Ten Years and Still Counting

Across the Fence #522

This column brings the curtain down on the tenth year of writing “Across the Fence.” I hope the honeymoon isn’t over and you’re still taking time to visit with me each week. I read a statistic that the average American marriage lasts around eight years these days. Thanksgiving week will begin our eleventh year and thanks to all of you, we’ve got that average beat.

I want to welcome the readers of the Spring Grove Herald in Spring Grove, Minnesota to Across the Fence. I’ve been in correspondence with Beth Peterson, Editor and General Manager, and they ran my introductory column last week. Spring Grove is another community with deep Norwegian roots and I appreciate the opportunity to visit with you each week.

During Halloween, the Peanut’s classic, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” was shown on TV again. This was the first year our grandson, Sean, saw the story and really liked when Snoopy rides atop his dog house and battles the Red Baron. We had to watch it with him a couple times when we visited last weekend. I was glad to see how he reacted to the show because I’ve always been a Charles Schulz fan.

"It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" bobbleheads.

Growing up, I loved the Peanuts cartoon strip. I loved the way it told a story using a simple cartoon style and great writing. I drew cartoons in my spare time when I was young. I thought they were great and sent some off to magazines. After many rejection letters, I, just like Charlie Brown, was afraid to look in the mailbox for fear of another rejection. As I struggled to become a famous cartoonist, my ideas, and even my characters, often mirrored Charles Schulz. I still have those old cartoons and cringe when I look at them now. 

I developed a strip and took it to the newspaper in Viroqua, thinking they’d be thrilled to run it. They took the time to politely look at them, but weren’t interested. More rejection. I was beginning to feel more and more like good ole’ Charlie Brown. I drew more strips called “Coon Prairie,” and took them to my hometown paper, the Westby Times. The publishers at the time had known me since I was a little kid. I think they took pity on me and said they’d publish them… for nothing of course. I was thrilled.

A couple months later I started commercial art school in Madison. One day I showed my “Coon Prairie” cartoon strip to an instructor. I thought they were pretty good. He didn’t see things the same way. He asked how much the newspaper was paying me per week for them. I told him I wasn’t getting paid. He just shook his head and said, “Howard, your art and writing is worth nothing if you give it away. Are you here to learn how to make a living with your art and writing, or are you just taking up a space that someone who’s serious about this could have?” He then said, “Instead of giving your work away, at least charge a dollar. Then it’s worth something. If they aren’t willing to pay one dollar, maybe it IS worth nothing.” 

   

When I sent the next cartoon to the paper, I asked if I could get a dollar a week for them. (A dollar in 1964 is worth around $7.50 in 2014 money.) I never heard a word back from them, and they didn’t publish any more of my cartoons. And Charlie Brown thought he felt rejected! I learned a valuable lesson from my professor. That was the end of my highly unpaid, cartooning career. 

I’ve found that writing and cartooning have their similarities. In cartooning, you’re trying to tell a story using words and pictures. In writing, you’re trying to tell a story using words to paint a picture in the reader’s mind. It’s always a challenge. As Ben Logan said, “Writing’s a lot of work. A lot of time is spent rewriting and editing.” I agree. I spend about one third of my time writing a story and two-thirds rewriting and editing. Once the story’s in print, I’ll still see things I wish I’d said differently. Due to newspaper deadlines and printing schedules, I’m always working eight days ahead of when the story appears in the paper. If I talk about the weather, it’s probably changed completely by the time you read it. For those of you in the Midwest, winter has arrived in full force as I write this story. I hope it’s all melted by the time you read this. It’s too early and I’m not ready.

Speaking of winter, congratulations to my friend, Jerry Apps. He just won an Emmy Award for the PBS special, “A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps.” If you haven’t seen this hour-long special and it’s companion PBS special, “Jerry Apps: A Farm Story,” I highly recommend them. It’s a trip back in time to the way things were when many of us grew up, told only as Jerry Apps can tell a story. Put the DVDs on your Christmas wish list for Santa Claus.

As we approach Thanksgiving, be sure to thank the publisher and editor who run “Across the Fence” in your newspaper. Now let’s begin year eleven!

