Jumping and Friday Night Lights

Across the Fence #480

It’s that time of year when the snow keeps falling, the temperature keeps plunging, the wind keeps dumping huge drifts in our driveway, and the skis start flying. It’s time for Friday night lights. No, not Friday night football lights, but Friday night ski jumping lights.

Five years ago the Westby Snowflake Ski Club decided to try ski jumping at night–on Friday night. It was a big success and this will be the fifth year of watching skiers fly off into the darkness of the night on the 118-meter Olympic-sized jumping hill. It certainly adds a whole new flavor to ski jumping. This year the Friday night lights tournament is, January 31. Saturday’s jumping is during daylight hours.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to push off and start down the inrun of the scaffold, picking up speed, while everything around you is dark except for the lights illuminating the scaffold and landing hill. It must be an exciting, surreal experience for the jumpers.

We attended many jumping tournaments when I was young. It was always an exciting time and I remember many of those famous ski jumpers from my youth. Billy Olson, Art Devlin, Willie Erickson, John Balfanz, Gene, Kotlarek, Dave Norby, and Westby’s own, Lyle Swenson. I bet not many people can name any of today’s ski jumpers. That’s too bad, because those old ski jumpers were heroes to us.

I remember seeing Lyle Swenson set the track as the first jumper off the new 90-meter hill after it was built. I remember when John Balfanz set the new North American record of 317 feet. I hope future generations can have similar memories about watching today’s jumpers in the original extreme sport of ski jumping. Of course, we always liked to see a few spectacular crashes too. I guess that’s human nature. It seems like there are very few falls these days. Either the jumpers have become more skilled or the less skilled are no longer in the sport.

Remember that poor ski jumper that fell on the scaffold, and went bouncing off the jump each week on “The Wide World of Sports” as they announced “and the agony of defeat.” He probably had a thousand good jumps, but that one disaster is what we saw and now remember. His falling focused attention on him and made him famous. That’s too bad. 

Ski jumping is an extreme sport and we should be celebrating that guy’s courage to do what the majority of people would never attempt. These days, it’s hard to find anyone who ski jumps or has tried it in the past. When I was young, many of the guys around the Westby area jumped. Now there are so many organized sporting activities for kids, their time is limited, and very few try ski jumping. I was never very good at it, but we had a lot of fun and thrills. I was pretty good at falling too. I did a couple of spectacular face plants when I jumped too late that you’d have found exciting to watch. I still have my old jumping skis and boots, but don’t ask me to put them on and try it again. I’m not that dumb.

I should also make it very clear that I never attempted to jump on the big hills in Timber Coulee. Most of our jumping was on makeshift jumps that we made on the hills around our area. One of our best jumps was on a steep hill near Esofea. Unfortunately there was a stream running through the valley and we needed to get stopped before reaching the water. Rocks and trees were also a hazard. You’re probably starting to understand that my friends and I were in the amateur class when it came to jumping. We didn’t get to spend a lot of time perfecting what little skills we had, but we certainly had fun, and no one got seriously hurt, unless you count getting knocked out and seeing stars.

My brother, David, hits the takeoff on Severson Hill

We finally got the thrill of going off a real ski jump when we went up to the old Severson hill in Westby when no one else was around. If anyone had known we didn’t have any training on a real jumping hill, they would probably have chased us off. Some Westby area people may remember where that hill was. It was where the junior jumpers skied and had their tournaments. I don’t recall how far you could jump on that hill but think it was around 60 – 80 feet. Maybe it was more. I know it was plenty big for me. 

I don’t think any of us would have received many style points. We were just happy to get to the bottom of the hill without killing ourselves. One thing I can tell you, ski jumping is quite a rush, even for those of us who did it to have some fun and also see if we had the guts to drop our skis into the tracks and let them start down the inrun. There was no putting them in reverse. Once you committed yourself, the wild ride was on. At least I never went bouncing off the takeoff like that poor TV jumper.

