August 21st…“IN MINNESOTA DAYS, WERE ANY OF YOUR FAMILY EVER TAKEN TO THE HOSPITAL BY AMBULANCE?  WHO WAS IT AND WHAT HAPPENED?”

POEM – “Our Poor Pounded Papa!”  by N. Elliott Noorlun

Our father loved his horses, There is no doubting that.

He grew up in their shadows, While wearing farmer’s hat.

Even the giant draft horse, Never gave him any dread,

He’d climb up on their back for nap, And rest his little head.

Dad spoke of how that giant mare, Would walk around to graze,

With farmer boy asleep secure, On a summer’s lazy haze.

Then a horse show came into our town, In July of ’59.

They asked if Dad could help them out, And dear Dad said, “That’s fine!”,

So Father was assigned Gate Keeper, Of that large arena fair,

As beautiful horses, Of every kind, Would strut their stuff in there.

But then there came a rider, Who’d drank way too much beer.

He was swaying drunk, Upon his steed, And acting very queer.

Dad’s back was turned, To open the gate, And without so much as a sound,

The drunk made his horse, Run over our Dad, Hooves hammered him to the ground!

Knocked out cold, Our dad lay there, An ambulance was called.

How could the drunk, Have DONE such a thing?, The audience was appalled!!

Sister Rosie ran and got me, I was playing with friends nearby,

“Dad’s been hurt!”, “Come on let’s go!”,  A tear was in her eye.

The ambulance flew, Down country roads, Till hospital came in view,

I prayed that God, And doctors there, Could make our dad like new.

Back in those days, Kids weren’t allowed, To visit a hospital room.

Sadly, I sat outside in the car, And feared of doom n gloom.

The next time that, We came to see, How healing for Dad would go,

He waved to us from his window, Down to our car below.

I’m told that the drunk, Who ran Dad down, Upon his horse that day,

Came to our home, To say, “I’m sorry!”, For acting in terrible way.

Our father gave forgiveness, And also shook his hand,

Now that’s the way, We all should love, And to me, that’s mighty grand!!!

August 20th…“AS A MEMBER OF THE BATTLE GROUND HIGH SCHOOL CONCERT CHOIR, AT WHICH VOCAL RANGE DID YOU SING?”

There they stood, seventy-five members strong, our sharp-looking and powerfully voiced Battle Ground High School Concert Choir.  There was an elegance from these teenage voices as they were led by one of our most respected teachers on the school campus……The Honorable Mr. Orrell Peru.  It was the springtime of my Sophomore (10th Grade) Year.  As I viewed that impressive choir’s performance, and because of their First Class sound, I knew I wanted to be a member of that choir so much I could “taste it”!!

It was announced at school that Mr. Peru was going to be holding auditions for the upcoming 1970 – 1971 Concert Choir school year.  Could I make the grade?  Could I sing good enough to be honored to be a member of, what I considered, an elite group of musicians in voice?  I remember standing in front of the mirror at our home and practicing for that audition.  Even though that face, in the mirror I saw, was oily-skinned and covered by zits n pimples, I was STILL gonna try for a spot in that choir.  For whatever reasons, in my pubescent look at life, I envisioned my voice to be that of a deep-sounding bass singer.  You know, those guys who sing all the those “low as you can go” notes in songs with a voice register “in the basement”.  Therefore, as I would dream about my approaching audition with Mr. Peru, I would sing to myself with what I thought was a low voice.

The audition day finally arrived and I timidly stepped into the Concert Choir’s lair…….also known as their classroom.  Blessed Mr. Peru, he was truly a saint that day as he must’ve squelched many a giggle as he listened this novice voice that stood next to his piano while he had me sing up and down the musical scales.

My mouth was so wide open, as I sang, that a bird could’ve easily dropped a worm into that cavernous orifice.  Comically, I tried to make all my singing like that of a rich, mellow bass voice.   No such luck.   Gracious Mr.Peru, he likely just couldn’t stand my sophomoric sounds any longer, so he stopped me and said, “Elliott, thanks for coming today and I appreciate your efforts.  I need to share with you though, that you’ll NEVER be a bass singer, not even a baritone (one step higher than bass).  YOU are a tenor, and likely a First Tenor (highest male range).  Be proud of your tenor voice and cultivate that vocal range as much as you can.  A tenor’s sound should be clear and bright; as if it’s popping out from right there at your teeth.”