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Thank A World War II Veteran

Across the Fence #521

This week we celebrate Veteran’s Day. It honors all veterans who served at any time in any capacity. Peacetime or wartime, everyone who served did their part. They were ready to step forward if called upon to defend our country or a foreign country. I would like to focus on World War II veterans in this column.

Do you know what D-Day was and where it took place? One day I was having a conversation with a young man in his 20’s. He wanted to know if I was a member of the Baby Boomer generation. I told him, no, I was even older, I was part of the Silent Generation. I said I was born during World War II, a month before D-Day. That’s when he asked me what D-Day was. You could have heard my jaw hit the floor.

I guess we should never take anything for granted. Never assume that everybody knows about scientific facts or some major event from history, just because we do. At an age that many would consider elderly, I’m beginning to wonder what kind of science and history are being taught in schools and colleges. First I read in a Gallup poll, that 4 in 10 Americans believe the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago. Then I find out that a major event during my lifetime, D-Day, isn’t even known about. I realize some schools teach different versions of science and creation, but I thought they all covered historical events, especially an important one like D-Day that changed the course of World War II.

I thought maybe it was just that this young man hadn’t been paying attention in history class the day they talked about World War II. Maybe there was a big football game that evening and his mind was on the game. I decided to ask a second young, college graduate if they knew what D-Day was. They didn’t know either. 

That’s when I decided to see if this lack of knowledge was widespread. I started doing some research and read a column by American journalist, Cal Thomas, who also bemoaned the loss of knowledge about American history in a D-Day, 70th anniversary column that he titled, “D-Day=Dumb Day for Too Many.” He cited statistics in a study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA). Only 40% of Americans know what D-Day is and that it took place on June 6, 1944. Also, only 70% of recent college graduates knew that D-Day occurred during World War II, and 10% of them thought the beach where the invasion took place was Pearl Harbor. Mr. Thomas then remarked about the World War II veterans visiting the beaches of Normandy, probably for the last time in their lives, “if they could have foreseen what America would become and how little their descendants know, or care, about their sacrifices, would they have done what they did? They probably would because of their character.”

The anticipation just before hitting the beach.

I agree with Mr. Thomas. I think they would still have done what they did because they were part of what’s been called “the greatest generation.” That’s why those statistics sadden and bother me. For anyone who may not know what D-Day is, let me give you a brief history lesson. On June 6, 1944, more than 160,000 Allied forces landed on the beaches of Normandy, France, along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified coastline.This initiated the effort to liberate mainland Europe from Hitler’s Nazi occupation during World War II. It was the largest airborne and seaborne invasion in history. More than 5,000 naval vessels and 13,000 aircraft took part in the D-Day invasion. There were over 10,000 allied casualties, with 4,414 confirmed dead. The exact number of casualties may never be known. Many of the men killed on the beaches of Normandy had never heard of it until a few weeks before they landed. We can’t even imagine the horrors those men endured during that invasion. Their actions changed the course of the war. The foothold they gained on D-Day, gradually expanded as they gained more ground and led to the allied victory over Germany in Europe. People alive today, need to remember those veterans.

Hundreds of books have been written about D-Day and movies have been made about it. The Longest Day, Band of Brothers, and Saving Private Ryan, are three of the more famous ones.  

There were 16,112,566 members of the United States Armed Forces during World War II. As of September 9, 2014, the Department of Veterans Affairs estimated that 1,017,208 American veterans from that war were still alive. They are dying at the rate of 555 per day. By the end of 2014, there could be less than one million World War II veterans left. If you know a World War II veteran, thank them for their service and the many sacrifices they made. If you know a D-Day veteran, let them know that you remember and appreciate what they did to help bring about the defeat of Hitler’s forces, liberate Europe, and keep freedom in the world alive.

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Were We Born Too Soon?

