June 4th…“DID YOUR CO-WORKERS AT GLENWOOD HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL EVER PLAY A PRANK TRICK ON YOU?”

It was a given; each morning, as this young school custodian opened my car door upon arriving at school, I could catch a delicious fragrance wafting through the air from the kitchen at Glenwood Heights Elementary School.  Our wonderful Cafeteria Cooks were from the old-school style of making food for the students and staff of our fine educational facility.  Most of the menu items were created from “scratch”, with lots of love and care thrown in for good measure.

One of the delights, in those days, was that our Kitchen Gals created homemade cinnamon rolls that were gigantic and smothered in real creamery butter and slathered with white glaze frosting on top.  Each morning, as I’d walk into their culinary clubhouse, I would find one of those cinnamon rolls waiting just for me in the warming oven to get my custodian day off to a sweet start.  YUMMMM!! 😉  These dear souls were like big sisters to me and a few were old enough to be my mother, but that just enhanced the wonderful family experience of it all.

I ate my lunch every day, right there in the Glenwood Heights Elementary School Kitchen with the gals all hustling and bustling about with their various cooking duties.  Sweet Ellen Kytola usually sat down next to me and enjoyed her lunch right alongside me at the long, stainless steel work table.  During our lunchtime visits in late winter months, Ellen and I would enjoy bringing our Gurney Seed Catalogs to dream about all the goodies we would plant in our respective gardens that coming spring.  Ellen had to eat her lunch a bit early so she could then load up lunches in her old Chevrolet panel van and take them next door to Laurin Intermediate School and serve them out to the Junior High students.

That family-friendly existence, between the cooks and I, led to an incident that happened on a fine and funny day.  On that joker of a day, the cafeteria girls were going to prepare one of their most popular meal items……..homemade wiener wraps.  When my custodian lunch time rolled around that day, I walked into the Kitchen and headed right for the warming oven which always held my lunch (that the ladies kindly prepared ahead of time).  Something was different in the air, though, that day.  I noticed that the girls were not in their usual hustle and bustle mode of getting lunch items processed and packaged.  Instead, they were quiet and almost anticipatory about something……something that yours truly was about to discover.

As I did everyday, I opened the wide, commercial-grade, oven door and withdrew my deliciously warm lunch tray, not aware of what was about to transpire.  As I walked, tray in hand, towards that long, stainless steel table, I could sense that almost every female eye in the kitchen was upon me.  Intrigued, I asked, “What’s the matter?  Haven’t you girls ever seen a guy eat his lunch before?”  They all just smiled their guilty smiles.  With a shrug of my shoulders, I thought “Oh well!” and picked up that “extra large” wiener wrap and was about to take a mighty mouthful when all ten ladies cried out in unison, “STOP, DON’T EAT THAT!!!!”

After having scared me half to death, I took a closer look and, sure enough, those stinker ‘school sisters’ had stuffed a big, blueish “SOS Brillo Pad” into my wiener wrap and it was staring out the end at me like the tip of a blue tongue!!!!  We all busted out in a roar of gregarious laughter that must’ve been heard clear up to the office that day!!   What a culinary adventure that was for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son. 😉

June 3rd…“DID YOU EVER SLEEP OUT UNDER THE STARS ON YOUR FARM IN MINNESOTA?”

The last “Surge” milking machine was being unhooked from one of our Holstein cows when my big brother, Lowell, had an idea.  “Hey El, how would you like to sleep out under the stars tonight?”  Eleven years my senior, Lowell was like a young father to me and often included me in some of his life adventures.  This excursion sounded like a doozy of a good time, so I responded, “SURE, that’d be GREAT!!” as loads of smiles profusely popped from my face!  I couldn’t wait to see what his plans were.

The cows were finished being milked for that evening, and after a few more chores around the farmyard, we shifted into FUN MODE!  The push button starter on our B Farmall tractor brought that little engine to life and it purred like a kitten as big brother spun it around in our graveled yard to hook it up to one of Dad’s flat rack wagons.

With all our camping gear on board the flat rack, Lowell said, “We’re heading down to camp at the thicket tonight!”  The “thicket” was our Midwestern word for a grove of somewhat swampy woods that straddled Brush Creek that ran along the southern boundary of our farm northwest of Kiester, Minnesota.  With energy to spare, I was pumped as I hopped up onto that wagon while Lowell aimed that little “B” tractor through our orchard and set a course that followed the setting sun to the west side of our 120 acre farm property.  While standing on the wagon, as we went bouncing along, I gazed back at our farm receding in the distance behind us.  As we lumbered along I enjoyed how the summer sun was kissing our farmlands “goodnight” with its golden arms of light reaching out and enveloping the windbreak of trees that wrapped around our main farm and protected us each year from winter’s fury.  Being the young buck I was, I stood on that jostling platform and “surfed the wind” as our flat rack wagon “bucked” along the stubble-covered field.  Within minutes, we pulled into our camping destination to have some special brother with brother time.