Inspiring was Mr. Peru as he introduced me to the music of the very famous tenor named, Mario Lanza.  My honored choir master encouraged me to buy some of Lanza’s records to listen to the exquisite role model of his vibrant and powerful tenor voice.  I became a big fan of Mario Lanza and collected many of his record albums, over the years, and watched most of his Hollywood films.  Since singing bass was to be only in my dreams from now on, I began to emulate the ways of Lanza and other magnificent tenors from the past on up to the present.

I MADE IT INTO THE CHOIR!!!!!  Joyously, I invested my Junior and Senior years of High School as a happy tenor member of Mr. Peru’s Concert Choir!!!  I was honored to achieve some success at regional singing contests, sang at the local Harvest Days Festival in our town of Battle Ground, Washington and even had a bit part in the school’s adaptation of the musical “Camelot”.

Our best ever, Mr. Peru, even encouraged me to attend Central Washington University to study to become a music teacher.  Now THAT really touched my heart, to be thought worthy, in that way, by my very favorite teacher.  Sadly though, life took me in a different direction, as far as career, and I never pursued being a choir teacher.  Even so, that dear, dear soul named, Orrell Peru, saw to it that the flame of many happy musical memories are still held golden in the heart of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

August 19th…“WHO INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE THESE STORIES AND POEMS FOR US?”

POEM – “Good Morning, Dear Grandfather”  by N. Elliott Noorlun

Good Morning, dear Grandfather, Your memory still shines bright,

As I arise upon each dawn, And gaze upon the sight,

Of the glorious Silver Dollar, You once had gifted me,

Ten years older than your birth, My eyes can plainly see,

The day you stood with me inside, Farm kitchen by the stove,

And reached into your bib overalls, That fabric treasure trove.

A sparkling Silver Dollar, With features crisp and fine,

I just about squealed out with joy,  For your treasure now was mine.

“That coin was 10 years old, When first I started life.”

“It now will dwell, In your young hands, Through happiness or strife.”

I knew that he was quiet, A man who chose each word,

And yet, when well inspired, In kitchen I often heard,

Both he and our dad, Would chat on end, As stories would unfurl,

While pipe or cigarette smoke, Arose in happy curl.

So many things, Grandfather, I would’ve liked to’ve known,

From life’s adventures you had lived, To the crops that you had sown.

I know that the State of Iowa, Was where you had your birth,

And that you had a love affair, With farming God’s good earth.

I’ve heard the worst that you would say, Was Norski phrase “fey faen (dirty devil)!”,

But other than that, You’d hold your tongue, At what you looked upon.

You may not have known, How you touched my life,  As also your good son, Russ,

It’s then I decided, I’d tell of MY life, So our “future” could know of me thus,

So that tiny “Ronan” and others, Who yet have experienced birth,

Can come to these stories, And get to know, Grandpa Elliott’s time on earth.

So Good Morning, Dear Grandfather, As you rest ‘neath farmer’s sod,

I promise to honor your story, And mine as this life I trod.  ><> 🙂

August 18th…“DID YOU EVER LEARN TO ROLLER SKATE?  WHERE? AND WHEN?”

My initiation into this rousing, rolling recreation came in the form of a traveling roller rink tent that visited our village of Kiester, Minnesota.  Visits to our town by this fabric phenomena were common in the late 1950’s and into the early 1960’s.  Townsfolk have shared that the roller rink was often set up in the town park, but my recollection was when I saw it set up in the parking lot next to the Kee Lanes Bowling Alley.  That colossal, cone-topped cornucopia of fun was like a magnet and it was as if a circus had come to town.  Only, in this case, this was to be a circus where WE were the performers as we’d lace up some roller skates and ply that oblong “stage” round n round n round.

With the enticement of the roller rink being in town, there was a bit more energy in getting the milking of our cows, and other chores, done for the evening.  We took advantage of the lingering late afternoon summer sun as we cleaned up from chores and happily loaded ourselves into our family car for the three mile ride into town.   Having arrived at the rink, and in the golden light of late afternoon, our elder brother and sister saw to it that we little ones were fitted for kid-sized roller skates.  The sultry humidity of the Minnesota evenings necessitated that the roller rink’s side tent curtains be rolled up to allow the cooling prairie winds to course through the rink as it refreshed the many skaters that now cruised that impressive wooden, oblong floor.

