December 15th…“WHAT DID YOUR PARENTS DO TO PREPARE YOUR FARM AND FARM HOME FOR WINTER THERE IN SOUTHERN MINNESOTA?”

Sagaciously savvy to the wicked ways of winter’s weather, our stalwart parents were steeled against whatever ‘Jack Frost’ and his hordes could dish out.  Having gleaned winter survival tactics since 1918 and 1919 (their respective birth years), Russell and Clarice Noorlun both grew up in Norwegian families that acquired the will to survive and thrive in the white hinter-world of connecting the dots and seeing the continuum of daily activities carry on in farm life.  No matter what white wildness was cast in their directions, our parents had procured the strength and forethought to prepare for what frightful frigidity inevitably would transpire anytime between late October and what felt to them to be a millennia until winter’s spell was again broken by the relentless warming of spring.

Naked tree limbs, surrounding my childhood home, reflected the overall naked world in winter that had been stripped of all cover, color and warmth.  Most birds flew south to escape the bleak months ahead.  Various wild animals burrowed deep below the frost line and settled down for a long hibernation to escape the killing cold.  For us human beings, it was layers upon layers of clothing and stoking furnaces or fireplaces to make our abodes more hospitable while white rage swirled around us outdoors.

We Noorlun children were the grateful inheritors of our father and mother’s wisdom when it came to securing a warm home for our family to be cozy within each winter.  One way our parents showed how to maintain warmth within our home was to create multiple rows of straw bales and pack them tightly around the base of our exterior house walls.  This helped to shield our home’s water pipes from freezing in what often were drops in temperatures from zero degrees to as much as 30 below zero.

With storm windows battened down tight and straw-bales in place, the next phase of protection of life and family was laying in a supply of fuel oil for our furnace that warmed the home and also our hearts.  My little sister and I both recall a coal bin down in our root-cellar (called a basement nowadays) for supplemental heating, if necessary.  Our parents even burned corn cobs in the kitchen stove back in the days when our corn harvest was ‘shelled’ right there in our yard resulting in a mountain of corn cobs to use as a fuel for our stove.  Vital to our surviving comfort was a single, oil-fired furnace in the Living Room and our combination wood and propane stove in the Kitchen.  No fancy duct-works or blower fan systems, it was just simple emanating heat that radiated from the furnace and stove outwardly to us. That was it, for heating our home.  The only way the two upstairs bedrooms received any heat at all was from an open metal grating in the ceiling of the Living Room.  Since heat rises, some of that heat from the furnace would meander upstairs to our bedrooms…..very little as it was.   To keep our fuel supply nearby, our farmer father would use a tractor to pull a wagon load of coal or wood right up next to the house.  That way, it was easier to fill the coal scuttle and/or wood bin directly from the wagon or shovel the commodities through the root-cellar window at ground level and store it in respective bins in the cellar.

With the tenacity and grit of a Marine attacking the beaches, our father, Russell ‘manned the guns’ of attacking the enemy called ‘COLD’ that invaded our other farm buildings each winter.  With his immediate family now safely warm inside our home, Dad had to be sure his animal ‘family’ were cared for also.  Oftentimes, our father’s blowtorch had to be fired up to thaw frozen water pipes in our barn so thirsty cows and livestock could stay hydrated in the cold weather.  But, one winter, Dad was dealt an almost deadly blow by ‘Old Man Winter’, himself.  We lost all electrical power!!!  So, even if he COULD thaw water pipes with his blowtorch , there was no electricity to pump the water.

To solve the immediate crisis of watering our animals, Dad called me over to him and said, “Elliott, I need your help loading these empty milk cans onto the ‘lowboy’ hog trailer.”  “We’re going down to Brush Creek for water.”  Riding on the ‘lowboy’ trailer (that operated with only a foot or so of clearance off the ground) with the milk cans, Dad pulled us with his tractor down the snowy gravel road to the bridge that crossed over frozen Brush Creek.  Upon arrival at the bridge, our father took his axe and slid down the embankment to the frozen creek’s edge.  As he made his way down the slippery slope, I tied a rope to the wire bail of a five gallon bucket and lowered the bucket to Dad below.   With flailing axe, our patriarch eventually pierced the ice and broke through to the water beneath.  Trading places, father came up to the wagon on the bridge while I went to the icy water’s edge and dipped the bucket into the water.  Up, up, up he pulled the rope and the bucket went to the bridge level where Dad began filling the milk cans for watering our animals.

Dad knew that if this crisis went on for too many days, lifting countless water buckets up from the hole in our creek would be rigorous torture of his arm muscles over time.   It was then that a light-bulb went on in our Norwegian daddy’s head.  The widow of a neighboring farmer, Mrs. Faith Parks, possessed the royal blessing of a year-round artesian well that bubbled forth a tasty continuous flow of delicious water.   Back at our farm home, Dad picked up the party-line phone receiver (making sure not to interrupt someone else’s conversation) and gave Mrs. Faith Parks a phone call.  She graciously gave us permission to visit her farm for our water needs.  The Parks farm was just a wee bit more distance of a tractor drive to their farm property.   We drove the extra mile to the Parks family artesian well and helped ourselves to as much flowing water as needed to fill our milk cans and water our animals.  Mrs. Faith Parks truly saved the day for us all!

