June 12th…“WERE YOU EVER CHASED BY AN ANIMAL?”

The sparkling summer of 1975 held many an adventure for myself and Shirley Cass (the young lady I was courting).  One outing of fun had me pointing my Midnight Bronze ’72 Chevy Malibu westward and towards the Pacific Ocean coastline of SW Washington State.  We would soon approach and enjoy the areas near the town of Ilwaco.

The weather was crystal clear that day and the sky was ruled by a buoyant sunshine that cheered us on in our exploring of Gods’ lovely ocean with its magnificent coastline and also by taking in the history of this part of the Northwest.  One of the stops that day held a double delight in that the Lewis & Clark  Interpretive Center was built, literally, on top of the old Coastal Artillery Emplacement known as Fort Canby.

After soaking up history of the Lewis & Clark Expedition inside the Interpretive Center, we stepped out into that glorious summer day and also meandered through the old coastal artillery ruins of Fort Canby that lay dormant beneath the Interpretive Center.  Between the 1860’s and right up to the end of World War II, these “disappearing” giant “rifle” emplacements were intended to protect the mouth of the mighty Columbia River from any invading naval enemy forces that may attack our nation from the Pacific Ocean.

It was a fun-filled day after hiking to Cape Disappointment Lighthouse, seeing old Fort Canby and touring the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. We then climbed into my Chevy Malibu and followed those serpentine roads around the peninsula and eventually came into the outskirts of the seaside town of Ilwaco.  As we cruised past one viewpoint, we were impressed with the stately looking fleet of fishing boats down in the Ilwaco Harbor.  I thought it would be grand to get a photo of that pleasant scene of the fishing fleet to celebrate our fun day together.   Parking about 40 yards down the street, I had Shirley remain in the car while I, in my cowboy boots, hiked back to the viewpoint for a photograph.

As I reached the viewpoint, intending to take that photograph of the fishing fleet, I had noticed, in my peripheral vision, an elevated hillside residence behind me.  What I did NOT notice, in that quick glance, was the GIGANTIC Great Dane “dog monster” that lay on the lawn of that home.  As I brought my camera to eye level for that scenic shot, my ears discerned the bass, bellicose blast of a dog (or better yet, a canine HORSE) with a carnivorous look on its ferocious face.  That monster dog launched himself from the lawn of that front yard above me and made a beeline right for this human who had dared to venture into his doggy domicile domain.

Even though my cowboy boots were not intended as “track shoes”, that day they did the boot scootin’ boogie as my legs rocketed this young buck in the direction of my car……and, at Norwegian “light speed”, too!!!!  With that meat munching mongrel hot on my heels, I ripped open my driver’s door and leaped inside to safety; depriving that “Dining Dane” of his man meal!!!  After such a wild chase, my young heart was pounding like a trip hammer and felt like it was going to pop right out of my chest!!!  Yet, once having regained my breath and composure, Shirley and I had a rip-roaring good laugh over the dangerous, yet hilarious incident.  That truly was one “dog gone” good adventure for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.  😉

June 11th…“WHAT WAS THE HARDEST AND HEAVIEST JOB YOU GOT PAID FOR DURING YOUR FARM YEARS IN MINNESOTA?”

The Ozmun family knew me when I was ‘knee high to a grasshopper’ back in 1954 when I entered the world.   It was sweetly common for neighboring farmers to get together for picnics in those days and our families enjoyed that local tradition with all the gentle bonding of friends as was common once in American rural life.

In one photo, from our family’s collection, I’m so tiny that I’m sitting on top of a picnic table and being fed by the Ozmun’s daughter, Janet (in the photo to the right here), whom I’m told was ‘in love’ with this little pug-nosed Norwegian baby.  The only thing that was strong about me in those days, was the smell of my diapers!!!  😉  Later in life, I’d be able to show the strength of my young muscles and earn some dollars, too.