What a hilarious sight it must’ve been, with wheeled skates on my feet, as I hugged the sidelines of that oblong rink floor with these rolling contraptions that seemed to go everywhere I DIDN’T want my feet to go!!

Of course, I envied anyone who seemed to have this feat of balancing on wheels mastered.  I should’ve had a pillow tied to my butt, because I spent more time bouncing on my back cheeks than I did rolling upright on my skates.

As I hung onto the tent’s side rails for support, I thrilled to watch my two elder siblings, and others, as they’d race around that oblong “stage” while they’d shimmy and pulsate their arms in a form of dance while listening to the rock n roll tunes of that era like “Duke Of Earl”, “Runaway” and “It’s Now Or Never” by the “king” known as Elvis Presley.

For me though, as a simple farm boy, my young body was used to good ol’ terra firma beneath my feet, so this novice was intensely focusing on not crashing from being a human on wheels.

I was starting to get the knack of this new wheeled fun experience when I noticed a large electronically lit reader board on the main mast poles of the skating rink.   To put some variety into each evening’s skating experience, the rink owners would tell the crowd what new skating was going to take place next by lighting up one of the many signs on the board.  For instance, maybe the sign REVERSE would light up.  Then, if you could do it, all skaters had to skate backwards, etc. etc..

Now even though I was only knee high to a burp, regarding love and life, I still enjoyed the times when the electric skating rink reader board would light up the sign that said “COUPLES” skate.  The tent lights would be dimmed and a spot light shot its laser beam to hit the rotating mirror ball that hung from a high point in the rink’s rigging.

Hundreds and hundreds of tiny mirror panels on that ball ricocheted magic onto the tent walls as a love ballad (like Theme From A Summer Place) would play out over the sound system.  Diamond flecks of light, from that mirror ball, turned everyone and everything into moving jewels for that special skating moment.  One of the big romantic hits of that day was the ballad called “Johnny Angel” by Shelley Fabares.  Young lovers, that evening, melded together on those roller skates as they were transported by these lilting songs and for a few moments were caught up in their own dreamworld of love.  It was a sweet moment, as I recall it.

Not only did the young folk of our town enjoy roller skating, but, it turns out, the roller rink was a magnet that drew most of our town’s teenage culture out to show off their latest cars and motorcycles.  Spinner hubcaps, foam dice hanging from rear view mirrors and sparkling paint jobs made the parking lot next to the Kee Lanes Bowling Alley the place to be to enjoy cordial conversations as the now night winds carried the sounds of laughter, music and roller skates into the heart of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

August 17th...”IN MINNESOTA DAYS, WHAT CHORE ON YOUR FARM SEEMED OVERWHELMINGLY LARGE?”

“Son, today you’re gonna walk the beans.”   When my father, Russell, shared my chore for that day, my mouth hung, open-jawed, in amazement!  Other farm families may have called this endeavor “weeding” or “hoeing”, but on our farm, it was simplified to the term, “walking the beans”.  Why did we have to “walk the beans”?   Here’s why.

It was considered good farming practice to alternate your field crops at least every other year.  By doing so, this method, called crop rotation, would give soil the opportunity to ‘rest up’ from needing to give the same nutrients to the same crop all the time, thus depleting (or starving) the soil of the mineral foods it had in its potential to nourish a given planting to its best performance.

The only drawback to this way of farming was that unwanted volunteer plants (from the previous year’s crop) would germinate and begin growing ‘wild’ into the current crop, which in this case was a field of soybeans that Dad had planted earlier that spring.

In our father’s days of farming, near Kiester, Minnesota, herbicide usage (which are chemicals that kill weeds) was still in its infancy, so most farmers would remove weeds and unwanted volunteer corn by hand.  Of course, it wasn’t just “me, myself and I” that walked the beans, oftentimes my dad and big brother would join as a trio of weeding troubadours.  Some farmers would hire a whole crew of young folk to form a line across a field and be like a human machine as they’d chop, pull or hoe out weeds and corn from the soybeans.

Entering the first row of soybeans, we’d have our tool of choice with us and began walking down those seemingly endless rows that resembled green corduroy fabric across the ebony-rich landscape.  When we’d come to a renegade corn plant, or milk weed, etc., it was either chopped out by a long machete knife, pulled out by hand or was dug out with a hoe.  The major philosophy behind “walking the beans” was to keep your bean field clean of any weeds or corn so that when harvest came in the fall, it would be a ‘pure’ gathering of the best beans so that our dad could then sell that cash crop to the local grain elevator in Kiester.