We are so spoiled by the modern conveniences of today’s world.  As one of the four offspring of our wonderful parents, there will always be a grateful heart for their tenacity to overcome life’s obstacles inside of this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

December 11th…“WHAT METHODS DID YOUR FATHER USE TO MANAGE THE FAMILY FARM NEAR KIESTER, MINNESOTA?”

POEM – “Dad’s Handheld Device”   by N. Elliott Noorlun

My Norwegian father, Had a ‘handheld device’,

To manage our family farm.

It worked quite well, I’m here to tell,

And it didn’t cost leg or arm.

Back in the day, When farmers grew hay,

Computers were not to be seen.

Dad used his noggin’ and kept on sloggin’,

On a paper notepad, Really keen!!

That wire-bound tablet, That fit in his pocket,

Was ‘device’ enough for my dad,

With pencil point keen, On the tractor he’d lean,

Musing on numbers to add.

Dad could track his income, From crops to hogs,

All ‘data’ was in his ‘device’.

His ‘gadget’ did fine, On plain paper line,

And all for a very small price! 😉

December 10th…“MUSING UPON THE PAST, WHAT IMPRESSED YOU ABOUT YOUR PARENT’S WAY OF DOING BUSINESS IN YOUR HOMETOWN OF KIESTER, MINNESOTA?”

POEM – “A Good Man’s Word” (speaking of our father, Russell Conrad Noorlun and our dear mother, Clarice, too, of course.)  by N. Elliott Noorlun

Oh for the days, When a good man’s word,

Was the only thing, That need be heard.

When honesty, Was the path he’d trek,

T’was only his name, On his good check.

No need for ton, Of information,

That’s common now, In our sad nation.

Back then, There in our quaint small town,

The way you lived, Became your crown.

Banker, Grocer, Hardware man,

Could trust you that, You had a plan,

To carry out, Just what you’d say,

For that was the honest, farmer’s way!

December 9th…“WHAT WERE SUNDAYS LIKE IN YOUR FARM HOME AND THAT OF YOUR CHURCH AND VILLAGE OF KIESTER, MINNESOTA?”

Church bells, in our village of Kiester, Minnesota, communed with one another on a crystal-clear Sunday morning.  From one house of worship to another, these bright, brass beauties, from their respective bell towers, called faithful flocks of Christian believers to come praise God each Sunday, the weekly day of rest.  From our farmyard, which lay three miles to the northwest of this farming community, the harmonic symphony of those chimes drew my morning stroll to our front lawn area.  As I stood there in thoughtful reflection, I could look to the southeast, across the fecund, rich black croplands and hear the beckoning of those massive brass instruments of clarion wonder.

Our matriarchal monarch, Clarice Arlone Sletten Noorlun, faithfully saw to it that her little Norwegian cherubs were properly rubbed, scrubbed and, after Mom inspection, dubbed ready to be slipped into our ‘Sunday Best’ outfits.  This weekly ritual had us at the pinnacle of preparation to head to morning worship at our Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church there in our town.  Blessings to her heart and memory, our precious mother was determined that we, the next generation of Noorluns, would be trained up in the ways of the Lord.  Her spiritual pinning in our lives was foundational as we each, in God’s timing, made our decisions for accepting Christ as our Savior and served our Lord in various ways to His glory over the years.  Looking back, I actually enjoyed the unique aura of Sundays.  On Saturday evenings, with certainty, I’m sure I wormed and squirmed over the process of bathing off my layers of boy dirt.  And, of course, there was Mom’s sometimes painful manicure of finger and toenail clippings while we watched “Gunsmoke” with Dad on TV.  Yet, once that weekly ‘mother mauling’ was over with, I enjoyed dressing up for the special occasion of Sunday School and Church.

When the patriarch progenitor of our family needed Mom’s help with a farm chore on a Sunday morning, or when mother wasn’t feeling well, herself; in stepped our ‘third Grandma’.  Genevieve Mutschler (and her husband, Wally).  These sweet folks were so loved by our family, that they were revered as another set of parents for our mom and dad, and, like a third set of grandparents for us Noorlun youngin’s.

All Mom had to do was give a phone call to Genevieve, whose farm lay just to the north of ours, and ask her if she could run us kids to church.  “Be glad to!!!” chimed Genevieve over the phone to Mom.  “I’ll roll up to the end of your driveway in a few minutes.” said our ‘lavender limousine lady’.  Out to the end of the driveway sister and I walked in our Sunday morning finery.  We looked to the north up the slightly elevated grade of our county gravel road.  Sure enough, Genevieve’s brand-new handsome, lavender 1960 Ford Galaxie would come rolling over the hill and stop right in front of us.  What a delightfully cheery church chariot ride we had.

Something that always touched me on these Sunday mornings was the palpable feeling that our farming village truly did have a day of rest.  Very few, if any, businesses were open on Sundays.  The greatest majority of the population in our quaint town were either at their church of choice, or at home with family taking it easy.

What a great Heavenly Father we have who, even though He is complete in His omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience, still set His loving example for us that is found in Genesis Chapter 2 and Verse 2:  “By the seventh day, God completed the work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all the work that He had done.”  How loving He was to set an example for His children so that they can rejoice, restore and rejuvenate for an entire day before starting another chapter of life’s routines and work.