A decade, or so, of time passes and Kurt Kephart, my farm neighbor pal, joined me on the bridge that hovered over Brush Creek just south of our farm.  As we hung over the bridge railing, enjoying the view of the creek below, Chet Ozmun came along driving a magnificent team of massively large Percheron Draft Horses pulling a flat bed farm wagon.  After a powerful pull on the reins to stop his team, Chet said, “How would you boys like to earn some money working for me?”  That deep, bass voice of his matched the muscled girth of that gentle giant of a farmer.  With a glance and a nod to each other, it took only a second for us boys to respond in unison, “Sure thing, Mr. Ozmun!!”   Chet smiled from our affirmative answer and said, “Very good, then, I’ll get final permission from your parents and I’ll see you two youngsters at my farm bright and early tomorrow morning.”

Since the Ozmun home place was less than a half mile from our farm, I started the hike down the gravel road the next morning and met Kurt coming down an adjoining road from his farm.  Now even though our boss for the day was a big man, Chet’s Percheron Stallions made him appear as a dwarf and were like walking mountains!!!  As he brought each enormous equine from their barn, they would lift their massive hooves to step over the threshold timbers across the doorway.   Oftentimes, their hooves would strike that threshold with such weight, that it would cause the entire structure of that barn to quake and shudder by the impact.  Although I was fearful of the crushing power of these behemoth horses, I was also captivated by their powerful beauty.

Our hilly area of southern Minnesota was part of a glacial moraine left over from the Ice Age of ancient times.  Basically, that means that as the glaciers melted and receded, they left behind large amounts of rocks across these farm lands, especially the hillsides.  Those rocks would range in size from the small dimensions of baseballs, all the way up to basketball size and even major boulders.  Since rocks could do significant damage to farm equipment, those rocks had to be picked up from the ground and hauled off to piles or to local gravel pits to be crushed.

The job for Kurt and I was to walk along each side of Chet’s horse-drawn wagon and pick up any large rocks from the field.  The smaller stones were o.k. to chuck and throw them into the wagon, at first, but oftentimes, we ‘d come upon monster size rocks that would take both of our combined strength to heave those gargantuan slabs onto the flatbed wagon.  Seeing that we were struggling to keep up with the moving wagon, Chet would holler, “Whoa!”, to his team and he’d wait till we cleared each field area of its stone rubble population.

Around the noon hour, Chet’s very kind wife, Violet, treated us to a scrumptious farmer’s dinner in their quaint farm home kitchen.  We washed down those tasty mouthfuls of grub with ice cold lemonade and were very grateful for the meal.  During that midday meal with the Ozmuns, I was fascinated to watch old Chet as he ate his pork chops on that enormous dinner plate.  In those days, butchers left all the fat on the pork chop.  The family then had the option to either eat it, or cut it off and toss it in the trash.  Like a doctor in surgery, I watched in amazement as Chet cut away the fat from the periphery of that piece of tasty meat.  After he downed the meat, potatoes, strings beans, etc…….lastly, as if he was saving the BEST for last, he gathered all that fat on his plate and ate it as if it were a dessert, savoring each mouthful of pure fat.  Wowsa!!!  Not ME!!  I cut the fat away from my pork chops that day, as well, only I left mine on the plate to be thrown away.

Another three or four hours of picking rocks with Mr. Ozmun were ahead of us after we finished with that wonderful meal.  Both Kurt and myself were thoroughly exhausted by the end of that day.  Not only did we have to load the wagon with rocks, but then had to UNload each wagon back in the woods of the Ozmun’s tree windbreak.   Even though I don’t recall the exact amount of our paychecks that day, it was yet another chapter in how to make a dollar for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 10th…“WHAT WAS THE MOST UNIQUE JOB YOU EVER GOT PAID TO DO IN YOUR MINNESOTA DAYS?”