Across the Fence #520

My brother, Arden, wondered if we had been born too soon. The headline of a story in the La Crosse Tribune on October 22, 2014, said “Renewed efforts to ban child labor on tobacco farms.” The story says the Human Rights Watch is pushing tobacco companies to adopt stronger child labor policies, by introducing legislation and urging the Department of Labor to take action. They are looking for legislation to ban kids under 18 from working on farms that raise tobacco. 

I guess we were born too soon. We worked in the tobacco fields from the time we were old enough to carry a hoe and chop out weeds. I must have been pretty young, because we were hoeing tobacco when my cousin Sandy, informed me that Santa Claus wasn’t real, it was just my folks. My world came crashing down around me. I threw down my hoe and went running to the house, hoping my mother would tell me it wasn’t so. You always remember those traumatic experiences, especially when hoeing tobacco. 

By the time I was ten years old I was planting tobacco. We raised 10-12 acres every year. Arden reminded me how Dad would pour a chemical poison into the water barrel on the tobacco planter. I think it was to kill cutworms that destroyed the plants. We got a lot of that poisoned water on our hands as we “dropped” plants. At coffee time we sat down and ate our food with our dirty, chemically-treated fingers. We never thought twice about poison being on our hands and getting into our system. We never got sick, and I’m happy to report I never had cutworms, so it must have worked. Worms from eating dirt is another story.

Piling tobacco: L-R: Cousin Sandy, Aunt Juna, Howard and David.

The tobacco was bigger than we were. Photo-1951 or 52.

Helping with tobacco and other farm chores was our way of life. If there were any child labor laws at that time, we certainly didn’t know about them. I don’t think government laws tried to dictate our every move in those days. If someone had come around and told my Dad his kids couldn’t do any kind of work with tobacco until they were 18, I think he’d have shown them where the carpenter made the door, and “Don’t let it hit you in the butt on the way out.”

By the time we were 18, we’d been doing every job associated with tobacco for many years. We watered tobacco beds, picked tobacco plants, planted tobacco, replanted tobacco by hand, hoed weeds, cultivated tobacco, topped tobacco, suckered tobacco, sprayed sucker-control chemicals on tobacco, cut tobacco, piled tobacco, speared tobacco, hauled tobacco, hung tobacco in the shed, took down tobacco during case weather, stripped tobacco, and spread tobacco stalks on the field using the manure spreader. Did I leave anything out? 

Tobacco was a lot of hand labor and back-breaking work. It included kids doing child labor if that’s what you want to call it. That was life on the farm, and everyone who grew up on a farm helped with the work from the time they were old enough to do a job. We complained about having to work all the time, but I don’t think it hurt us. We learned early in life how to work. 

I’ll admit we ate a lot of food using tobacco-stained hands. It was hard to wash off. We used Lava soap that also took your skin off if you rubbed too hard. Gary, who also grew up with tobacco, said they used green tomatoes to get the tobacco juice off. We never tried that. We also drank water from a clear Mason jar when we were in the field. Sometimes the water had tobacco juice swirling around in it if a tobacco chewer had been drinking from it. Personal water bottles, bought in a store, were unheard of in those days.

We chopped down tobacco with a light weight axe that was so sharp it could slice through a leather shoe and sever a toe if you got careless. Spearing plants onto a tobacco lath held it’s dangers too, as you grabbed a plant, held it against the spearpoint and pulled. A misplaced hand on the stalk could put the spearpoint into your hand.

We hauled tobacco, lifting heavy laths onto the wagon, then crawled up in the shed and balanced on thin, round poles. Poles would sometimes roll or break. If you were lucky, you managed to grab other poles to help break your fall. Sometimes people got seriously hurt or killed falling out of a shed.

Farming is not sitting at a desk, like I did for many years, and maybe suffering a paper cut! Farming is a dangerous job, and sometimes people get hurt, even if they follow all the safety rules. On our farm, no one ever got seriously hurt. Somehow, we survived all the dirt, poisons, and chemicals. We even drank raw milk every day and I don’t remember anyone getting sick. I think we try to protect people too much these days. I read that our upbringing heavily influences who we are and what we do. 

Maybe all of us farm kids were born too soon, but we learned how to work at an early age, and I think that served us well no matter what type of work we went into later.