Within those hallowed walls of Grace Evangelical United Brethren Church, our local Body Of Christ met and fellowshipped weekly.  We sang praises from the great, classic hymns of our Christian faith and then we were nurtured and fed by our pastor from God’s Holy Word, too.  Over the years, I was blessed by so many dear saints who ministered to us youngsters in teaching Sunday School each week.  Many happy and godly memories were also inculcated to us with the enjoyable times of Vacation Bible School in the summertime.

I am rich, in so many ways, for having been raised in a godly and loving family.  Rich for having had the joys of growing up around a town of kind and tender neighbors who looked out for each other in times of joy and times of need.  And, foremost, I’m rich for having been watched over by our loving Lord who knows me intimately and has planned my life from before time began.  I find that it’s not just Sunday that is a day of rest, but I can put my full trust in Jesus Christ and rest in Him, knowing that He has only the best planned for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

Continue reading “Norwegian Farmer’s Son…December 9th” →

December 8th…“AS A FARMER BOY IN YOUR FARMING TOWN OF KIESTER, MINNESOTA, WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE FARMER STORE TO BROWSE IN?”

Wrapped in the arms of agriculture since I was a babe in the shadow of a barn, I have always been in awe of the tractors our father used to cultivate and glean abundant harvests from the onyx-black soils of our fertile part of the world.

In an anti-climactic vein, our mother even tells about how a tractor was almost the cause of my near death as a toddler. Being the tiny tike I was, I was blithely oblivious to the danger at hand as I saw my daddy coming back from the fields to our yard on his tractor. I loved Daddy and I loved tractors, so I put my little legs a runnin’ and headed straight for my dad. When Mom looked up from her work, there I was, my infant-toddler legs running towards my father who was rolling into our farmyard pulling a load of hay with his tractor. With arms flailing the air above her head, my mother streaked after her toddler in jeopardy. Unable to see me, in his blind spot out in front of the tractor, Dad could have easily crushed me to death. Guardian angels must’ve given our mother, Clarice, extra loud screams that scared Dad and got his attention to stop just in time and,……. here I am, still alive to share these stories with you 😉

All it took was for Dad or Mom to lift my tiny being up and place me in the seat of a tractor and I was ‘hooked’. Like a happy addict, I just couldn’t get enough of tractors and was a fan of the highest degree.

I was magically entranced by these massive metal monsters so gigantic in size, yet able to be tamed by the prowess and know-how of my farmer father or big brother who possessed the knowledge to push on foot pedals, pull levers and yank gear shifts accordingly to call this mechanized marvel to do their bidding.

International Harvester Company made a small utility tractor called the Farmall “B”. Big brother, Lowell, became so adept at operating that tractor that it was amazing for this little brother to watch what my elder brother could accomplish. One day, in the very muddy springtime, Lowell had managed to get the “B” into the cow-yard and hooked it up to a very full, and heavy, manure spreader implement near our barn. When he let out the clutch to start pulling the manure spreader, those chevron-treaded tractor tires began to spin in the slime and were getting buried in the mud. Keeping his cool head, big brother made use of the independent left and right brakes on the tractor. By alternating left brake, then right brake, Lowell was able to let each tractor tire grind down to solid ground beneath and he, in essence, ‘walked’ that manure spreader right out of the mud and it followed him out to the field so he could spread the load of ‘moo goo’ for fertilizer on our fields.

There were, and I’m sure still are, tractor loyalties from farm place to farm place back home in our Minnesota days. For the most part, our father, Russell, was loyal towards and preferred to farm with International Harvester brand tractors. During that era of agricultural history, the “IH” Company had a model of tractors called the Farmall. For our family, we owned a small Farmall B, a bit larger tractor called the Farmall H and our muscle tractor was the big Farmall Super M. Dad owned an older Farmall F-20 that he kept inside his two row corn-picker and we also owned a Massey Harris Model 44 tractor. Teasingly, it may sound almost sacrilegious to other Farmall owners, but Dad, at one time, even owned a John Deere Model 70 tractor, too. So, with the ownership of a ‘green machine’, this is where the story today takes on the sharing of my enjoyment of where I enjoyed shopping in town during that era.

During the tenure of time when Dad owned that John Deere 70, he’d occasionally need parts or supplies. Those were the days when I’d literally beg our father to allow me to go with him into our grand little village of Kiester on one of his buying trips. “Sure, Son, come on along!”, Dad would respond to me. Excitedly, I’d run over to our old ’50 Ford pickup and jump in. Windows rolled down, pickup engine purring; Dad let out the truck’s clutch pedal and away we rolled towards Kiester and the well-known business called “Sime Equipment Company”. Along the way, Dad would light up a “Camels” cigarette and had it captured between his first and middle fingers that draped over the top of that black steering wheel. There was a manly ‘coolness’ to observe Dad’s cigarette smoke being trifled with by the wind in the cab as we drove along. Other farmers, approaching us on the road, would meet us heading to the west (as we headed east), my dad rendered the traditional country courtesy of a two or three finger wave to fellow farmers as we drove along with the summer wind flowing through the truck cab to cool us.