A brisk Minnesota wind brought the bleating sound of sheep to my ears as Dad brought our old 1950 Ford pickup to a stop in the yard of our next door farm neighbor, Louie Heitzeg.  The Heitzeg family lived on a spacious farm just to the north of our home place.  At my budding age of 12 years (in 1966), Louie was about to hire me to assist him in the shearing of his flock of sheep.  I was thrilled to make a few dollars of my own and even more intrigued by the process of this major haircut that was about to take place on these wobbly woolies that were gathered in his very large barn.  I had a deep respect and almost brotherly admiration for Mr. Heitzeg.  You see, this dear man is EXACTLY 20 years my senior, having also been born on January 14th; only he was born in 1934 and I was new to the world in 1954.  Without fail, every year, Louie’s beautiful wife Barbara, would get me a birthday card and often times the both of them would stop by our home to see that his little “birthday brother” would be made to feel special on OUR common, shared day of birth.

I’ll bet the sheep actually appreciated the shearing that they were about to receive.  Their thick coat of wool must have made them unbearably hot in the muggy Minnesota summer.  Besides, for the Heitzeg family, this was another form of income to be earned in their farming business by selling that wool at a nearby market that would buy those type of goods.  Every dollar this good man of the soil could earn helped in maintaining their farming lifestyle on that handsome acreage that was handed down to them over the generations since their family came from Germany long ago.

Louie was a gentle teacher in this new adventure for me in learning to deal with wool.  The fragrance of sheep was in the air as we walked into their giant barn and he began to acquaint me with what was going to happen.  Louie shared that as he would use his electric shears to cut the wool from the sheep’s body,  I was to stand by to pack the wool into a wooden device that was a baler, of sorts.  I recall the contraption was made out of wood and was flat on the ground.  Kinda like a cardboard box that had been split at the corners and laid flat out on the floor.  Each of those hinged sides had two slits cut into it that would allow baling twine (cut to certain lengths) to be threaded through the slits and, when finished doing the set up, those twines lay in a double crisscross pattern.

When each sheep had been shorn clean of their wool, it was now my turn to bend over to gather that soft mass of wool in my arms and place it on top of that flat, wooden baler.  After a couple masses of wool had been placed on the baler, it was now my responsibility to bring up the hinged sides of this device to squeeze the soft mound of wool down into the box that now took form by the folding up of those wooden sides.  I seem to recall a small latch hook was clicked into an eye screw to hold the hinged box together against the pressure of that wool for the next baling procedure.  Now, I’d pull up the lengths of baling twine, that were waiting in the slots, and tied them off tight at the top of the bale.  With a bale of wool completed, I could now release the hook latch to allow the hinged wooden “box” to fall back flat to the floor of the barn, ready for the next batch of wool.

What really was imprinted in my memory, that day, was the learning that wool contains lanolin.  Lanolin is used in so many products, like cosmetics, pharmacy products, skin care, etc..  One thing about this substance is that it is slippery, oily and almost of a fatty nature.  Over time, that day, after handling so much wool, I had acquired a lot of lanolin that was transferred to my hands.  So much so, that I could hardly grip the twines to tie off each bale.  I tried to wipe off the excess on my jeans, but it just made them slippery too.   Overall, though, I truly enjoyed earning some money, being with my birthday twin, and learning some new things for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 9th...”WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST STEADY JOB?

Quaking like a leaf in my teenage shoes, I stepped through the front doors of Al & Ernie’s Foodliner and into the new chapter of my very first real employment…….I was to be a grocery store “Box Boy”.  It was the summer of 1970 and I had just finished my 10th Grade (Sophomore) year at Battle Ground High School in Battle Ground, Washington.  Up to this point in life, I had generated sporadic income, in meager amounts, by odd jobs like helping farmers bale hay, trapping animals for their bounty or fur, mowing lawns, etc..  But THIS, this was to be a bona-fide, get paid, show up on time JOB!  My young Norwegian head was spinning from being shown all there was to know about the grocery business by the owner of the store, Alvie Dunning, and his Assistant Manager, Ron Lahmann.