There’s nothing quite like flying through the air. I wonder what it would feel like under Friday night lights?

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The Yin and Yang of Life

Across the Fence #479

In a recent story, I used the term “yin-yang.” Some people have asked me what that meant. They weren’t familiar with the term. I wasn’t either until I got involved in the martial arts many years ago. Let me try to explain. The yin-yang philosophy is represented by the Tao symbol that attempts to explain the workings of everything in the universe. It originated in ancient China and stands for the two opposing forces that govern the world. 

There are times when my mind wanders in many different directions, seeking answers to why things are the way they are. I always seem to come back to the realization that life is a circle and we, and everything in it, are part of that circle of life. The Tao is a circle with two opposing forces that flow together.

The Native Americans and the people of the Orient are very aware of, and tuned into, the circle of life. I think too many people in the Western world tend to see life as straight lines, with occasional deviations from the path, but all roads go from point A to point B. 

Even in politics we get hung up with lines. “Middle of the road” is moderate, “Left” is liberal, and “Right” is conservative. We think of them as straight lines with no deviation from the path. No crossing the line to the views of “the other side.” “Keep on the straight and narrow path,” we are told. 

Party lines. I’ve often said if one party put a pig on the ballot, many people would vote for the pig, just because the pig is running on the right ticket. Who cares about the views or lack of views of the pig as long as he’s running in “Our Party?” It’s straight-line thinking instead of circle thinking that creates conflict and the lack of compromise.

Which brings my wandering mind back to the yin-yang symbol. 

The interaction of two opposing forces is referred to as “yin” and “yang” in the Orient, “negative” and “positive” in the Western world.

The symbol is representative of two opposing forces flowing into one another in a continuous state of change. Yin is passive or negative. Yang is active or positive. They are opposite yet complementary. There is black and white flowing into each other and in a process of constant change. Also, nothing is completely black or white. In the black there is a spot of white, and in the white, a spot of black.

There is light and dark, love and hate, happy and unhappy, up or down, smile or frown, male and female, optimist or pessimist, day and night, right and wrong, weak and strong, and the list goes on and on. I think you can see the many opposites in your life.

In the martial arts we taught people how to use an attacker’s strength and force against themselves. By applying the principles of the Tao, or circle, the weak can overcome the strong. But it didn’t just represent self-defense. It became a philosophy of life. At the urging of a friend who counseled veterans, I founded a Karate club in Madison, called Nam Ki Do, for veterans who were having problems. I enlisted the help of my friend, Wes Severson, who was also a black belt in Tai Kwon Do and a veteran, to help instruct. The instruction was free of charge, but the students were expected to take the instruction seriously and not use what they learned in an aggressive way. Gichin Funakoshi, the founder of Shotokan Karate said, “The ultimate aim of the art of Karate lies not in victory or defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants.” He also said “To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill.” Those are the attitudes we wanted to instill in our students. Using the principles of yin-yang we taught them how to control their anger and how to take the negative experience of war and turn it into something positive. Some of our students had drug and alcohol problems and many of them got their lives back together after getting involved in Nam Ki Do and learning the yin-yang of life. Several stuck with us long enough to earn their black belts and a couple have gone on to teach self-defense classes to women, also at no charge. When we left Madison, Wes took over and Nam Ki Do is still being taught after 24 years. And so the circle represented by the Tao continues to evolve. The negatives have morphed into positives.    

Yin-yang is representative of life. Which side we choose, which direction we go, depends on our personal outlook. If you want to live a happy, vigorous, healthy life, look to the bright side. If gloom, misery, and self-defeating attitudes attract you, look to the dark side. The path lies before each of us and we have the power to choose the way we wish to go. 

Just remember, even if you find yourself on the dark side of life, look for the bright spot, no matter how small. Then follow that light and use those negative experiences to make you stronger and turn the negatives into positives by changing the yin into yang. The choice is ours to make! 