In a short while, we arrived and parked in front of the stately building where John Deere green was KING!!! As we climbed out of the Ford, I could feel a magnetism pulling me towards my farmer boy utopia, my ‘kid heaven’. The entry bell over the door jangled as we stepped inside “Simes”. I asked permission to split company with Dad as he was heading for the parts counter.    MY ‘counter’ was made up of a wide shelf that ran the entire length of the store’s giant picture window. On that shelf, just waiting for my boy toy imagination was just about every conceivable John Deere toy tractor and accessory toy you can dream of. I was on a veritable ‘Cloud 9’ of childhood ecstasy and began making ‘putt, putt, putt’ sounds as I touched as many of those fun-time toys as time would permit me. I hoped that Dad’s business lasted hours so that I could ‘overdose’ on farm toy fun here.

Nearby the toy window, at least one or two full aisles were stocked with John Deere toys that were for SALE, too!! In my little boy heart, I imagined how magnificent it would be for my dad to purchase all of these amazing toys for me to take home and play with! But, alas, money was not easy to come by for folks who tilled the land for a living. Dad and Mom had taught us about the priorities of life in feeding our family, caring for our farm and other essentials. Even though Dad could see the whimsical wishes on my yearning face to own every John Deere toy ever made, he also had taught me the value of obedience. And true, I was grateful that I had so much fun playing along that broad expanse of toy-land along that picture window. Yet, when our father said, “It’s time to go, Son.” I knew that obedience superseded toys any day for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

December 7th…“HOW DID YOUR FATHER SELL THE MILK FROM YOUR HOLSTEIN DAIRY COWS THERE ON YOUR FARM NEAR KIESTER, MINNESOTA?”

The Meadowlark set her warbling tune to that of a new morning as another Minnesota sun rose through the tasseled corn fields to the east of our family farm.  I rejoiced that that golden orb of God’s sun had begun to warm us for another day of life there on our farm in south central Minnesota.

The staccato putter of the ‘Milk Parlor’ compressor in our cow barn could be heard exhausting its spent efforts into the early morning air as our hard-working farmer father, Russell, was finishing the morning milking of our 15 head of Holstein dairy cows.  Milk, that delicious, white elixir of life, was gently extracted from each cow’s udder (milk bag) by our vacuum-powered “Surge” milking machines, of which we had two.  The stainless steel ‘milking-can’, that hung from a wide strap wrapped over the bovine’s back and under the cow, could hold about 4 or 5 gallons of milk as its four suction cups alternated sucking from one cow’s teat to the others.

As each bovine’s udder was emptied, Dad would unhook the milker from the support strap (over the cow’s back) and then carry the “Surge” milker to a 10 gallon, galvanized tin milk can.  Into the milk cans, having been thoroughly cleaned and sanitized, he’d then pour that milk into the waiting ‘tin vault’ and then go back to milk the next cow.  As each of the 10 gallon cans became full of ‘moo juice’, Dad set a lid on the can and tamped it down so as not to let a drop of this ‘cash crop’ leave that milk can en route to our local Kiester Co-op Creamery Association in town.  Each of our family’s tin milk repositories were either numbered and/or had our family name painted on the can.  This was the identifying factor that was employed by the local Co-op Creamery, in our hometown of Kiester.  This way, workers at the plant could identify and credit the Noorlun family with the proper amount of money that they gave to us for our milk.  With each morning and evening milking process, our father (or big brother Lowell) gleaned about 135 gallons of milk from our 15 Holstein dairy cows.   For us, that particular morning, that came out to, roughly, 10 (or more) full milk cans that had to be expediently delivered to our town creamery which resided on the southern boundaries of our hometown and right next to the railroad tracks in our village of Kiester.

With one of Mom’s hearty breakfasts in our tummies, and school books under our arms, big sister Rosie, Cousin Lyle Noorlun and little bitty me zipped out into the brisk morning and headed for our black, 1950 Ford F-100 pickup truck.  Cousin Lyle, who lived with us on our farm for about a year and a half, was to be, not only our own private ‘bus driver’ to school that day, but he was also the ‘Morning Milk Moving Messenger’ (my fun term) for our daddy.   Once he landed in the pickup driver’s seat, Lyle’s finger gave a shove on the push-button starter and brought that old Ford black beauty to life.  Letting out the floor clutch, he drove us down next to the door of our ‘Pump House’ (where our well water came out of the cold ground) and parked the rig.   Lyle stepped inside and grabbed up to 10 (or more) of the milk cans full of ‘white gold’ that had been kept cold overnight in our stock tank of circulating cold water.  Theses ‘cans of cash’ were to be sold to our local Creamery.   With each muscled toss of a milk can into the cargo bed of the Ford, those tin cans sang a clanking symphony of a ‘milk minuet’ in the Key of M! 😉

With milk cans loaded, Lyle (and we school-bound riders) pulled out of our south driveway and headed for town, which was about 3 miles to our southeast.  Driving into the morning sun, we approached our village of Kiester, Minnesota.  The Ford, almost like a horse memorizing its way home, made a natural turn to the right at the intersection just past our town’s bowling alley.  We were now on the street that led us right into the expansive property of The Kiester Co-op Creamery Association.  Shifting into a lower gear, Lyle made a 360 degree turn around, on those large grounds, and then began reversing the truck to the receiving conveyor of the Creamery building.