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Some Scary Halloween Thoughts

Across the Fence #519

Somewhere out there in the darkness of the night, ghosts, goblins, and other scary creatures are on a pre-sugar high in anticipation of Halloween. It’s almost here.

Wind and rain have stripped the leaves from most of the trees and they look as bare as the bones of a roadkill raccoon after the turkey buzzards have finished a Halloween feast. Their branches sway in the breeze like bony fingers reaching out to grab you as you pass by. Their branches click and groan against each other, creating eerie sounds in the darkness. The wind blowing through the dry corn creates a rattle that sounds like an army of unseen skeletons shuffling through the cornfield. Maybe it’s not the sound of branches and corn stalks. Maybe there are skeletons out there in the dark. The Hunter’s Moon, appearing from behind a bank of dark clouds, casts ominous Halloween shadows over the countryside. It all adds to the mystery and spookiness of a wonderful Halloween experience. Try not to be too scared when you venture out among all the frightening creatures that emerge during Halloween.

It would be a great night for the old Prairie Ghosts to ride together again and go in search of the elusive Gamle Magretta. She only returns on Halloween, the night she was mysteriously burned to death in an old, abandoned building where she had sought shelter. I’ve mentioned Gamle Magretta (Old Margaret) in other Halloween stories and I’m still waiting to catch a glimpse of her. Perhaps this will be the year.

Yes, Halloween is a scary time. Kids will be running around on sugar highs for days to come as the rest of us prepare to head for the poles and elect the politicians who will represent us for the next few years. The scary part is that only around 50% of eligible voters will vote. It’s not only scary, it’s a shame. I will exercise my right to vote, otherwise I have no right to complain if I don’t like how things are being run. I’ve got to admit, I’ll be very glad when the election is over and we can bury all the negative ads along with the ghosts of Halloween.

Lets move on to a lighter subject. On our recent trip to Spring Grove, Minnesota to talk to the Sons of Norway Book Club, we also visited the Giants of the Earth Heritage Center and met with Dr. John Storlie, Genetic Genealogist at the Center. He also teaches Microbiology and Genetics at Viterbo University in La Crosse.

I’ve been involved with genealogy and family history for many years and have always wanted to have my DNA tested and see what it has to say about my ancestry. I took the test and received the results last week. There’s so much information involved, and now we’re going back to the Center where Dr. Storlie will explain the details to me. There are many interesting results. If any of you have taken the test, you know what I mean. They even warn you ahead of time, you may find out things you didn’t expect. Finding out all this information right before Halloween could really be scary for some people. I found the results extremely interesting, because I’m always looking for answers and like to keep an open mind to new possibilities. 

One result was very interesting, at least to me. I have 2.6% Neanderthal DNA! Note to my brothers and sister, welcome to the 2.6% Neanderthal Club. If you know history, you know the Neanderthal race disappeared about 40,000 years ago. Dr. Storlie told me when I took the test that I would most likely have Neanderthal DNA because of my heavy Norwegian/Scandinavian ancestry. He was right. I don’t find that scary at all, I find it fascinating.

Dr. John Storlie, explains Howard's DNA test results.

Howard wonders why he didn't inherit a full head of hair!

Many people had parents or grandparents who all came from Norway, and refer to themselves as 100% Norwegian. All my grandparents or great grandparents came from Norway, so I always felt that way too, until I started studying genealogy and history. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but our Viking ancestors really got around. They traveled to about every part of the known world at that time, and found some new worlds too, including North America, where they met the Skraelings (Native Americans). In most cases, they brought captives back to Norway.

According to my DNA, I’m 79.8% Scandinavian. That includes Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Finnish. Other DNA includes British, Irish, Scottish, French and German. That stands to reason since our Viking ancestors “visited” those countries many times. I also have Greek and Italian from my ancestors who sailed to the Mediterranean to take part in the 5th Crusade. They also brought back captives. There’s a small percentage of East Asian Yakut from Siberia. So I’m a bit of a mutt when it comes to my DNA. I also share DNA from my mother’s side with some famous historical figures, including St. Luke.