If we ignored the unwanted volunteer corn in our soybean field, it (and other weeds) would overtake and ruin the purity of the field in that the harvest that fall would NOT be purely soybeans only.  The cleaner the field, the better the yield at harvest time.

Soybeans, when they’re young, resemble Garden Peas.  In Asian countries, people eat these young beans and they’re called, Edamame.  On our Minnesota farm, though, our father waited till the soybeans reached their full maturity and had dried inside their pod to a hard, golden yellow before harvesting them in the fall months.   There are so many uses for soybeans in our world; from food to eat, soy candles and all the way to being used in facial cosmetics.  So you see, this was an excellent cash crop for our dad to plant almost every year.

From one end of the spectrum, the chore of “walking the beans” was so overwhelming for this young farm boy.  The sheer size of the many acres that Dad had planted seemed endless.  On the happier end of that spectrum, though, being out in that field was like being on the waves of a giant ‘green ocean’ on those perfectly windy Minnesota afternoons.  Looking across those endless rows of corduroy green, I could enjoy the undulating effects of the prairie winds as these ‘green waves’ would flow and bow to the bidding of that wind.  It was as if the giant, invisible fingers of God, Himself, came down in His wind to caress these acres that He had brought to life there on the Noorlun farm as He had done for many decades in the life of our family.

As I look back, I’m deeply grateful for the exercise that toughened my young boy body and the opportunity to help Dad to make an agricultural living to support this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

August 16th…“WERE YOU EVER SO SAD THAT YOU TRIED TO RUN AWAY FROM YOUR FARM AND FAMILY IN MINNESOTA?”

One summer day, on our farm there in southern Minnesota, it didn’t seem to matter which way I’d turn.   Growl, growl this from one parent or growl, growl that from the other parent.   I was in deep trouble and felt so sad and low that I had to look UP at mud puddles.

At that moment, in my sullen little life, I saw flashbacks to television shows I had seen about youngsters in trouble, like I was that day.   The young actor, on that particular TV show, would be so fed up with being in trouble from adults around him, that he’d decide he was gonna run away from his problems and become a hobo and steal rides on the railroad trains.  As that television family drama would unfold, the young actor would find a large bandanna (BIG handkerchief) and load it with various foods, etc. to take along on his journey of running away.  To carry the bandanna, he’d get a long stick and tie the bandanna of goodies to the end of said stick and fling it over his shoulder.  I guess you could say that it was a very light suitcase, so to speak.

It got to the point, that day, that I employed the old pity party saying of, “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms!!”   As those TV show scenes flashed into my childish crafting cranium, I thought, “THAT’S IT!!!…..If they don’t love and appreciate me around this farm, I’ll RUN AWAY!!!” 

 

I chose the biggest red bandanna I could find in the house that day.  It was filled with crackers, cheese, etc..   Next, I found a big stick to tie my stash onto and I was about ready to RUN!  Feeling lower than a mud puddle, I slunkered sadly down the south driveway, with my lunch over my shoulder and dejectedly kicked stones as I trudged down the gravel road leading south from our farm place.  As I woefully ambled along, I’m thinking to myself, “I’ll sure show THEM!!!  They’ll be heartbroken when they realize that I’m gone and will never come back HERE AGAIN!!”

As my farm boots shuffled along the gravel road beneath me, I began contemplating my new life on the road.   It wasn’t long before I was passing the pasture land where our father kept our dairy herd during the daytime to graze before coming in for evening milking.  I figured I’d take my first rest break in what I thought would be a thousand mile trek that awaited this forlorn road refugee.  I slid down off the gravel road and ventured out in to our pasture until I found a “chair” in the form of a clump of saw-blade swamp grass.   Besides, my tummy said it was time to enjoy some tasty yummies from that bandanna of goodies.  Those crackers n cheese were pretty scrumptious as I’d watch neighbor farmers drive by our property on their tractors or pickup trucks as they passed over Brush Creek Bridge.