To me, our thicket was a place of wonderment and us boys used some of the waning moments of daylight to explore these woods inhabited by Great Horned Owls, Mink, Muskrats and related wildlife.  Earlier in my boyhood, and lacking the wisdom of today, I once tried to shoot a Great Horned Owl in that same thicket with my father’s Remington 22 Caliber Rifle.  Thankfully, the owl was sitting on a limb at such a long distance that, by the time my bullet reached it, its power to kill was spent and ended up just knocking the big bird off its branch.  It flew away, unscathed, for another day of life.  In other realms of wildlife of our area, stories were sometimes told by our elders of massive Snapping Turtles being in that same vicinity, along the creek bed, although I had never laid eyes on one myself.

Having set up camp on the platform boards of that flat rack wagon, it was time to light our oil lantern and have some grub for our suppertime.  Darkness now ruled the farmland around us and the owls began their serenade to us from the thicket as they sat on their wooded thrones.  “Whooo, Whooo is sleeping in our woods??!!” the owls seemed to call as we settled underneath our blankets for what we thought would have been a night of serene star viewing of the heavens above us……but…..that was not to be.  Our oil lantern was not only a beacon to us, in that ebony world of darkness, but, in the stillness of the evening, and with no wind to push them away, that lantern seemed to call forth every mosquito that had ever lived in the entire State of Minnesota.  Black clouds of those tiny, infinitesimal insects descended upon us and began torturing us with their uncountable whines in our ears and stings so numerous that we couldn’t slap them fast enough!  Even with Lowell dousing the lamp into darkness, it didn’t seem to help, for now they had our ‘address’.  The lethal calm of the night around us gave these mini jet fighters the ability to attack at will.  It didn’t take too much more agony before my big brother Lowell said, “Let’s get the HECK outta here!!!”  He jumped off the wagon, fired up the engine of the B Farmall tractor and in a minute we were zipping across those darkened fields like a flash and away from the hordes of tiny assassins that wanted to suck our very blood.

To try to rescue some of the night’s adventure potential, Lowell suggested that we could still have a camp out on the front lawn near our farm home.  That sounded like a fine alternative for me, so, when we got back to the homestead, we pulled our gear off the flatrack wagon and settled our bodies onto the soft grass of the lawn and pulled the blankets over our heads for some sleep.  The mosquito threat here was negligible, so we were almost dozing off into ‘slumberland’ when we heard the distant rumblings of the birthing of a summer thunderstorm in the far distance.  Rolling over and looking skyward from our pillows, we’d see a quiet flash of light ricochet off the base of the clouds above us.   A long pause, then a low rumble.  “Nothing to worry about.” , said brother, “It’s still a long ways off”.    Who knows, said big brother, the storm may even turn another direction.  Another lighting of God’s “flashbulbs” in the sky, and this time there was a quicker rumble.  There increasingly was a flash, pow, flash, pow in the sky that became more and more frequent until………you guessed it, the thunderstorm was now right over our farm and the sky unleashed torrents of rain upon us and our gear.   We ran for the house as fast as we could make our young feet fly!  Brother dear said something to the effect of “This is CRAZY!!!” (which I seem to remember it coming out of his vocabulary in a bit more colorful way……….Hehehe!!)   As far as camping, well, maybe it wasn’t cracked up to what we had hoped, yet I look back on it as a grand adventure with the one and only brother hero there is in the world for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 2nd…“WHO, IN YOUR CHILDHOOD HOMETOWN, HAD A UNIQUE OR EVEN FUNNY NICKNAME?”

Every town in America, I’m sure, is populated with unique individuals that bring character and ambiance to the everyday life of a community.  My childhood hometown of Kiester, Minnesota was no exception.  In previous stories, you heard me tell about a person in our town with the nickname of “Lightning”, but today, there’s an individual that I’m happy to share a story about with a smile.  We children knew him by the nickname of “Pud”.

Born into this world in 1914 as Vern Bufkin, “Pud” and his father, Ed, were quite a team when it came to cleaning our school.  I remember “Pud’s” dad as being a very stoic, straight-laced and straight-faced person.  Mr. Bufkin Senior, being from the old school type of generation, Vern’s father wore a standard tie and, in latter years, he even sported a bow tie on his fully-buttoned, long sleeved shirt.  “Pud”, on the other hand, was pretty laid back in his dress code and his “take it easy” attitude.  I can only theorize where “Pud” may have acquired his nickname, its actual source I do not know, yet I enjoyed him just the same.