Now if all that isn’t enough to scare the hair off a Neanderthal during Halloween, I don’t know what is.  

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Pumpkins, Corn Shocks, and Outhouses

Across the Fence 3518

As Halloween draws near, I can’t help but think of pumpkins, corn shocks, and outhouses. I know candy treats are high on the list of kids these days when they think of Halloween, but it was hardly on the radar when I was young. We didn’t go trick or treating. If you lived in the country there wasn’t much treating going on, but there were a lot of tricksters roaming the dark countryside.

I don’t remember carving pumpkins when I was young, but I carved a bunch of them when our kids were young. On Halloween we put them on the front porch and lit them when it got dark. Too often, there was a cold rain and wind when the kids went trick or treating. It just wasn’t the same when Erik and Amy had to wear winter coats or rain gear over their costumes. It seems like we had more than our share of those types of Halloweens. The Jack-o-lanterns didn’t stay lit very long in that type of weather.

One year I bought a book with fancy patterns you could cut into a pumpkin. I did several of them that year. They looked great. One was a wolf howling at the moon. I made the mistake of setting them on the porch the day before Halloween. The next morning the pumpkins were still there, but the designs were completely gone and only gaping holes in the pumpkins remained. I figured it must have been the neighborhood raccoons who had a nice feast of fresh pumpkin. Raccoons lived in the sewers when we lived in Madison. Every evening they emerged from the sewer drain in the curb along our front yard, and went in search of food. We also had a multitude of squirrels, so they may have joined in the pumpkin feast too.

I didn’t want to buy a bunch of new pumpkins so we put a light in the ones we had and they looked like mutilated pumpkins with large holes in their heads. They received a lot of questions and comments from parents accompanying their trick or treaters.

Pumpkin carving: Amy and Erik helping me.

Halloween was a bigger deal when our kids were young than it was when I was their age. It was nice to finally experience Halloween along with them. Now our grandson, Sean, will soon start trick or treating. He wants to be a robot at Day Care this year. Halloween’s an exciting time for kids. Now Tim and Amy are the pumpkin carvers. I hope they don’t have any visits from raccoons roaming through their neighborhood.

Corn shocks are another staple of Halloween for me. The fields around us were always filled with row after row of corn shocks. Now the only place I can find them is in Amish country. We like to drive around and watch as the corn is harvested. It’s as if time had stood still. It’s the same process that took place when I was young. Nothing says fall to me like a field of corn shocks and a flock of geese passing overhead on a cold October day. Add a full Harvest Moon in the background and it’s a perfect picture for Halloween.

I swear I didn't tip over this corn shock!

Now the only thing missing is the outhouse. People from my generation can’t think of Halloween without remembering the outhouse. It’s getting harder to find an outhouse these days. At one time every house had one nearby. Some people referred to them as “The Two-holer.” That name was used because most of them had two round holes cut into the wood board that functioned as the seat. A big hole for adults and a smaller one for the kids. You only needed one hole for adults because nobody liked sharing the outhouse while you were conducting your business. 

The exception to that was a twenty-holer I encountered at the airstrip in Qui Nhon after we came ashore in Vietnam. While waiting on the airstrip to fly to Pleiku in the Central Highlands, many of us had to take care of business and headed for the latrine. It was a simple wood building that looked like an extra-long outhouse with a door on each end. It had a long seat along one wall with twenty or more holes. We all sat down and started going about our business, when a Vietnamese woman entered and sat down on a hole next to me. She smiled at me. I was too dumbfounded to know what to do. We all looked at each other, wondering if we were in the wrong outhouse. The woman finished her business, got up, and left. We all broke out laughing. Welcome to a culture our government had failed to tell us about. 

That outhouse would have been mighty hard to tip over on Halloween. A lot of outhouses ended up in a horizontal position as ghosts and goblins roamed the countryside in search of tricks to play. Soaping windows was another trick, but I think it was easier putting an outhouse upright than cleaning soap-smeared windows.

As this Halloween approaches, may your pumpkins be raccoon free, may your treat bag be full of candy, and if you still have corn shocks or an outhouse, may they remain upright.