As I contemplated leaving home, for the road and beyond, I mused over the many times that I had come to this cool, meandering flow of water that coursed from east to west along the southern boundaries of my father’s farm property.   Catching crawdads, tadpoles, and even an occasional bullhead (catfish) could be enjoyed below the bridge of this tributary of a tiny river that would eventually empty into the mighty Mississippi River over 150 miles to the east.

Turns out, my dog “Spotty” had seen me escaping from way up at our farmyard.  Those four Terrier legs of his were pumping like a steam engine as he raced all the way down our gravel road and into the pasture where I was taking my first break of a thousand miles.  How true and faithful was his puppy love and friendship to me as he arrived finding me in tears and crying.  “Spotty” could just sense that I needed some loving, so he began to slobber kiss my face till I just couldn’t help but smile again.  At least HE loved me!!!

As the afternoon in the pasture passed, we two buddies sat there, and sat there and SAT THERE!!   Having taken for granted the amenities of a home life, I realized there was no television to watch, no home cooking to smell in the kitchen anymore and not even any “Richie Rich” comic books to read.  The only thing I had was “Spotty” and clouds of mosquitoes that were starting to eat me for THEIR supper.  I had already eaten everything in my runaway rucksack and I had become bored.  New notions were entertained of second thoughts of the validity of this so called “new life on the road”.

“Well”, I thought to myself, “I’ll give Mom and Dad just one more chance to be nice to me!”   So, with my deflated ego, I picked up the deflated bandanna pouch, threw away the long stick and headed for my farmyard and home.  And ya know what?  As “Spotty” and I walked up the driveway, expecting accolades of, “OHHHH SWEETHEART, WHERE WERE YOU?  WE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!”  NOT!!!  No one even knew I had left in the first place.   Farm life went on as normal.  Looking back, that was actually a very GOOD thing; for in those days, the family and societal unions were so strong, that farm kids could be out for all day into the evening without parents ever worrying of their darlings being kidnapped by any bad guys.

As far as the parental growling that day, I should have remembered Proverbs 3:12.   Mom and Dad truly loved me and only would correct me on life issues because they DELIGHTED in me!!  My tiny boy pride had taken over and I thought I would punish them by running away, when all I needed to do was lovingly eat some “humble pie” and be obedient to those who LOVE me.   So says the runaway Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

August 15th…“AS A LITTLE BOY, ON YOUR FARM IN MINNESOTA, DID YOU ENJOY CLIMBING TREES?”

POEM – “Sights On The Heights” by N. Elliott Noorlun

I had my sights on the heights, To climb our trees,

Ever since I was the size, Of a lil bee’s knees.

Since I was as short, As a “bug in a rug”,

I’d give that branch, A spunky tug.

Up I’d go, And climb to the sky,

To see a new view, For this lil guy.

T’was before computers, And smart cell phones,

That blink n whistle, And give off tones.

So to pass the time, And without a word,

I’d climb to listen, To the “tone” of a bird.

The world looked different, From way up there,

As the wind would tousle, My blonde head of hair.

I’d hang on tight, On a strong windy day,

As the power of God, Made branches sway.

I loved the aloneness,  Of my kingdom up high,

As I named off shapes, Of the clouds in the sky.

There were times I’d take, Along my knife,

To carve my initials, In the tree trunk’s life.

Or just settle in, To a branch’s wedge,

To relax and rest, Without falling from the ledge.

I’m sure young muscles, Must have grown,

From the stretching and pulling, My body had known.

For to get to the height, Of the tallest tree,

Took every bit of grunt, From little ol’ me.

Our orchard held, The tastiest glee,

As I’d climb to eat, From each various tree.

Oh the apples I’d eat, To please this guy,

As I’d watch Dad below, Drive our tractors by.

Then the pear tree next, So sweet they were,

They tickled my lips, With their little pear fur.

Even though Pine Trees, Be they sticky with sap,

Were a height to conquer, As I made my “map”.

I’d crawl to the center, Beneath lowest branch,

And then with my saw, I took my chance.

I sawed my way, Along center trunk,

No matter the sap, And all that bunk.