“Pud” was sure a kind soul to me.  He was gentle in his ways and always had a few minutes to chat to this super energetic, zip around each corner kinda kid!!    It was easy for him to discern that in those days, I was little hot-wired tiker a buzzin’ around those echoing halls and stairwells of dear old Kiester Elementary School.  I knew I could always approach “Pud” and receive a smile and a pleasant greeting.

Vernon’s parents, Ed and Marge Bufkin were fellow saints in our local church’s  congregation and worshiped the Lord at my childhood church (Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church) there in Kiester, Minnesota.  Vernon, himself, was the middle sibling of the three Bufkin brothers (the other two being Dale in 1912 and Clyde in 1920).  As it turned out, Vern outlived both brothers when he finally passed into Glory in 1994.

It’s highly probable that “Pud” may have been a subliminal inspiration for my own many decades as a custodian in the Battle Ground School District and now here in the school systems of Hawaii.  Maybe, in the back of my heart, I’ve also wanted to show kindness and a smile to the thousands of children I too have had contact with in my lifetime.  Either way, I’m glad that “Pud” was part of the young life of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 1st…“WHAT WAS YOUR MOST EMBARRASSING DATING EXPERIENCE?”

Hollywood and my dating life coincided in the early 1970’s and they both led to the same outcome…….DISASTER!!!  The distinct difference was, Hollywood raked in the dollars from their type of disaster, but I raked in one of the worst dating experiences of my young life!!!  Little did I realize that attending one of these films would be a portent to a personal disaster in my dating experience with a lovely fellow classmate there at Battle Ground High School in Battle Ground, Washington.  Everything that COULD go wrong that night DID!

It was 1972 and my Senior year at Battle Ground High.  I had admired Joan Brosius from a distance as we fellow classmates passed each other in the long hallways of our alma mater and pursued our final year of public education within the portals of these instructional corridors.  Self confidence was NOT my forte at that zit-faced stage of life.  I had an enormous fear of being rejected by this beauty if I even attempted the courage to ask her out for a date.  Nevertheless, from the dregs of my boyish insecurities, I actually managed to muster out the words one day, “Hi Joan!  Would you like to go see a movie with me and have some supper afterwards?”  “How’s about going to see the re-showing of the disaster flick called Airport at “The Broadway” in Vancouver?”   Whether she felt sorry for this quivering blob of boy flesh, or whatever her inner thoughts may have been………she actually said, “Yes!”  I was catapulted to Cloud 9!! 😉

I pulled our 1967 Dodge Coronet 500 into Joan’s driveway that evening and was welcomed into her quaint home for the customary meeting of her parents and family.   After escorting her to my family’s car, we began our journey into Vancouver and the evening ahead of us.  I began to perceive that the evening was not going to gel for “love” in that we only seemed to touch on very generic topics of conversation, such as the weather and other superfluous topics that just didn’t spark any deeper interest of one of us towards the other.

Popcorn and drinks in hand, we shuffled into the darkness of “The Broadway” movie theater and took our seats for the first of the ‘Airport’ disaster movies that had initially come to the nation’s screens in 1970, but was making a second round through movie theaters again.  Unbeknownst to me, my own disaster was about to unfold before my very eyes.  My young, bony gluteus maximus (my butt) was sending me discomfort messages as I sat down.  My wallet was too fat!  It sure wasn’t because it was full of money, but instead was full of just a bunch of paper junk that made it a giant wad in my back pocket and painful to my posterior premises to sit on, so, I removed the wallet and put it on my lap.  The intensity of the movie’s plot had my rapt attention for what was happening up on the screen and I soon forgot all about the presence of the wallet.  The climactic movie came to “THE END” up on the screen, but what happened next made it “THE BEGINNING” of trouble for me and my ego AND for my poor date, Joan.

As I and my date stood up to leave the movie theater that evening, my wallet quietly slipped to the floor without my slightest knowledge.  Part of my promise that night was to treat Joan to supper at the Portland International Airport just across the Columbia River from Vancouver.  Yup, you guessed it, I’m now penniless and without a driver’s license and am totally oblivious to both points.  Once parked, we made our way into a nice restaurant inside the airport and we sat down to a delicious dinner as we chatted about the movie that we had just enjoyed together over in Vancouver.