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Predicting Winter Weather

Across the Fence #517

The steel gray sky seems to arrive earlier every year. That gray sky penetrates my body, bringing with it a chill that stays with me until the last patch of snow recedes into the woods in the spring. The cold chill of winter is in the air and it’s early October. What happened to fall? Where’s Indian Summer? There was snow on the ground in Sherpeland this morning, October 4th. It was enough to track a cat, so it counts as a snowfall.

Predicting the number of snowfalls each winter has been going on for a long time. An old farmer told me how he determined the number of snowfalls. He claimed he’d been “right on” or within a couple of snows every year. He said he takes the number of the first snowfall and adds the number of days since the last new moon. But, it’s not always that easy to determine if a snowfall counts. You have to be able to track a cat in the grass. Cement and blacktop doesn’t count. And, the snow has to stay through a sunrise or sunset. In other words, it snowed last night and was still on the grass when the sun came up, but it all melted by 9:00 am. There was enough snow in the grass that I think I could have tracked a cat, at least in the shorter grass. Does that count? It should, but if I take October 4 and add the number of days since the last new moon, September 23, that’s seven days added to four. That’s only eleven snowfalls! That would be great with me, but I find it very hard to believe. 

I’ve also heard that the number of the day you get your first snow is the number of snowfalls you’ll have that winter. This year that was October 4th. I’m willing to bet we’ll have to endure a lot more than four snowfalls. So I’m going to throw that old folktale out too.

Another old farmer said that if the first snow falls on unfrozen ground, it doesn’t count. The ground isn’t frozen yet, so apparently this first snow where I could track a cat, and the snow lasted through the sunrise, didn’t count. See how hard it is to count snowfalls.

Many people think the best winter forecaster is the woolly worm, or woolly bear caterpillar, depending on what you like to call it. Can the color of woolly bears tell us how long and severe our winter will be? If a lot of them are crawling around with a heavy black coat, look out. The shorter the reddish-brown band is, the longer and tougher the winter will be. I’ve been observing all the woolly bears on my walks each day. There are a lot of them to observe these days. My observations have been that they aren’t completely black, and many have a reddish brown center ring that takes up one third of their length. If you want to go with the woolly bear prognosticators, we’ll have a harsh beginning, a mild middle, and a harsh end to the coming winter. Other people claim to see only solid black ones, so take your pick. Supposedly woolly bears have been accurate 80% of the time since the 1950’s. So, depending on which woolly bears you’ve spotted, you’ll either be right or wrong.

Woolly Bear Caterpillar - Mid-October colors this year.

There are many old folk tales about predicting what kind of weather we’re going to have. I think we need to observe nature and the world around us, as our ancestors did before we had access to daily weather forecasts and Dopler Radar. Nature has its own way of predicting what kind of weather is coming. 

I like to observe which way chimney smoke is going to see what weather is coming. When chimney smoke descends, nice weather ends. If the smoke rises, a good day is ahead.

The old timers say if ant hills are high in July, winter will be snowy. If the birds are frantically attacking your bird feeders, look for a snowstorm to be on the way. The same is true if squirrels are extra busy. Also watch the bird migration patterns. The earlier they leave in the fall, the longer the winter will be. If they’re still hanging around in November, it’s pretty obvious that winter won’t be as long. They know they don’t need to get out of town and head south if harsh weather isn’t on the way. 

I’ve also heard the brighter the fall colors are on the trees, the colder and snowier the winter. So far our colors are only about 40% so it’s too early to make a prediction using that old timer’s tale. Another winter predictor is that for every foggy morning in August, it will snow that many days in the winter. Since I neglected to count the foggy mornings, I can throw that one out the window too.

I’ve found the best way to observe the weather is with a rock. Place a good-size rock outside, where you can see it from your window. If it’s dry, it means good weather. When the rock is wet, it rained, or is still raining. If the rock is covered with frost, it’s freezing outside. If the rock is white, it’s been snowing. If you can’t see the rock, it's either foggy or it snowed a whole bunch. When the rock is visible again, warmer weather is here. When you see green grass around the rock, spring has arrived and it’s time to put away the snowblower.