Handsome Ron Lahmann had also started out as a Box Boy for Alvie Dunning (the owner of Al & Ernie’s) during his high school years in the late 1950’s.  After his high school days were completed, Ron continued to work for and stayed by Alvie over the many years and had worked his way up in the business to being Butcher for the store and Assistant Manager (eventually becoming the store owner).   In my era of this new generation, it was now MY turn to learn the ropes in the ways of running at least some of the aspects of a grocery business……from the perspective of a teenager, at least.

As a Box Boy, I had to learn to grab boxes (or paper bags) and fill them properly with groceries and then to carry those groceries out to cars for the customers and, of course, thank them for their business.  Ron (and other employees) taught me how to properly stock shelves and always rotate fresh items to the rear of the shelf with the older items to the front to be sold first.  The next phase of learning scared me to death, since I’ve always been poor at mathematics.  My BIG scare was to begin training in how to run the old-fashioned cash register and return proper change to the customers.  I struggled so miserably in those early money matters until sweet Marian Gans (Head Cashier) said, “Here, let me show you a trick.  Elliott, don’t try to do subtraction, just start with the amount of the sale and then add money up to the amount that the customer gave you.”  THAT made my money-changing nightmare ease up considerably.

I received many a call, over those next two years, to clean up a customer’s spills and even MY OWN spills around the store.  Many products were still housed in glass containers, instead of plastics like today, and would slip out of someone’s hands and CRASH all over the floor.  My marvelous mentor, Marian Gans, came to my rescue again with tips of how to make floor mopping faster and get things back to safety for our customers.

Alvie Dunning’s eldest daughter had found love and marriage while I was employed there at the store.  She, and her tall handsome husband, had just returned from their honeymoon and were about to set up their first home together.  Those two lovebirds went up and down the aisles of her daddy’s grocery store and filled up at least FIVE shopping carts to overflowing with everything you could imagine to start their new home.  The price?  About $75.00!!!!(which would be $586 in 2023 currency)   At the time, I was shocked, as I packed all the boxes and paper bags full of everything from A to Z.   But, nowadays?  You can carry just ONE bag out of a grocery store and still see $75.00 fly out of your wallet.  Wow, how times have changed!!!

Not only was it nice to get a whole $1.60 an hour, while working at Al & Ernie’s Foodliner, but I also got the pleasure of numerous adventures in the everyday life of that place of business.  The store was located across the street from one of the town’s taverns, there on East Main Street in Battle Ground, Washington.   Sometimes, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, rather colorful characters from the tavern would stagger, stupefied, into the store to grab a few groceries before “pouring themselves” into their car for a precarious drive home.   One “pickled personality” stood out on an evening when this toothless, short, fat old man tripped and wobbled through the two glass doors of our grocery store.  With wayyyy too many beers “under his belt”, his sights were not set on just the tomatoes on the Produce Display; his sights were set on his version of a “hot tomato” and that was our pleasantly plump Cashier lady, Marian Gans.

The scene that transpired before me was absolutely comical as he sloshed his beer-soaked, bib-overalled body behind the cashier’s counter and began “pitching the woo” to our beloved and portly Marian.  “Awww, come on, Marian, howsh about a kisshy poo?, Hmmm?”  Not seeing any imminent danger from this old guy, who was a regular customer, I had left the front of the store to head to the back room for my nightly chores and sweeping.  Being the only customer in the store, the drunk old man stepped up his amorous attraction to Marian, and the next thing you know, he began to pursue our Marian up and down the aisles of the store to get his “kish” from her.  “Elliott!! Help!!”, Marian called, as her fluffy body wiggled n jiggled with every flopping trot she’d make as she’d try to make her getaway from this old, ugly, alcoholic admirer.  Standing behind the meat counter in the Butcher Shop, I’d respond with a giggle, “Awwww, Marian, you don’t need ME!  Besides, he’s too drunk to catch ya anyway!!”  Sure enough, pretty soon I heard the inebriated old codger stammer in a huffing and puffing voice, “Awwww phooooey!!  Yer no fun, Marian, I’m gonna go home!!”  Out those glass double doors he spilled into the night and he was gone.