After the meal was completed, we both stood up to get our jackets on and walk on over to pay the bill for the nice meal.  My hand reached back to my back wallet pocket and a look of horror lit up my face!!  Sensing my shock, Joan asked, “What’s wrong?”  to which I replied with great angst, “I lost my wallet!!”  “You’re KIDDING ME?!”, she said.  My reply to her was classic stupidity……..“I thought this only happened in the movies??!!!”  I slapped all over my body to every pocket I had on me that night, but no wallet.  NOW what do we do?  Sheepishly, we walked over to the cashier told her our plight.  At first, she thought we were teasing her, but she then turned serious quickly and threatened to make us go into their kitchen to begin washing dishes to “pay for our meal”.    Like a kidnapper, I bargained with the cashier…….“How about if my date will stays here while I run back to the movie theater for my wallet!??!”  Deal?  Deal!

Poor Joan was now a hostage while I drove, sans license, VERY cautiously back across the river to Vancouver and “The Broadway” theater.  As I exited my car just up the street, I see the movie theater staff are literally closing the double doors for the night.  I race down the sidewalk crying out, “WAIT, WAIT!!!  I lost my wallet inside!”  After pleading with the manager, he allowed me to look in the seating where we had sat.  Some low life person had stolen my wallet and it was gone!  It’s now about 1:00 AM and I asked to use the manager’s phone.  In those days, families usually had only one phone and, for the Noorlun family, ours was out in the kitchen.  The phone rang, and rang and rang until my mother finally had walked down from the bedroom and answered it.  After sharing my dilemma and need, my mother roused Dad out of bed and they were on their way to save the day…….which it was in this case, the night.  In the meantime, “prisoner” Joan is languishing at the restaurant and suffering the drunken passes of numerous men who are barely able to stand up in their slovenly state of drunkenness as they exited the bar there.   Later, Joan related that a very handsome and generous man had offered to pay her bill and take her home, but these were the days before cell phones and she kindly declined his offer out of respect for my being sick with worry for not knowing what had happened to her if she DID leave with that handsome man.

My folks eventually rolled up to the movie theater, there in Vancouver, (with cash in hand) and my father took home the one car while Mom (who actually HAD her driver’s license with her) drove me back down to the airport to pay the bill for the meal and set poor Joan free from her bondage.  To exacerbate an already acrid situation, the night sky began to unload a torrential downpour of rain on us as we sullenly rode home, without speaking a word, to Joan’s place with my mother as our chauffeur.   Upon arrival at Joan’s family home, Mom pulled our car to the end of the graveled driveway that was littered with potholes full of water from the pounding rain.  Joan’s yard-light was burnt out, so as we half ran from the car to her back porch, we both stepped into deep puddles and got our feet soaked.

In a vain attempt to rescue this first date (which, by the way, was our LAST) I attempted to give Joan a kiss goodnight.  Normally, as most of you know, a gentleman tilts his head to one side to facilitate a nice kiss on the lips of his lady.  NOT ME!!!  In a clumsy act of total doofishness, I came straight on towards her face.  We connected nose to nose, chin to chin and teeth to teeth……CLANG!!!!……it was horrible!!!  And, on top of that, I had the gall and audacity to say, “I hope tonight won’t affect our future dating!”  (OF WHICH THERE WAS NONE!!)  Holy Guacamole, I thought to myself, what a loser I am!!!! 😦

Needless to say, in the next few days at school, I heard reports that Joan was intensely livid in anger over what happened that night and told the whole world about her absolutely worst date ever she had had with that stupid guy named Elliott!!  And, you know, she had every right to be angry with me.  I was so embarrassed about that night that from that moment on,  I refused to date anyone for the next three or four years because I was so crushed by this failure.

Fast forward to about 1979.  My wife and I have our two year old son with us and are shopping for some toddler clothing at the former “Tower Mall Shopping Center” on Mill Plain Boulevard there in Vancouver, Washington.  LO AND BEHOLD……guess who the cashier/clerk was in that store???  Yuppers, Joan Brosius!!!   I stepped up to her and asked her forgiveness for having been her worst date ever in our High School days.   Being the gracious lady she is, we both smiled as she fully forgave me for my dating failure that night.

After almost 50 years having passed, I can now look at this incident in life and laugh about it.  Time heals all wounds, I’m told.  They say we learn from our mistakes, and if that’s the case, I sure get to learn a LOT, cause I make a LOT of mistakes!!!  Hopefully, the young ones of my family will learn from Grandpa’s mistakes and avoid the ooooops’s of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

May 31st…“DOES YOUR FARM STILL EXIST BACK IN MINNESOTA?