One by one, Cousin Lyle pulled the heavy milk cans, full of our ‘product’, from the truck bed and heaved them onto a moving conveyor.  Can after can with our family name and/or number on it, began ascending the conveyor until it spun around a little corner and disappeared mysteriously into the Creamery building itself.

Like any businessman, our farmer father looked forward to the money he received from the milk sales to help pay our family’s bills and enjoy another day within our fine farming community.

With the last full 10 gallon can of our family’s milk inside the Creamery, Lyle jumped back into the pickup and we chugged our way around the property to the east side of this large dairy processing plant.  This time, Lyle backed the Ford up to a long, straight, descending roller track.  While we waited, our milk cans inside the plant had been weighed, recorded, emptied of their milk and then thoroughly rinsed and sanitized.  The Creamery’s workers would then give each empty 10 gallon milk can a shove out the east-facing side door and the cans began a rolling ride down the descending rollers.  Gravity helped them speed up as they chimed against each other and, like cymbals in an orchestra, the cans clashed and ka-banged at the bottom ready for us to toss them back inside the pickup and run over to the school for our day of classes.

This trip to town and the Creamery was a daily process for our farm family until later years when our father installed a bulk milk tank in our ‘Milk Parlor’.  Our cows faithfully produced their milk for us and we, in turn, faithfully cared for them …….day in and day out.   It was truly a win-win situation of farm life.

In those later years, before we sold the farm in 1967, a very dear man, named Llewellyn (we all called him Louie) Hintz drove, what to me was, a giant tanker truck to our farm each day and backed that sparkling stainless steel rig up to our ‘Milk Parlor’ wall.  There was such a happy spirit within this dear milk truck man!!  Louie would get out of his truck all full of smiles as he saw this farm boy trotting in his direction.  For you see, this little farmer boy loved to chat with Louie as he’d take a large hose from the truck, hook it up to a port coming from the bulk milk tank and begin the sucking process to transfer our gallons of milk on-board his tanker with the milk he’d already collected from other area farmers.   There was a type of gallon counting device for Louie to see how many gallons he was collecting from each farmer on his route.

I guess between the days of milk cans up to the time we had a bulk tank, you could say we had a ‘candy bar’ farm………..because it  was sure a “MILKY WAY” for this Norwegian farmer’s Son 😉

December 6th…“WHAT ARE SOME THINGS THAT IMPRESSED YOU ABOUT YOUR FARMER FATHER AND THAT YOU WANTED TO EMULATE?”

From the first moments, in 1954, when he gazed over the railings of my baby crib, my father, Russell Conrad Noorlun, has always been my hero.  And, as anyone who adulates a hero, you wanna act like your hero and even dress like your hero.  I fawned over the handsome way Dad combed his hair.  I even gushed in praise over the “Old Spice” cologne our patriarch would splash on whenever we went on a family outing or to church.  But, one of the things that caught my eye, on a daily basis, were the handsome bib overalls that our daddy wore to protect his other clothing while engaged in the arduous career of farming.  Anyone in agriculture is acutely aware of how rugged that lifestyle can be.  Therefore, bib overalls performed exactly as they were named.  They were “over all” your other regular clothes.  These clothing items were made of an extra heavy type of material that consisted of over-sized pants that could be pulled on over a regular pair of jeans or work trousers.  There was a flap, kinda like an ancient breastplate of a warrior (also known as the bib) that was attached to the front of the lower pants.  A double-strapped pair of suspenders were attached to the lower pants in the back.  The bib was brought up to the front of the shirt you were wearing, then the suspenders were brought up over the shoulders, from the back, to click onto and secure the bib to your chest.  I share all these descriptions because very few of my young readers have been exposed to farm life and this essential piece of a farmer’s protective clothing.

What mesmerized this little farm boy, was the almost uncountable number of pockets in Dad’s bibs!  Big pockets, small pockets, snap pockets, even looped pockets.  Since our farmer father enjoyed smoking both cigarettes and pipe, he even had pockets for his flat can of “Prince Albert” pipe tobacco and a pocket for the ‘onion skin’ thin cigarette papers that he’d use to roll his own cigarettes.  And, in order to light up those tobacco goodies, Dad had a pocket for matches, or fluid lighter, as well.  Of course there was a pocket for his smoking pipe to ride along with him, too.  Dad carried a writing implement called a ‘bullet pencil’.  It consisted of a metal tip on each end to protect the pencil from being broken during hard labor.  There was a skinny pocket for that, too.

Here’s my poem to kinda sum up this special clothing item.

POEM – “My Dad’s Bibs”  by N. Elliott Noorlun

My Dad’s bibs, Were a lot like jewels,

They must’ve held, A hundred tools.

A pocket or loop, For every task,

Just how many?, I’m glad you’d ask.

A pocket in the bib, Up near his shirt,

Held a flat can, Of “Prince Albert”,

So he could pack, And fill his pipe,

To smoke tobacco, When the time was ripe.

And next to that, Where he could pull it,

There was a pocket, For a pencil bullet.

Down on his leg, Above his knee,

Was a slot n loop, For pliers, ya see.