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Cold Weather and Clotheslines

Across the Fence #478

I don’t have to tell anyone that it’s been really cold lately. It’s been the main topic of conversation, once our lips thaw out enough to talk. This will be a winter that will give people bragging rights for many years to come. “It got down to 24 below at our house on the ridge.” That’s nothing. It was 28 below at our place in the valley.” “You think that’s cold? It was 30 below at our house… and that was the inside temperature!” It was so cold at our place we had to thaw out our words in a frying pan to see what we were saying.” And the bragging goes on and on. It’s been that kind of winter.    

So how cold was it? It was so cold that people who hung their clothes on the line to dry needed three days for the clothes to thaw out after they brought them into the house. I realize many people don’t know anything about clotheslines and hanging clothes out to dry on them. I don’t pretend to be an expert either, but at least I know what a clothesline is used for.

We always had an outdoor clothesline when I was young. Every week Ma would wash clothes in a wringer washing machine and then hang them out to dry. She did this all year ‘round, regardless of the weather. Sometimes she had us kids take the clothes off the line and bring them in the house where she would iron the clothes that needed ironing and fold them. Now I suspect many people don’t even own an iron and ironing board.

I remember how fresh the clothes smelled after hanging on the line. I also remember frozen clothes piled on the kitchen table thawing out. Some of those blue jeans and bib overalls were so stiff I think we could have pounded nails with them. 

When it comes to clotheslines, people have a lot of memories and they are usually positive.

Around 1935 on the Sherpe farm at Old Towne. 

L-R: Agnes Steenberg, Marjorie (Steenberg) Haugen, 

Alice (Sherpe) Sherman behind my grandmother, Inga Sherpe, 

with clothes under her arm from the clothesline behind her.

A good friend from Madison told me, “How well I remember how Mother would put the clothes out in the winter, bare-handed, of course, and the clothes would freeze. (This was NORTHERN Minnesota, mind you) By the time she finished hanging out the clothes she would take them in again and put them on the dining room table at night. By morning they would be the dampness needed to iron them. It wasn’t easy. For some reason or other, she didn’t seem to want us kids to help. Most likely we couldn’t do it right.”

Another person said, “We had metal poles at each end (of the line). It was so sturdy that Dad put a swing on one of them, so one of my memories of clotheslines is swinging while mom hung out the clothes! I can still feel what that was like - the sun shining, big white fluffy clouds, wind in my face, and mom and I singing and talking.” 

My classmate, Ardy, often commented on my columns or sent ideas for new ones. I miss her e-mails. She’s hanging clothes on that big clothesline in the sky now. She once wrote, “Your description of your dad and neighbor stopping to talk reminded me of years ago when I had tons of laundry to do and took the time to hang it on the clothesline. I was never sure if it was the freshness of the clothes when they dried, or the visiting with the neighborhood gals, who were also hanging out laundry, that made it appealing. It was another version of talking “across the fence.”

Last summer, my cousin Sue Ostrem wrote, “I just took clothes off the line at our family farm, like Mom used to do. I have one of her jackets and in one of the pockets was a clothes pin. I can just see her probably heading to town and looking back over her shoulder at the clothesline and there was a pin... and maybe rain coming... so not to leave the little clothes pin on the line to get wet, she must have put it in her pocket, thinking she would take it out when she got home, never thinking that years in the future I would find it and treasure it. Yes, I still have the clothes pin in the pocket. And there it shall stay.”

Speaking of clothes pins, there were different types that I remember, all made out of wood. Just as Sue mentioned, you didn’t leave clothes pins on the line. You always gathered the pins when taking down dry clothes! Pins left on the lines could get dirty and the springs could rust. The efficient way to hang clothes was to line the clothes up so you didn’t need two clothes pins per item. You shared one between two items. That way you didn’t need to buy as many and saved money. 

Another thing, you always hung the sheets and towels on the outside lines so you could hide your underwear on the middle lines where people couldn’t see them. You can tell a lot about a family by driving by and seeing what’s hanging on their line, including how large the family is, the approximate ages of the kids, what kind of clothes they wear, and if there’s nothing on the line on a Monday, they probably headed south to get out of this deep freeze!