Sadly, no.  The only thing consistent in life is change, and with that change came the eventual demise of our family farm back there in my childhood State of Minnesota.  First, our barn mysteriously burnt down within a year, or so, after we moved out to Washington State.  Next, for a time, our beloved home had been rented but eventually was left abandoned and empty.  Tragically, it became a party house for local youths to have their beer parties in and they trashed the house so badly that it was offered to the local fire department to be used as a practice burn……..so now it was gone also.   Over the decades, building after building succumbed to the aging process and fell under rot and heavy snowfall on its roofs.  The beautiful windbreak of trees were cut down and sacrificed for a few more acres of land to plant crops on by the new owners.  One of the oldest buildings was the last to go………the granary and remaining buildings were bulldozed, till now, nothing remains of our farm except a hint of where the driveways used to be.  I’m sharing a poem I wrote to convey some of the feelings I experienced when I heard the home place was completely gone.

POEM – “Quiet Now” by N. Elliott Noorlun

Quiet now, except for the wind, Coursing ‘cross the soil,

No longer a farm or family, Where once our father’d toil.

T’was a glorious time, When voice and sound, Of family did thrive,

As daily symphony of life, Would bring our farm alive.

Yet came the day, When destiny, Called our family West,

To new horizon that our father felt, For us would be the best.

Thus as our tires exited, The graveled driveway fine,

One could almost hear the sound of pain, Of a farm in lonely whine.

From renters to vacant, One could muse, As our home would silent mourn,

Until a fire would see it gone, And from its moorings torn.

Other buildings stood valiantly by, As decades came and passed,

But in the yearning for productive land, We knew they could not last.

Returned now to the soil, Which Indians once did roam,

Yet our memories burn faithfully, Of our dear childhood home!!!

May 30th…“WHEN YOU WORKED AS A CUSTODIAN AT GLENWOOD HEIGHTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, WHAT DID YOU DO TO HAVE FUN WITH THE STUDENTS THERE?

Clark Kent (mild-mannered newspaper reporter) may have jumped into a phone booth to emerge as Superman, but me?  I jumped into my Custodian Work Room and emerged as “CUBBIE”, The Glenwood Heights Elementary School baby lion mascot!!!  Of course, I wasn’t all THAT mild-mannered around the school each day, cause I was always on the hunt to have fun in any way possible with the Kindergarten through 4th Grade boys and girls that came to see us each day for education and a grand old “Sharing And Caring” time…….Shooowahhh! 😉  You see, our Grade School level mascot was the younger equivalent of the Laurin Intermediate School mascot, which was a full grown Laurin “Lion”…….therefore, we were the “Lion Cubs”; and thereby “Cubbie” was born.

Our school was so blessed to have among us the one and only Sylvia Wiser.  Not only did her children attend that great school, but Sylvia worked in various capacities of service over the years.  She was a beloved Playground Monitor for a long time and eventually even moved her talents inside the school building to being an Office Assistant to our grand secretaries.  Another of Sylvia’s many talents was the ability to create a full length Lion Cub costume for supporting our many award assemblies and other school events.

All work and no play makes Elliott a dull boy, so rather than just sweeping and cleaning, I had the pure joy (and a little mischief) in becoming the mystery person inside that Cubbie costume on a regular basis for the kids to enjoy.

It was decided, at the inception of this new personality, that Cubbie should have an air of mystery about him.  The students were never to know who was actually in the Cubbie costume at any time.  The “lion cub” person inside that costume was to remain mute and not say a word, so as to give away the identification of who was making the mascot “come alive” at any occasion of his appearing before the students.  Whenever it was my turn to make Cubbie come alive, it was total elation on my part, in allowing me to take on a completely different persona that could do almost anything and get away with not being chastised as I WOULD have had done to me in regular circles of social etiquette.  The costume was complete with furry slippers, mitten “paws” and a long tail.  The head of the costume had been built over a construction workers hard hat and the only way I could see out of the “face” was via a small, black-screen “nose” in the front of the snout.  This tunnel vision necessitated that I constantly had to keep my “head” on the move so as to see where I was going AND to see if any kids were sneaking up behind me to pull a prank on this poor ol lion cub.

“Curiosity kills the cat” and sometimes, the curiosity of some students just got to be too much about WHO was inside the Cubbie costume.  So much so, that I’d have little ones come for a hug and they’d then grab the face of the costume and look inside the little black-screened “nose” to do an attempt to see who was inside the costume THIS time.  “Heyyyyyy everybody, it’s Elliott inside Cubbie!!!!”   Well, well, the jig was up and so I’d just continue the fun as best I could 😉   I almost fainted, on a number of occasions, because there was no way to really get a sufficient supply of oxygen into the costume’s “head” for an oxygen fueling for all my wild antics and cavorting.   Necessity being the mother of invention, I came up with a way to breath by drilling a hole in the “mouth” of the costume and then cutting a large plastic tube that I held in place with my teeth while the front of that tube barely jutted out the mouth for enough fresh air for me to breath and keep up the fun.