From its inception in the late 1940’s, to my era, and to even having our son work for Ron Lahmann at Al & Ernie’s Foodliner,  that dear grocery store was not only a resource for family food needs in our town, but was also a social hub where friends could meet and enjoy each other’s company as they’d “shoot the breeze” with Ron, Marian, Margie and others that made this whole grocery store experience a golden one for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 8th…“DID AN ANIMAL EVER TEACH YOU A LESSON IN HUMILITY WHILE GROWING UP ON YOUR FARM IN MINNESOTA?”

Considering their size, Shetland ponies are some of the strongest horses in the world and are capable of pulling over twice their own body weight.  They are also very intelligent.  When “Little Lady” came to live on our farm, I sensed a loyal heart within her and we became fast friends.  She was an equine beauty and almost always wanted to please me………except once.

“Little Lady”, with her high intelligence, seemed to know that I was about to ‘show off’, one day, and she was determined to teach this young whippersnapper (me) a lesson.

I recall it was one of those perfect summer Minnesota days when Mom’s sister brought her clan over from Austin, Minnesota to enjoy some fun, food and fellowship.  Cousins Brenda, Valerie and Deanna were always so sweet to play with us and make memories together.  This day would be no exception to the rule, cause a memory in humbleness was in the making…..for me.

Since the cousins had come to MY farm, and since this farm was MY country boy domain, and since my cousins were CITY people…..well, I kinda felt like I was ‘king of the hill’……being the little snob that I was.   After all, it was ME who had a pony and not them, right?  Our group headed for the barn where I saddled “Little Lady” and led her outside.  We then began our walk west from the barn and out through our orchard to the alfalfa field that had recently been cut down and baled.  The ground there was flat, wide open and ideal for this haughty boy (me) to ‘strut my stuff’ with my pony and impress my girl cousins along with sister, Candice.  “Little Lady” seemed to sense that I was being a selfish ‘Mr. Ego’ kid as I set my foot to stirrup and swung up into her saddle.  “Lady” and I had enjoyed many a fast gallop in the past, so I knew she could fly like the wind, but today was going to be different.  I goosed the stirrups into her sides and yelled a loud, “Heeeyaaawww!” to command her to run.  She took off at a fast pace, alright, but things began to go wrong, QUICK!

Flying like a bullet, she began to buck as she’d never bucked before……and at a RUN, no less!  Before I knew it, she had bucked me out of the saddle and up onto her neck.  Within a few more seconds, gravity took its course and I had now swung UNDER her neck….all the while, she was still bucking wildly!  My weight, hanging from her neck, was no match for her to be able to maintain her balance at a run much longer.  My sagging body had now begun making contact with her piston-pumping front legs.  I deserved a spanking and so I was being butt-battered by her knees!  Poor “Little Lady” couldn’t take it anymore as she tripped and down we went!!!  That pony did a head-over-heels somersault over the top of me.  As we hit ground, I quickly glanced up across the stubbled alfalfa, at ground level, and saw her large body land just inches from my head.  I would have been crushed to death by her weight if her fall had been just a few inches closer.

In the melee of the fall, “Little Lady’s” hoof had slammed into the back of my head and pierced the scalp which bled profusely.  Dazed as I got up, my cousins, who had witnessed my catastrophe from afar, were now running and arriving on scene from where I had left them at the edge of the alfalfa field.  Poor “Little Lady” got up from her fall and seemed to be alright, overall, as far as I could tell.  Like most farm boys, I was bare-chested during the warm summer months, therefore there were scratch marks all over my torso from the fall.  Still too stunned to ride again, we began the walk towards our farmyard as I led “Little Lady” behind me by her bridled reins.  One of my cousins called out, “Elliott, you’re bleeding!!!”  Sure enough, I had a rivulet of blood that had flowed from that scalp wound, down and around my left shoulder and the crimson flow was now cascading down the center of my chest.  Reaching back with my hand to check the wound site, I could now feel a dent in the back of my head where my equine buddy had hit it with her hoof.  “Little Lady” had just taught me a lesson by making me ‘eat humble pie’ and, with the point of her hoof, had taken some ‘hot air’ outta the head of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 7th…“WAS THERE A PLACE, IN SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON, THAT TOUCHED HISTORY AS WELL AS YOUR FAMILY?”

