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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

January 2nd…”WHERE WERE YOU BORN?”

Before a farmer’s plow ever sank its silver blade into the fertile soil of southern Minnesota, the Sioux Indian Nation roamed those expansive lands upon the backs of their war ponies.

It is, in my personal musings of history, a theory that when these first Native Americans watered their horses in the nearby Blue Earth River, they must have gazed upon the soil strata on the river bank and perceived that the super rich soil actually had a blue cast in its color.  The Dakota Sioux named this river, “Mahkato Osa Watapa” (The River Where Blue Earth Is Gathered).  I will even surmise, in a poetical aspiration of sorts, that even the blue sapphire sky above these Midwest plains paid homage by bending down to kiss that part of the earth, thus rendering and transferring some if its heavenly color to the soil of Blue Earth, Minnesota  which is the city where this Norwegian Farmer’s Son was born on Thursday, January 14th, 1954.

My grand entrance into life began within the walls of Blue Earth Community Hospital.  Even though our family farm was about 25 miles to the southeast of here, this dear community of Blue Earth, Minnesota will always hold a special place in my heart as the starting place of this gift called LIFE!!!

The Bible’s Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 and Verse 1 & 2 proclaims that there was a season for me to be born into and thus I came to take my first breaths and vociferous cries within the bulwark of that fine medical facility.

One of the claims to fame of the town of my birth is that it is home to one of the large canning facilities of the “Jolly Green Giant Company”.  Local farming is prolific throughout south central Minnesota with crops of sweet corn, peas and other green abundance that fit perfectly to the needs of a nation that enjoys its vegetables.  My birth town is also home to its very own Jolly Green Giant Statue that towers 55 feet high over the city.  The famous green tourist attraction would be a hard act to follow in trying to fill his size 78 shoes!!! 😉

I think you’d enjoy visiting my birth town via its website at http://www.blueearthchamber.com.  If you’re ever traveling through southern Minnesota on Interstate 90……..stop by to visit the birth-town that saw the beginnings of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.