No other short squirt, Got as high as I,

When I climbed a tree, To touch the sky!!! 😉

 

 

August 14th…“TELL US ABOUT YOUR BOYHOOD BEDROOM ON THE FARM IN MINNESOTA DAYS”

That lilting tune still floats through the portals of my heart strings…..“There’s a world where I can go and tell my secrets to, In my room, In my room” .   The Beach Boys (a surfer rock n roll band) never visited our Minnesota farm, yet one of their songs, “In My Room” touched my young boy’s heart regarding the specialness of the space known as our upstairs boy’s bedroom.    Nestled cozily, at the top of a narrow wooden staircase, was the male domain of us Noorlun brothers.  Not long after I was booted outta the baby crib, I joined my big brother, Lowell, (and later my cousin) as we created our own “guy’s kingdom” in the tiny space of roughly a 6 foot by 8 foot room.  I remember that the room was so small that, from the edge of our bed, there was a mere pathway along the stairwell railing banister for our sisters to walk along to get to their bedroom (which was massive in comparison).

 

 

 

I sometimes think that poor VERY OLD bed of ours may have been a swaybacked horse in a previous life (just teasing, of course).  The box spring mattress was so worn out, that there was a lengthwise “valley” that we brothers inevitably rolled down into each night in man-mangled mayhem.

 

 

What easily made up for the swaybacked bed were our beloved mother’s heavy and laced-with-love quilts.  In the frozen wintertime of southern Minnesota, Mom would pile our bed thick with her “one ton” quilts that easily captured our body heat to keep us warm and comfortable as we slept at night.  The only room heat that we got upstairs in our farm home, was from the floor vent (called a grating) that allowed some heat to flow up from our downstairs Living Room.

Our bedroom window was a single-hung design where the lower sash (or section) could be lifted up a tracking to let in cooling breezes in the summer months.   Two panes of simple glass were in the top of the window and two simple panes of glass in the lower sash of the window.   Since our farm home was built back in the 1800’s, there was no such thing as “thermal pane” windows in those days.   Here, in the dead of winter, our father attached what were called “storm windows” over our window to keep out some of the below zero temperatures.  Yet, even with the “storm windows” that Dad installed,  we boys would wake up in the morning to see what “Jack Frost” had “painted”, in ice, on our “glass easels”.  On some particularly frozen mornings, you couldn’t even see anything outside of our windows due to the thick ice crustations on that thin sheet of glass.

It was one thing, in the life of our boy’s bastion, to be cozy under Mom’s quilts during the night………but it was a whole ‘nother story to brave those bone-chilling mornings and get OUT of that perfect womb of a bed and face the task of baring your body to our super cold room temps.  So, upon waking, I would either drag my clothes under the blankets to dress in that subterranean warmth……or…..I’d leap out of bed, at the speed of light, and yank my clothes on over my quickly freezing lil body!!!  After the goose pimples had receded all over my body from layers of clothing covers, I would then have a playtime at the frozen window by scratching pictures, words or my name in the thick frost……..just for fun!

For whatever reasons, I was born with a very prolific imagination.  Sometimes, I think that imagination got the best of me when, at night in my room, I’d lay in bed and see what appeared to be a claw-like hand on the ceiling of my bedroom.  The downstairs door was usually left open a bit and some of the light, from the Living Room, radiated upstairs.  I can’t help but wonder if my jokester daddy was down there making shadows with his hand to scare this little kid…………if so, it REALLY worked!

A tender bedroom moment remains to this day of our beloved mother, Clarice, who would stand at the base of the stairwell each evening, after ushering her tiny ones upstairs.  My sister, Candice, and I would climb into our respective beds and bring our hands to the prayer position as Mom would help us recite our family’s version of a bedtime prayer.  Our diminutive child voices would softly recite………“Now I lay me, Down to sleep, I pray the Lord, My soul to keep.  If I should die, Before I wake, I pray the Lord, My soul to take.  Amen ><> 

What a sweet mother we had, and such happy bedroom memories for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

 

 

 

 

August 13th…“WERE YOU EVER HIRED TO DO A JOB YOU KNEW NOTHING ABOUT?”

POEM – “Hired To Be Fired”  by N. Elliott Noorlun

I was hired to be fired, By electricity,

As I stood in line, At the office that day, And the foreman pointed at me.

“YOU, you’re an electrician!”, Was what the Boss Man said,

And here, my very first day on the job, Was this something I would dread?

Nobody else had raised their hand, I suppose he had no choice,

Than to point to any person’s body,  And exercise his voice.

“Shasta Travel Trailers”, Was where I went to work,

Back in the Summer of ’72, For this young teenage jerk.

Two dollars and twenty two cents an hour, Was a fair amount of money,

Back in the days, It was one of the ways, Of income for this sonny.