The General Motors ignition key slid home into its slot with a metallic harmony as my Dad then gave it a twist and brought our 1967 Chevy II Nova to life.  With that 6 cylinder engine purring like a kitten, the good old-fashioned AM radio crackled to attention as we heard it play the latest Country hit (“Daddy Sang Bass”) by Johnny Cash which filled us all with a smile as we prepared to leave Battle Ground for a day long excursion to our favorite family place.

Being new to the Pacific Northwest (after having moved from the farmlands of Minnesota), our family had fallen in love with the grandeur of this majestic new land we called home.

Being a fan of history, that I was, I felt like I was a modern day Lewis & Clark rolled into one excited teenager.  Although, in our journey of discovery, we traveled with all the modern conveniences of freeway, new truck, etc..  Even so, I still marveled that we had traveled the 1,700 mile journey to Washington State to our new home in Battle Ground.  Therefore, being the impressionable youngster that I was, I began reading the journals of those amazing men and greatly identified with the fascinating adventures of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

Our whole family always looked forward to making the trip to that sandbar along the wide Columbia River near the town of Woodland, Washington.  Mom often brought along her stationery supplies and would sit comfortably up in our Chevy II Nova writing letters to family back home in the Midwest while Dad would carry his fishing gear down to the river’s shoreline and set up for what was known as Salmon “Splunking”.

Salmon “Splunking” likely got its name from the sound the lead weight would make when it hit the water after a fisherman cast his lures as far out into the river as he could.   Sportsmen would then stab a pole holder device into the sand along the shoreline and stick their pole into the holder.  One didn’t need to stand there with pole in hand all the time, because the idea was to be at the “bar” fishing when the tide was going back out to the ocean.  The current of the river was much faster then, and the movement of that current would make your choice of lure to “dance” in the water and hopefully attract a Salmon or Steelhead (large Rainbow Trout) fish.  Lastly, my Dad (and other fishermen) would hang a small bell from the pole so that when a fish would “strike”, and run with the lure, the movement would cause the pole to jerk, thus alerting the fisherman to run for his pole and “set the hook” into the fish’s mouth for a catch.

At times, our father was successful in catching a Salmon or Steelhead (a big Rainbow Trout) .  He always got a giggle out of showing his fishy finds off to our little nieces and nephews.   On any occasion, though, our family was thrilled just to enjoy the great outdoors and watch life along the river.  A jaw-dropping joy was to see the monstrously giant cargo ships that would ply the river on their way to, or from Portland, Oregon docks, and beyond.  Those massive, ocean going vessels pushed so much water aside from their passing that there would be rolling waves of water curling furiously onto the shorelines in their wake.

In those days, along the river, there were plenty of woods to explore and treasures to find for my younger sister, Candice, and this older brother.  And, when “nature called”, we’d just grab us a roll of toilet paper and find a secluded spot in those woods to “dooo” what comes naturally!! 😉

The windy wonders of this river were almost hypnotic to a boy who had spent his first 13 years on the flat farmlands of Minnesota.  Whether enjoying this place with cousins and friends, or all by myself, I was always captured in a time machine, of sorts, as I’d gaze across the sun-sparkled waters of that river and envision my heroes (Lewis & Clark) as their company of explorers navigated their thirteen dugout canoes down this very river and looked upon these same emerald hillsides that I now looked upon also.