Now the fabric for, These bib overalls,

Had to be tough, For cleaning cow stalls,

Or kneeling down, To fix our tractors,

While swattin’ flies, Them lil’ distractors.

This little farmer, Done put in my dibs,

For the happy day, When I’d wear bibs!!! 😉

December 5th…“IN YOUR YOUNG FARM DAYS, DID YOU EVER BARRAGE YOUR PARENTS WITH A MILLION QUESTIONS ABOUT LIFE?”

Welling up within the confines of a 5 year old, little boy brain are about a bazillion questions about life.  I was no exception to that rule.  With my motor mouth in high gear, I would besiege Mom and Dad with so many inquiries that I’m sure they often sought refuge somewhere quiet so that their ears could cool down from the hot wind coming from the orifice below my nose.  As I reflect back to those dear days of yore, I smilingly remember my dear parent’s various facial responses to those innocent little boy questions.  Sometimes, I’d see a look of normality in their visage, and yet, sometimes, I could sense that they were stifling an outright laugh as to the ludicrous nature of a blushing subject that I had blindly inquired about.

Any question, when spoken from the logic of a boy only tall enough to gaze into an adult’s bellybutton, might have seemed strange and even hilarious to an adult.  But, to me, I felt each search for an answer was truly viable, from a little kid’s world point of view, that is.

“Mom, why doesn’t Grandma Amanda have more babies?”, I asked one day.  Without a doubt, my Grandma Amanda “Rogness” Sletten was a real sweetheart!  And so, since she had done such a fine job of giving birth to MY mother, in my childish mind, I figured she should just keep on making more babies, right?   Mom’s eyes opened wide with a mild shock on THAT question.  Mother, in her best and proper way, tried to clue my little empty-headed brain in as to why the answer to that question was a “no”.   Even though Mom tried to answer that delicate question the best she could, I still scratched my head as to why not?

To my father, Russell, one day in the barn, I approached with another life question inquiry.  “Hey Dad?  Why don’t Grandma and Grandpa run?”  For me, with life energy bursting out of every corpuscle of this young boy’s body, I ran everywhere.  Heck, I even ran across our Living Room when it was time to change the television channel (no remotes in those days).  Dear Dad responded that it was something called ‘getting old’, and that my grandparent’s bodies didn’t work as well as they used to.  Again, that logical adult response went right over the top of this little pygmy brain as far as comprehending what ‘old’ was.  I lived inside a brand new body that could bend, bounce and beat anybody in a foot race at the drop of a hat.  Well, o.k., anybody my size, at least 😉

Later, in my teenage years, I actually did see my Grandpa Clarence Sletten really RUN!!!  It was Independence Day and our clan was gathered at one of our extended family’s homes to celebrate our nation’s birthday.  When the waning shadows of evening warranted, out came the fireworks for all to enjoy.  Someone lit a spinning firework called a “Ground Bloomer”.  In theory, when the fuse ignited the charges, it was supposed to spin and rise straight up into the air.  But NOT on this occasion.  That devilish whizbang thingy lifted off the ground and made a beeline right for Grandpa Clarence.  In less than a blink, that tall, lanky, way over 70 year old body of his took off like a streak to get out of harm’s way.   We all howled with laughter that gramps still had it in him to move fast when survival necessitated it.  Clarence still had some ZIP in him, after all!!!

To this day, there are still a bazillion questions being asked by this ever-inquiring Norwegian Farmer’s Son.

December 4th…“WHAT WAS A UNIQUE SNOW-RELATED FUN EXPERIENCE ON YOUR FAMILY FARM NEAR KIESTER, MINNESOTA?”

Each year, after the harvest, our rich farm soil ‘bedded down’ with ‘Old Man Winter’s’ thick quilt of snow and enjoyed the opportunity for having a regenerative rest during the long, cold months ahead.  Even though the land rested, we kids enjoyed an opportunity as well, only it was the opportunity to be active with fun that came to us in any chilly way, shape or form.

One very frosty afternoon, being fully bundled up against the frigid weather, I was exploring inside the wrap-around machine shed there on our farm.  This machine shed wrapped around on the north and west sides of our granary building that housed the majority of food for our many farm animals.  As vapors of my hot breath launched against the cold air around me, I relished the chance to explore what treasures just might be lurking in Dad’s stash of old parts and whatnots.  Low and behold, as I scrummaged around inside there, I was thrilled to discover some very old wooden snow skis!!   Up to this point in my life, I had only seen snow skis being worn by world-class skiers on a popular television show called, “ABC’s Wide World Of Sports”.   The consummate mountain daredevils, on that TV screen, would come soaring down those steep slopes on their sleek skis at break-neck speeds.   Many of those fine downhill racers were from my ancestral country of Norway, too!  Heyyyy, maybe I could become just like my ‘cousins’ in learning to ski someday.  Now came my moment, because here in my mitten-clad hands were a pair of these sliding devices for my very own!  Only one little problem I could see…..there were no clamping devices to get these magic marvels to connect to my rubber winter boots.