I was so thankful for our sweet-spirited Principal, Esther Baker (and later Carol Anderle and Jeff Newport) for allowing me to get “wild and woolly” during our Cubby Awards Assemblies while in my Cubbie Costume.  In my days of wearing the lion cub costume, “Cubbie” wore a Triple Extra Large school T-shirt over the costume.  This way, I could put my “paw” up under the T-shirt and imitate my lion heart beating heavily from physical exertion or from showing I loved someone.  As I stood out in the school hallway, our Principal, Esther Baker, would welcome the entire student body to the awards assembly and get them quieted down a bit.  Then, like the master of ceremony at a circus, she’d give me the grand entrance by saying, “Come on in, Cubbie!!!”.   That was my cue to come running, full speed, into the gymnasium and make a slide “into Home Plate” and end up laying on my side in front of Esther and waving at the crowd.

Jumping up from the floor, I’d then prance around the gym and play “peekaboo” with the kids by placing my “paws” up over the big eyes of the costume and then, lifting a “paw”,  pop one “eye” open and then the other.   Swinging my lion’s tail, I’d saunter over to Esther and give her a side hug and THEN, I’d even have the audacity to sometimes take my “paw” and mess up her hairdo.  THAT was when the kids really went wild with giggles!!!  Esther would chastise Cubbie with “Behave yourself, Cubbie!!  Now you just go over there in the corner till you can be good!”   Oh boy, this was too fun!  I’d mimic being sad by slumping my shoulders and hanging my lion head down low and drag my lion’s slippers along into the nearest corner.  Kids loved it and so did I!! 😉  Pretty soon, Esther would ask, “Can you be good now, Cubbie?”  I’d silently nod my lion’s head and, with a shrug of my furry shoulders, we’d then get on with the awards ceremony.   At other awards assemblies, someone else would get inside the Cubbie Costume.  Many of the kids would see me standing nearby and realize that I wasn’t making the costume “come alive” on that occasion.  A number of the little sweethearts would say to me, “We knew it wasn’t you inside Cubbie this time, cause that person just sits there and doesn’t do anything funny like you do!”

“Whoever has the most FUN, wins!”   That was my motto then…..and now!  The energy of a child’s smile still lights up the face of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

May 29th…“WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS OF AND HOW DO YOU OBSERVE THE HOLIDAY KNOWN AS MEMORIAL DAY?”

It took 43 years of living in the Pacific Northwest before I finally grasped the opportunity to enter and visit the Fort Vancouver Barracks Post Cemetery (in Vancouver, Washington) on a Memorial Day weekend.  I had driven past this historical site many times over the years, but the “tyranny of the urgent” usually kept the car rolling towards another destination.  Unlike today’s holiday, the gates to this venue of veteran’s graves are normally closed to the public for most of the year to protect these hallowed grounds from unwanted scoundrels who would cause harm to these honored 1,400 monuments to the lives of soldiers and their families who have served so gallantly in our nation’s military past.  I’ve read that this cemetery resembles “Arlington National Cemetery” (located in the State of Virginia), in that it has white, above ground markers where most cemeteries , in today’s modern world, prefer flat grave marker stones to make it easier for landscaping crews to mow and trim the lawns.

I discovered that there are four servicemen buried here that were recipients of The Congressional Medal Of Honor.  I had the pleasure of locating three of those four headstones that day on my visit.  Their white marble headstones are specially honored  with a gold emblazonment of a star to bring glory to their special place in our country’s memory.  Upon one of those Medal Of Honor graves, someone had paid homage by leaving a photograph of that soldier leaning against his headstone with flowers and a blue ribbon gracing the photograph.  Very poignant and touching.

Having parked at the back of this patriotically decorated acreage, I slowly and meditatively strolled up and down the rows of grave markers and gave thanks to God for each soldier who served our nation from the Indian Wars on up to the present day.

Thanks to local Boy Scout troops, each grave was bedecked with a handsome American flag.  These small banners of Liberty were lovely, and symbolically, were a thought-provoking sight in themselves.   Suddenly, as if summoned forth from the treasuries of Heaven, a stiff wind blew briskly through the graveyard and brought each of the miniature “Old Glory” flags to a sharp and horizontal type of “salute”.  I mused within myself that each eternally quieted soul beneath this sod was being saluted for his service to this fine nation of ours.  Even above the din of the nearby freeway, these white marble sentinels were silently, but distinctly, lauded as all those American flags across over a thousand graves were now “alive” with praise, in their crisp, whispered flutters for what each soldier had accomplished in military service, in both his daily duties of soldiering to valiantly conducting himself on the field of battle against our foes.