Over the many years, Woodland Sandbar became a happy destination for future generations as my own young family came to enjoy days at the Columbia River.  We’d usually stop along the way to have a “snack attack” from a local gas station or food store, then on we’d go the rest of the way to play along that river, like I did when I was a teenager.  We’d all enjoy the peaceful abandon of that serene setting that allowed the symphony of the waters to play a tune for us as those waters would “kiss” the shoreline while the setting sun created liquid diamonds dancing across the now amber waves of that magic river.  Those times with family were poignant with simple pleasures in the abundance of simple play times and the simple wonderments of the beautiful world God had made for us to enjoy.   Sweet, still, are the river memories of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 6th…“AS A LITTLE BOY, WHERE WAS A FUN PLACE TO PLAY ON YOUR FARM?”

A new kindle of kittens could be heard meowing above the scuttle hatch that went upstairs to the haymow in our barn.  (For you young readers to grandpa’s stories here, the word haymow is pronounced with a cow sound, and not the the ‘hoe or Moe’ sound like when you mow your lawn.  The term comes from a German word that means a stack or pile of hay.  So, in essence, there can be a haymow out in the middle of a field, if that’s where the mow (or pile of hay) is at.)  Now, back to the story.

From the time I was old enough to hang onto the barn wall ladder’s rungs, I thrilled with every chance I could to climb up that barn wall ladder, through the haymow scuttle hatch and into the gigantic expanse of our barn’s haymow.   Our father, Russell, grew and harvested alfalfa (also known as lucerne) crops and his machine would bale them into rectangular bales (kinda like big, green plant ‘bricks’) that were used to feed our cows and other livestock during the long winters in Minnesota.  About three-fourths of the length of the haymow was used for storing those gazillion alfalfa bales clear up to the rafters of the barn roof.  The remaining one-fourth of the haymow was used to store the rectangular bales of golden yellow straw which were used for giving a soft floor covering to our livestock for a clean ‘bed’ to sleep on each night.  Straw was the term used to describe the remaining plant stalks from the golden fields of oats that our hard-working farmer father grew on our farm.  Oats were another type of feed for the many animals that lived there with us on the rich lands of southern Minnesota.

Sometimes, as I’d crest the top of the haymow ladder and enter into that realm of the barn, I could hear the ever so faint meows of a new batch of baby kittens that had just been born into our farm world.

Our dad LOVED to have the largest population of cats that he could acquire there in our barn and other farm buildings.  I can still hear Dad say, “I love all the cats we can get on this farm because they truly EARN their keep for us by hunting and killing off all the mice and rats they can find!!  Dogs?  They just bark and eat, so only one dog at a time is allowed on THIS farm.”   Our father had a very large and shallow, white porcelain bowl that was the designated ‘kitty cream cauldron’ (my description).  It was located at the corner by cow stall #15 on the way to the milk parlor.  Every morning and evening, Dad would call out loudly, “HERE KITTY, KITTY, KITTY!!!”  Cats would come from all over that barn and even within earshot from outside to gather around the perimeter of that ‘milk heaven’ as Daddy opened up a “Surge” milker and poured that bowl to the brim with warm, fresh milk right from the cow.  Pretty soon, the spaces around the bowl were occupied with felines galore.  Late-coming cats would crawl over the backs of other feline friends to get at the milk.  Those tardy cats usually got their heads drenched with the pouring fountain of milk from Dad’s milking machine.  They didn’t mind at all, though, cause the neighboring cats just began to lick the heads of their buddy till all the milk was gone off of that furry noggin’.

While the winter winds howled outside the barn, there, in the coziness of the haymow, I’d use my keen young ears to discern what direction those tiny meows were coming from in the soft straw bales.  Pretty soon, I’d eventually come upon the nest and see their momma kitty softly growling to warn me to stay away from her new babies for a while.   The amber glow, from the barn lights down below, illuminated the mother cat as she lay on her side.  Her litter of furry babies were lined up to her tummy and nursing with vigor!  Each one had found a nipple to nurse from and it was precious to watch those itsy bitsy kitty paws massaging mommy’s tummy, back and forth, to bring forth more milk for each little one to enjoy.  Both of our parents had trained us children to respect newborn kittens and their protective mother cats.  We were only to LOOK and NOT TOUCH the tiny ones until their eyes had opened completely and they had gained some strength from their mother’s milk.  If we picked up the kittens too early, our human scent would be on them and some mother cats would reject the little kitten and leave it to die.