I had heard my dad say that, “Necessity is the mother of invention”.   This childhood dilemma before my eyes was a real ‘necessity’ and I think I had the ‘invention’ that would work, as far as connecting these ‘wood rockets’ to my boots.  The answer?….baling twine.  Dad had a bunch of twine leftover from last summer’s hay baling (twine was used to tie the hay into a rectangular cube), so I grabbed a supply from nearby our “New Holland” hay-baler machine and cut off a couple of long lengths.  Upon closer inspection of my skies, I then noticed that there actually were some flat, narrow openings in the skis under where my boots would stand, so, with exhilarated new hopes, I threaded the twine through those openings and proceeded to ‘lock-down’ these new boy’s toys to my rubber boots.  Heyyy, this seemed to work; for the most part, at least.  After shuffling, shushing and sliding around the flat snow surfaces of our farmyard, I just had to have a faster experience and more fun.  On television, I had seen the skiers wax their skis for more speed.  Since I had no such fancy ski wax, I figured I’d use one of my mother’s bars of soap, instead.   Rub, rub, rub went that bar of soap, up and down the bottoms of those ancient wooden skis.

Now that my skis were prepared for speed, I needed a ‘mountain’.  Well, the only place near us that had any kind of slope was the hillside to our east that belonged to our neighbor farmer, Charlie Heitzeg.  I hoped that Charlie wouldn’t mind if I crossed his property and played for a little while on his hill.  To preserve my newly applied ‘wax’, I tossed my skis over my shoulder and began the hike across the county gravel road, down the ditch and over the Heitzeg’s family fence-line.   An old adage says, “If it looks too good to be true, it usually isn’t”……and OHHH how true, that is.   I was gonna experience that axiom out for myself, shortly.  Our wintry season had layered Heitzeg’s field with a thick, smooth-looking layer of snow.  I trudged across the level field and then began my ascent to the top of ‘Heitzeg’s Hill’….be it minimally high as it may.  From this upper pinnacle, I could gaze out as far as my eyes could see across the lovely agrarian countryside.  From up there, the thick, white-phosphorous snow contrasted beautifully against our sapphire-blue Minnesota sky.

As I crested the top of that hill, I was pumped with delusional and phantasmagorical apparitions that I was about to become the immediate world champion downhill skier.  Yah, right!!! 😉

Down came those ancient slivers of wood from my shoulders and I climbed aboard.  Oooooo, I can feel that the earlier soap rub was making these hopeful fliers even slipperier.  Out came the baling twine from my pockets as I yanked off my mittens to be able to use my bare hands to tie my rubber boots as securely as possible to these ‘wood rockets’.  Okeedokee, they’re both tied on to my rubber boot appendages..  As you recall, I had found just the skis, but NOT ski poles.  It was up to my young balance to keep me in the upright position.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen,” says the imaginary sportscaster in my egocentric brain.  “Noodles Norski is at the top of his mountain, and has aimed his skis straight down the slope!”  “He pushes off and gravity is now under control!”  The imaginary announcer steps up the adrenaline to the audience….. “Yes, yes, he’s going faster and faster, sports fans!!”  “But, what’s this?  A plowed field is hidden in the snow at the bottom of the hill?  WATCH OUT!!!”  CRASH!!!!  I face-planted right into a mass of frozen, rock-hard, plowed dirt at the base of the hill!!!  It had been hidden under the seemingly smooth blanket of snow.   Oh well…..besides, I would’ve had no way of knowing how to stop those greasy sticks of wood anyways.  Wow!  what an abrupt ending to the career of skiing for “Noodles Norski”!!!

But, heyyyy, it was STILL a lot of fun for this snow crash victim of a Norwegian Farmer’s Son!! 😉

November 30th…“DID YOU EVER EXPERIENCE GYMNASTICS IN YOUR BATTLE GROUND HIGH SCHOOL DAYS?”

“Noorlun, you pull a stunt like that again and you’re dead meat!  You understand?”  So said my Physical Education teacher, Mr. Butch Hill.

The circumstances leading up to this statement being shared to me were both fun and sneaky at the same time.  It was 1970-71 and my Junior year there at Battle Ground High School in Battle Ground, Washington.

Having come from an independent lifestyle of farming, back in our Minnesota days, I tended to be more prone to individualistic sports that pitted me either against a time clock, one opponent, or against my own desire to see what I could do to better myself.   I know that some farm families, back home in the Midwest, were full on in their support of following the team-based venues of baseball, football, basketball etc..  For me, though, my father had come through the Great Depression of the 1930’s and his world was pretty much one thing……..work.   Oh, sure, he’d play some horseshoes during family picnics and the like.  But, when it came to any kind of team sports, Dad had no interest, whatsoever.  Matter of fact, I can clearly still hear him saying to me, “I just can’t understand why grown men can chase a little ball around a field all day!!”.   To Dad, team sports were just the silliest thing.  That patriarchal lack of enthusiasm, gleaned from my dad, for team sports, rubbed off on me, as well.

We called it P.E. (Physical Education) class.  Our teacher was a relatively new member to the “Tiger” faculty and his name was Mr. Butch Hill.  Mr. Hill was a strapping, fine example of someone who would daily ‘walk the talk’ when it came to exemplifying the epitome of being in excellent physical condition to ‘preach n teach’ the various disciplines of building our bodies through various sports.