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A Character Building Winter

Across the Fence #477

Winter is here in full force! I think it arrived during deer hunting season, and like an unwelcome guest, doesn’t have the good sense to leave. As I write this, we’re in for a long stretch of sub-zero nights, and the days won’t be much better. This isn’t three-dog night weather. You’re gonna’ need four or five dogs to keep you warm if you want to survive this arctic blast. It looks like this will be with us for over a week. Uff da! This is what I call bone-chilling, character building weather. 

As cold as it will seem to us, we are so much better off than our ancestors were. I think of how harsh the winters must have been for our ancestors when they first arrived in this area. I know that many of our grandfathers and great grandfathers headed north in the winter to work as lumberjacks in the pineries. They left for Black River Falls at the beginning of winter and didn’t return until spring. My grandfather, Oscar Hanson, and his father Ole Hanson, both worked as lumberjacks. They left their families behind to take care of the farms and survive the long winters while they headed north to make some much-needed money. It was a very tough life for everyone involved.

When I interviewed my father about his life, he told of dealing with the cold weather in his early days: “It was so cold, when I went to the barn to milk by hand, the manure was frozen in the gutters. We had no water in the barn, so I had to let the cows and horses out to drink. I pumped water from the cistern to a tank in 25 below zero (weather) some days. You had to thaw out some water to prime the pump before you could get any water to come.” (Priming the pump was pouring water down the opening where the handle fit in the pump. You did this while you pumped the handle and eventually would get enough suction for the water to start running. I also remember when I did this). “There was no water in the house either. We had to carry it in buckets from the cistern. The old Sherpe house that stood across from where Old Towne Inn is today (south of Westby) was an old log house. We had a kitchen stove and a round, wood-burning stove. The two bedrooms had no heat in them. When the wind blew hard in the winter, you’d wake up with snow on the covers. It blew right through the cracks in the walls. I remember the water on the stove was frozen in the morning too.”

In most cases, each succeeding generation has it better, but even I remember how cold our upstairs bedroom was when I was young. A small, round hole in the floor (register) was the only way for heat to get to the upstairs. All three of us boys slept in the room with the register during the winter. On cold winter mornings, the windows would be frosted over with wonderful designs painted by Jack Frost! It was so thick we had to scratch a hole in the ice to peer outside. Even today I’m fascinated by the designs that frost makes on windows. It was so cold in our bedroom we could see our breath in the morning! We dressed quickly and dashed downstairs so we could stand next to the kitchen stove and warm up. Those were character-building days for us too. Now if it gets a little chilly in the house, we complain about the cold and crank the thermostat up another degree.

On these cold days I think of all the birds that visit our feeders. I wonder where they spend the night when it gets so cold. I hope they’re protected from the cold wind, and are as dry and warm as possible. They need every bit of energy from the food they’ve consumed during the day to maintain their body temperature through the night. I hope they all survive and will be back in the morning. I keep the feeders full so they’ll have plenty of food available. Winter in the North Country can be harsh for our feathered and furry friends. A little assistance from us humans, to help them make it through the winter night, certainly doesn’t hurt.

Character building winter weather can be tough for both man and beast. Fortunately there’s a lot of Ying and Yang in winter. Some people see only the cold, dark side, but there’s also a warmer, lighter side. 

Go for a walk, ski, or snowshoe in new-fallen snow and you’ll visit a winter wonderland. Pine trees hang heavy with snow and the dark limbs of trees are accented with blankets of white. The fresh snow crunches under your boots in the cold air as you make tracks where none were before. Snow will lighten even the darkest corners and soften the hard edges. There’s also an insulating property to snow that softens the sounds and creates a quiet, meditative world to explore. 

If you’re physically able, venture out, explore, and enjoy the wonderland that winter creates. Winter is a big part of who we are, here in the North Country.

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