On another visit to that same nest later, I’d see those kittens go from wobbly-footed to frisky and fun.  It was now that I could hold and play with them without worry.   There, nestled within the sweetly-scented straw bales, I’d get settled and just sit there, for what seemed like hours, as the kittens would get accustomed to my human presence and begin to freely play with each other.

Ohhh the antics and cavorting that those little balls of fur could get into.  “Hide And Seek” seemed to be a popular kitty game as one kitten would be around the corner of a straw bale and wait for an unsuspecting brother or sister to come sauntering by…..then,  that sneaky lil stinker would JUMP on top of the ‘victim’ with a happy pounce and they’d roll in the straw in wild abandon as they enjoyed their play fighting.

Such happy and furry memories take me back, once again, to the little boy’s gentle adventures of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

June 5th…“ON THE FARM IN MINNESOTA, DID YOU EVER DISOBEY AN ORDER FROM YOUR FATHER?  DID YOU SUFFER THE NATURAL CONSEQUENCES FOR THAT DISOBEDIENCE?”

A bitter winter wind rocketed across our prairie farm land there on a dark and frigid evening near Kiester, Minnesota.   Our father, before starting to milk our herd of Holstein cows, had loaded the manure spreader with a steaming pile of bilious bovine bowel blasts and gave me the order to take it out to the fields near our barn.  “Elliott, I want you to take the “H” Farmall tractor and spread that manure in the old stubbled cornfield southwest of the orchard.”

“If you need to, wet your finger and hold it up to check the direction of the wind when you get out to the field.  If necessary, drive the tractor and spreader to the end of the field, because you need to spread the load driving INTO the wind.”  

Stinging was the glacial wind against the skin of my face as I climbed aboard the “H” Farmall tractor and fired up the engine.  Being as black as that night was, I snapped the light switch to the ON position for the dual head lights and then let out the clutch as the “H”, the manure spreader and I lurched out into the frigid night.  The angled, raised rubber lugs of the tractor’s tires crunched against the snow-encrusted lane that ran parallel to our orchard and eventually I arrived at the former corn field that Dad had described back in the warmth of the barn.

I didn’t need a wet finger to discern the direction of the wind in that darkness.  It was a shrieking wind from out of the east, and was to my back, as I stopped my agricultural ensemble to decide my next step and engage the two handles for operation mode on the manure spreader.  Here’s where my DISobedience came into play.  I reasoned with myself (which was NOT a good idea), “Why bother going all the way to the end of the field?  It’s so cold!  I’ll just engage the spreader here and get this over with now, even if the wind IS to my back!”

So, with wrong decision made, I revved up the tractor engine, engaged the two handles that ran the manure spreader and launched out at a brisk pace down the field.  It wasn’t long, in the darkness, that I felt something soft n gooey hit me in the back of the head.  Then, I began to see brown cow chip dung flying past the tractor’s head lights.  OHHH MYYY GOODNESS!!!  My dad was wise AFTER ALL!  With that fierce east wind to my back, the majority of that stinking load of cow poo was being blown right over the top of me by that powerful winter wind.  YIKES!!!  Needless to say, I hit the brakes of that tractor, DISengaged the manure spreader levers, and then drove the “H” Farmall, myself and the remaining load of brown, bovine, bowel blasts to the far end of the old cornfield.  I then turned the “H” and the manure spreader INTO the wind and finished spreading the load of “fertilizer” like I had been TOLD to do in the first place.

Lesson?  Listen to the wisdom of your father……he’s been there, and done that, and has got the T-shirt, so to speak!  Another “life lesson” for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

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.