Having paid tribute to the local patriots in the Vancouver Barracks Post Cemetery, I then traveled eastward to Evergreen Memorial Gardens Cemetery (there in Vancouver, Washington) honor my own family’s serviceman, my Uncle Robert S. Sletten.   Uncle Bob, who is buried near our parent’s grave, served in the United States Army Tank Corp in the European Theater of Operations during World War II.  As I pondered upon his life, I recalled Uncle Bob telling of how he had found an accordion in a bombed out house in France.  After the war had ended, Bob brought that accordion back to the United States with him and learned to play it quite well.  As a boy, I remember him entertaining our family with a song or two at family picnics.  Our mother’s other brother, Del, was an infantryman in the United States Army and was stationed in Italy.  Uncle Del’s Division fought valiantly in the mountain warfare of Italy against the Germans and had even won the Presidential Unit Citation Award for gallantry under fire.  Uncle Del’s place of rest is at a cemetery in our Home State of Minnesota.  God, in His mercy, brought both of our uncles back safely from that war to live out long lives and enjoy seeing families grow up as well.  Even though both of these family soldiers now reside in Heaven, on every Memorial Day they receive their due honors from this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

May 28th…“IS THERE ANY ITEM YOU OWN TODAY THAT IS TREASURED AND PRESERVED FROM YOUR CHILDHOOD?”

To an impressionable little farm boy, like I was, a visit from my father’s sister, Lillian, was like touching base with royalty.  She, and her handsome husband, Gene Greenspun, were like “Prince” and “Princess” to me whenever they could make the long journey to our Minnesota farm from the steel and concrete canyons of the legendary New York City, New York.  In my little boy eyes, my auntie held every attribute that a princess could possess.  Hers was a tall, slim and gorgeous figure that was framed in her long, Norwegian blond hair.  Those golden locks framed the most feminine face that Hollywood, itself, would beg for.  So impressive was her beauty that, one day, she left her Home State of Minnesota to begin a modeling career in New York.  While living there, she encountered and grew to love her very talented man, Gene Greenspun, who was a dynamic business man in the booming toy industry there in the “Big Apple”.

I absolutely idolized both of these precious family members!  Both of them gave me their rapt attention whenever they’d vacation with us on our farm.  It was upon the occasion of one of those magical visits that Uncle Gene handed me a gift.  It was my very own Jeweler’s Loupe (which is a magnifying monocle).  I was shown how to carefully unwrap the spring wire so that it would allow me to put it around my head to hug the monocle in place over my eye.  Needless to say, I was thrilled to have this new toy that allowed me to see the world super close up!  I found myself exploring in a whole new realm I never had the chance to do before.  You could often find me on my knees somewhere crawling along the gravel driveway looking for “gems” or in the weeds inspecting tiny bugs that had, up to this point, evaded my exploratory eyeballs.  That little jeweler’s magnifying loupe has followed me for over 60 years now.  I carry daily, even now in my retirement, so when people have tiny writing that they can’t see properly I offer them to use my loupe.  Every time I touch this gift from Uncle Gene and Aunt Lillian, I say, (in spirit to them) “Thank you for your love and my closer look at the world that surrounds this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.”

May 27th…“DID YOU EVER PLAY A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT?”

The famous guitar player, George Harrison (with The Beatles), would’ve been proud of me as I imitated him to perfection there in front of our Holstein dairy cows in our barn on the farm back in Minnesota days.

I was in love with guitar music from my earliest days and, since I didn’t have an expensive Gretsch guitar to play, like his, I used one of my father’s five tine pitch forks.  The hardwood handle of the fork was my pretend guitar “neck”, and the five tines of the fork were my guitar “strings”.  As The Beatles songs rang out on the barn radio, to the screams of thousands of girls, I pretend ‘played’ for our 15 head of Holstein dairy cows and responded to their feminine mooo’s of appreciation for my pretend talents. 😉

From the reaches of my farm boy memory, I had always been enthralled with the lovely music that came from a guitar.  The charisma of a guitar’s aura has always permeated some part of my existence to this very day.

The year 1967 saw a dramatic paradigm shift for our family as we sold the farm in Kiester, Minnesota and moved clear out to the West Coast, landing in the southwest corner of the State of Washington in a town called Battle Ground.

I was one VERY lonely boy without our extended family and friends nearby from our past life in Minnesota.  I was a wandering soul in a new land with no buddies and not much to do now that we were city dwellers ‘in town’.   Other than daily chores around the house, life was pretty boring when you’re a stranger on the block.  One day, as I was cruising the neighborhood on my bike, I came across a local garage sale.  Inside that garage, beckoning to me, was a Harmony “Stella” model guitar.  The family wanted $20.00 for the instrument, so I buzzed home on my bike and returned with the cash and, for the first time in my young life, I now owned my very first guitar.  Next question on my mind was, “Now, how in the heck do I PLAY this thing?”