I’ve found that’s the best way to know what the weather is like. Find yourself a rock and give it a try!

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Book Clubs, Writing, and Bells Palsy

Across the Fence #516

Linda and I recently spent a wonderful afternoon in Spring Grove, Minnesota. I’d been invited to talk to their Sons of Norway Book Club. This was a followup to a program I did for their Sons of Norway meeting in July, when I was invited to talk about my writing and “Across the Fence.” After that meeting, they had decided to read my series of Across the Fence books in their book club. That’s what brought us back to Spring Grove on a beautiful summer day. We had a wonderful time at their meeting, and I was surprised by how many people showed up for the book club. It’s nice to know that people are still interested in reading “real books” that they can hold in their hands.

I should mention that I looked and talked a bit different from when they saw and heard me at that July meeting. The first thing I did was explain to them what had happened, so we could get their wondering out of the way. On July 20, I woke up and realized I had a problem when I looked in the mirror. My mouth was drooping, I had trouble spitting while brushing my teeth, and I had pain at the base of my neck. I did all the exercises to check for a stroke, but I was fine. I knew then that I probably had Bells Palsy. I had it on the right side of my face 27 years ago. Now the left side of my face was paralyzed. I knew from before, the sooner I could be treated with Prednisone, the better my chance of recovery. It was a Sunday, but I got into Urgent Care in Viroqua. They even did a CT scan of my brain. Luckily, my brain was fine and no tumors, which was nice to know. And yes, I really do have a brain. Now I can prove it. I was also tested for Lyme’s Disease, which often causes Bell’s Palsy symptoms. That test was also negative. 

So, I’m pretty special, I’ve had Bell’s Palsy twice. I tell people I had it on the other side 27 years ago, so I had to get it on the left side to level my face out. Now I’m a level-headed Norwegian-American who can drool out of both sides of his mouth at the same time. You’ve got to keep a sense of humor about it and can’t let it get you down. Most cases are back to normal after eight weeks. I’m now heading toward week twelve and there’s still a lot of paralysis. I still can’t blink or close my right eye, I can’t smile, and the right side still droops. I have trouble talking because my mouth can’t form certain letters. At least the pain is gone. We’ll just have to give it time and see how much movement I get back. It’s hard to be patient at times. So if you see me and I look like a grumpy, old man who never smiles, and sometimes has to wear a black eye patch, I’m still the same person on the inside. I may be getting older, but I’m not grumpy! Even if I don’t get a full recovery, I’ll never complain. Things could be a lot worse and there’s so much to be thankful for.

So if some of you have seen me around and wondered, “What the H happened to Sherpe?” now you know. 

Now lets get back to talking about writing and books. It would be nice if every community had a book club or writing group. It takes people who are willing to organize and lead a club, and Spring Grove has some great leaders and members. Book clubs are a great way for people to come together and discuss a book that everyone has read. It also takes a good leader to keep the discussion focused and bring everyone’s comments into the mix. After the Spring Grove meeting, several people told me they liked having the author who wrote the stories talk about them and explain the writing process I go through.

Spring Grove Book Club. Me seated, second from right.

Whenever I give a presentation, I always tell people, it’s important that they tell their stories too. Everyone has a story. People will say, “There’s nothing to tell.” There is so much to tell. I wish my parents and grandparents had written down some stories about their lives. That’s history, and if you’re into family history, those stories become priceless. Our cemeteries are full of stories that were never told. They are lost to us forever and that’s a shame.

I’ve been asked to do a two-day writing class at Norskedalen in November, to help people get started in writing their stories. I’ve done one-day classes in the past, but having two days will allow us time to expand on ways to get started, and allow more time to do some writing during the class. 

Several years ago, one student in my class came up with a very creative way to tell her story. She told it from the viewpoint of a dog she had when she was young. It gave the story a whole different perspective. Writing can be a lot of fun.

If you’re interested in the writing class, contact Norskedalen for details. And don’t worry, I won’t be a grumpy, old instructor. 

  

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