“Follow me!”, said my new boss, “We’ll show you how to do it!”,

From running wires, To avoiding fires, And bending the conduit!”

My buddy, Ray, Also hired that day, We both got educated,

In how to make, A trailer LIGHT UP, And keep our boss elated.

There was crusty old Pete, The assembly line boss, Whose choice of words were crass.

Today his comments would’ve gotten him fired, As he’d embarrass boy and lass.

When things went right, the trailer would LIGHT, “No news is good news”, right?

But sometimes inspector, Would call us to see, What made her wanna fight.

A staple popped through, A cabinet wall, Or wiring was wrong,

They’d have to tear, This trailer apart, Which would cost a pretty song.

But as weeks went by, This inept guy, Got better at wiring a “Shasta”.

Till new job came, With more money n fame, And promised a better “here afta”! 😉

August 12th…“WHAT WAS THE WILDEST TIME YOU EVER HAD IN DEALING WITH STINGING INSECTS?”

It was gonna be either ME or the BEE…..well, in this case they were hornets.  My opinion is worth just 2 cents, but from my angle, hornets are the “Nasty Neds” of the stinging world.  They seem to have a yearning to do battle with anyone or anything that gets near them.

Throughout the tenure of my 31 years of custodial service in the Battle Ground School District, by far the happiest of those years were spent as Head Custodian at Glenwood Heights Primary School.  We were a real family of staff, students and community there!

It was only natural then, to lovingly guard my “family” from harm as the day came along when a very large hornet nest was discovered in the courtyard between the wings of our U-shaped school facility.  Hundreds of children (some allergic) were at risk of being stung, so someone had to do something…….the job fell to me.

In my days as a custodian, we were expected to give first responder service whether that was in trying to fix the roof, a toilet or, in this case, try to kill a giant nest of these over-sized cousins to a wasp.  Hornet’s nests are shaped like a football (of sorts) and this one was easily TWICE the size of a big football.  There it was, up in that Birch Tree with, who knows how many, hundreds of hornets inside.   What would be my plan of action and how could I keep from getting multiple stings to my “tender parts” in the process of eliminating this menace?

In checking my armory, I found two full cases of long-shot, kill on contact, insecticide.  This chemical cannonry had an aerosol bazooka strength that fired a jet stream of killer poison up to 20 feet away.  Thankfully, on that exciting day, I had worn a thick leather jacket to school, so that was my first piece of armor to go on my body.  Next came leather gloves and safety glasses.  I then zip-tied my pants legs shut, so no bad guys would fly up my legs to sting me in regions that REALLY mattered 😉  And, to “top” things off, I just happened to have a thick winter cap with ear flaps that I put on with the ear flaps covering my ears.

Just like an Army General, I developed and carried out my “plan of attack”.   It was already the warm month of May, and with my battle gear all in place, I was already drenched in sweat with all this “armor” that I was wearing.   But, I figured, “an ounce of prevention is worth a POUND of cure”.   So, out to the battle ground I marched with my two full cases of long shot spray.  I shook up the contents of at least 8 cans of hornet spray to have them pre-charged as I went into this foray with the hornets.

As the battle commenced, my attack consisted of always having a can of killer spray in each hand and double-firing them into the nest openings.  Hornets began dropping from the nest like a waterfall, but many of them escaped and were dive-bombing me from all directions!!!  As a can of killer spray went empty, I’d toss it far away from the area and pick up another “gun” from the case and continue firing away at these little sky devils.  I was spinning in circles as I’d hit the closest attackers with a blast and see him “bite the dust”…..all the while, with each body spin, I’d still be firing into the main portal of the hornet nest to soak it with killer juices.

The noise was impressive as hundreds of these fierce sky fighters buzzed past my ears on their attempt to kill this giant attacking human.  I emptied at least a dozen, or more, cans of insecticide before the final warriors of that nest were either on the ground dead, or had flown away from the area in defeat.  When the nest no longer showed signs of life, I used long-handled pruners to cut it down from the tree and threw it away in our dumpster to be hauled away the next morning.

Amazingly, I had not suffered even one sting in the course of the battle.  My only only consequence from that mini-war was a very fast heart rate and being completely soaked in sweat from the various components of “armor” I had been wearing.   That was one ZINGER of an adventure for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.  😉