A few days later, as I was watching our local educational television station, I happened to stumble across the local PBS (Public Broadcasting System) channel, out of Portland, Oregon, known as Channel 10.  There, to my elated joy, was a beginner folk guitar course called “Folk Guitar with Laura Weber”.  That program repeated three times a week.  It was taught by a sweet lady with a big smile whose broadcast studio was based out of San Francisco, California.  My television teacher’s name was Laura Weber.  I sent away for the first edition of what would be a total of three lesson books and they were only $1.00 each (plus shipping).  I was thrilled and watched all three episodes each week as I’d practice the rudiments of basic guitar playing.  I practiced so much, that I garnered blisters and a little blood on my finger tips in order to acquire the callouses that Laura Weber said would eventually accumulate over time.

Within the first year of life there in our new town of Battle Ground, I had met a new friend that lived down the street from me by the name of Dennis Fleming.  He had a Gianinni Classical Guitar that he was willing to sell to me.  The neck was wider, for ease of playing, and the “action” on the neck, along with the soft nylon strings, was MUCH easier for me to make chords with than my old “Harmony Stella”.  DEAL!!!  I bought the guitar and set my “Stella” aside for the next generation of guitar music to commence.

Musical time marches on and it’s now 1972 and my 18th year of life and I am ‘freed’ from High School’s bonds.  That summer, I paid $340.00 cash for a beautiful new Hernandez Classical Guitar.  The music store that sold me that beautiful instrument also provided classical guitar lessons,(for a price, of course) so I began to move into yet another phase of enjoying this type of music in my life.  Although not professionally proficient, I had acquired enough general knowledge in the classical guitar and note reading to be able to pick out a sampling of classical tunes and deepened my love for this instrument even more.

Thanks to Beacock Music in Vancouver, Washington, I was introduced to the “Oaks Brothers” Guitar.  It was a handmade, one of a kind musical wonderment made by two brother who lived there in Vancouver.  Mine was the very first edition of what I think was the M1 or M6 model and it’s sound was phenomenal!!  For the late 1970’s, its price tag of $600 was a bit steep, but you know……you get what you pay for and I wanted to have that “Oaks” sound in a big way.  For a steel string guitar, its tone was rich and mellow……just what I enjoyed!!  I took that guitar with me everywhere!!  School, church, home; you name it, that guitar was like my shadow.  Sadly, it was stolen from my car in 1988 and never recovered.

Sadly, my insurance company, at the time of the guitar being stolen, gave me less that $200.00 to replace what was, in my opinion, a ‘Stradivarius’ valued guitar in that one of a kind “Oaks”.  So, at the time, I gave up guitar all together until I could save up the $1,000.00 I needed to purchase my next dream which was a “Guild” Jumbo Body acoustical guitar.  A very generous friend at our church said, “Elliott, I just can’t see you without a guitar……..here’s the $800.00 you need to go out and buy that “Guild” that you want.”   I shed tears of thankful joy at this dear man’s generosity and became the new owner of an instrument that was the epitome of mellow sound.  The gorgeous black finish on this marvelous guitar led me to call it my “Black Beauty”, and that she was!!!

In my personal reflections, I see that John Denver’s song, “This Old Guitar”, sums up my feelings about this fine instrument of pleasure.  Similar to Mr. Denver, playing guitar has brought innumerable blessings to me over the years!!!  It has helped introduce me to new friends, enabled me to express my given feelings at any moment of life.  Guitar playing has even been an avenue of expression of my very soul (whether that is joy or sorrow) and has been a tool for me in my simple attempts at creating lyrics and poetry.   I’ve also been able to bring praise to God in many venues of worship, AWANA children’s ministry and at the Royal Ridges Retreat Horsemanship Camp to name a few inspirational outlets for singing His praises.

It’s nothing fancy that I do, but I enjoy being “just a strummer” as the Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

May 26th…“DID YOU EVER RECEIVE NICKNAMES FROM FAMILY AS YOU GREW UP ON THE FARM?”

POEM – “He Called Me Alley Oop!”  by N. Elliott Noorlun

When Uncle Erwin, Came to call,

With family close in tow,

I could always, Count on him,

To tease me, This I know!!

While he and Dad would visit,

Us kids would play nearby,

And sure enough, my clever “Unk”,

Came up with something sly.

“Ya know lil nephew, Your name kinda rhymes,

With character from comic book days.

I’ll give that burly guy’s name to you,

And let’s see just how good it plays!”

So from that time, When’er they’d come,

From Colorado o’er many a mile.

To that jester “Unk”, I became Alley Oop,

As I’d hear him tease with a smile.