As in almost all high school programs, when it was our time for P.E., we’d head for the High School Locker Rooms to remove our street clothes and ‘suit up’ in P.E. shorts, T-shirt and gym shoes.  It was a daily prerequisite in preparation for whatever new muscle-building sport we were going to learn at that time of the school year.  It was late winter of 1971 and spring was just around the corner.  It was at this time of the curriculum schedule year that a unit was to be taught in the overall sport of gymnastics.

At that time, in the sport history of Battle Ground High, we did not have an actual gymnastics sports team.  So, I thoroughly enjoyed this chapter in P.E. and its various components really intrigued me.  Coach Hill took us through the gamut of learning various tumbling moves and then began to teach us about the multiple gymnastic equipment devices that could be used to perform on.  The list included Parallel Bars, High Bar, Still Rings, Vault, Pommel Horse, etc..  Each facet of learning challenges were taught to us as we’d meet each day for this P.E. unit of training.  A spark lit up within me when it came to the apparatus called Parallel Bars.  The more I practiced, the more confident I became in traversing on this equipment from one strength move to another.  Sadly though, like any P.E. teaching unit, our gymnastics training times had come to an end and, since the warmer days of our 1971 spring had arrived, Coach Hill let us know that the following day, we’d be heading outside the Locker Rooms to begin the next unit of teaching which was to be baseball.

Baseball???  Awww, heck!  That’s one of those team sports, and those didn’t appeal to me, at all!   I wanted to continue to ‘play’ on the parallel bars and learn more strength moves there.  Being that our school mascot was the “Tiger”, I sensed a quiet tiger beginning to stir and growl within me.  Yet, being the mild-mannered guy I was, I just decided that I’d find a way to do what I wanted, when I wanted.   So, here is what I conspired, within my own little sneaky teenage heart, to do.  Each day, I’d saunter into the P.E. Locker Rooms, like usual.  I’d pull off street clothes and suit up in my P.E. shorts, T-shirt and gym shoes.  I’d even sit on the bench with the guys while Coach Hill would call off “roll call” for attendance.  But, then, I’d linger a bit while the class began to filter out of the Locker Room and head for the nearby baseball diamond.  Me?  I’d head the opposite direction as I’d sneak my way out of the Locker Room and climb the wooden stairwell that led upstairs to the top deck of our giant West Gym.  Up there, behind the expanding bleachers, is where our school kept the wrestling mats AND ‘my’ parallel bars.   So as not to go beyond my class period time and arouse attention, I’d watch the clock go by as I’d work on my various bar routines and got to be pretty good at the ‘bars’.

Seeing that the clock on the wall was getting close to the end of that class period.  I’d then boogie back downstairs to the Locker Rooms as my other classmates were beginning to filter back in from the baseball class unit outdoors.  I’d nonchalantly take my shower, get my street clothes back on and then, when the clanging of the next class bell rang, would head for my next class.   I thought I was pretty sneaky and it appeared that I was ‘getting away with it’, too.   Till one dayyyyyyy……..I was doing my workout on the parallel bars upstairs when I heard some adult-sized footsteps coming up the squeaky wooden stairwell of the Old West Gymnasium.   I dodged out of sight around the corner of those folding bleachers as I heard the glass-paneled door crrrreak open on its hinges.  I just held my breath and waited.  Pretty soon, the old door creaked back shut and I heard those same footsteps descending those same squeaky wooden steps.   I figured I had fooled them; whoever ‘them’ may have been.   I performed some more moves on the ‘bars’ and then slipped back downstairs, like usual, for my shower and re-dressing for my next class.   “Riiiiing!!!!”, went the hallway bells to signal the end of P.E.class.   Exiting the Locker Rooms, I made a beeline for the start of my next class which would begin within about 5 minutes.  I passed the school cafeteria, on my left, and was heading up the nearby ramp to my next class.

“Heyyy Noorlun!”  called out Mr. Hill from behind me.  I see he’s been walking at a quick step and is now up along side of me as we walk up the ramp to the hallway intersection.  “Yes Sir?”, I responded with as much feigned teenage innocence as I could muster.  “O.K. buddy.” said my teacher, “I KNOW you were up there in the gym balcony!” (even though he didn’t SEE me working out on the parallel bars)……“You KNOW you’re supposed to be with us outside learning baseball!”  “So get this, Noorlun, you pull a stunt like that again and you’re gonna be dead meat!!  You understand?”   The ‘jig was up’, my sneaky bubble had burst!!  What else could I say, but, “Yes, Sir, I understand”.

Having been brought to ‘justice’, there I was, the following day, sitting on the baseball bench outside with the rest of my P.E. classmates.   I was bored, uninterested and wondering if I had been betrayed by one of these ‘goody two shoes’ sitting on either side of me?   Or, it was likely that Coach Hill just put the puzzle together in not seeing me outside on the baseball diamond for a certain number of days??

In retrospect, I can fully understand the legalities, liabilities and ethical necessity that had to be brought into force, by Coach Hill, to make my behaviors change for my own good.  What if I had taken a fall up there on the parallel bars without proper supervision for safety, etc..   It’s very possible that I could have literally broken my neck or back and could’ve been killed or paralyzed for life. Regarding this life incident,  I have mused over the Scripture verse from Hebrews Chapter 12 and Verse 11, which says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” (New International Version)    Even though I loved the Parallel Bars, it was definitely a time of correction needed for this Norwegian Farmer’s Son.