and his lovely wife, Barbara) ALWAYS made me feel SO very special each year on January 14th when they’d arrive at our farm with a big hug and a birthday card and even a birthday present that lent to the celebration of my special day.   I bring honor and recognition to none other than Mr. Louie Heitzeg!!!

Yes, January 14th was a good day to be born for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

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.