There's Still Life After Fifty

Across the Fence #435

Welcome! Pull up a chair and have a seat. Things are pretty quiet for a Friday night here at the Coon Ridge First and Last Chance Saloon. It’s the first and last chance ‘cause it’s on the edge of town. The first place to stop on your way in, and the last place to stop on your way home. 

Besides the two of us, the only other people in the bar are Tiny Olson and Tom Tollakson, and of course, the best and only bartender in Coon Ridge, Harry Fieldhouse. Harry is old. Real old. No one knows his age, but most people in Coon Ridge figure Harry must be pushing a hundred and still going strong. Harry has heard it all during his many years of listening to his patrons unload their troubles on him. He’s also full of wisdom, which he dishes out in big doses to those same complaining patrons. People ‘round here say he’s mostly full of crap. You ask Harry a question and he’ll most likely have an answer for you, and usually not a short one. He’s about as close to a philosopher or psychiatrist as you’re going to find around Coon Ridge, and a whole lot cheaper too, unless you tend to drink a lot. Then listening to Harry’s advice is like having the meter running in one of them fancy taxis they have in big cities. The longer you ride that bar stool the more expensive the trip gets.

As I said it’s pretty quiet tonight; just the three of them. Tiny, who is far from being tiny, is nursing a Brandy Old Fashion. Tiny can stretch a drink longer than anyone in Coon Ridge. He also takes up two stools as he sits at the bar, which don’t much matter when there’ so few customers.

Tom Tollackson is having a hard time tonight. As far as he’s concerned, his life is ending. Tomorrow he turns fifty. He’s sure that he has one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. He hasn’t been nursing his drinks. He’s been knocking them down like there’s no tomorrow. There’s no future as far as he’s concerned. Let’s listen in and see how things are goin’.

“You seem pretty down tonight,” said Harry. “Must be something I can say to perk you up.”

“Ain’t nothin nobody can say to perk me up,” Tom said as he killed another Old Style. “Tomorrow’s my birthday. The big 5-0. It’s all over. I’m too old to do anything any more, and I haven’t done half the things I thought I was gonna’ do by this time in my life. I’ve been looking, and even the women don’t give me one of them side-glances like they used to do when they thought I wasn’t looking. Man, it’s all over. Crank up Amazing Grace on the jukebox and contact the firing squad over at the Einer Hoverson VFW Post.”  

“Now nothin’s ever as bad as it seems,” said the good bartender. “Over the years I’ve lost track of all the 50 year-olds crying in their beer to me about life bein’ over. Let me tell you a thing or two young feller’, you’re just a pup. I got underwear older than you are!  Tomorrow’s not the end, just ‘cause you’re turnin’ 50.” He crushed out his cigarette in an overflowing ash tray, leaned his elbows on the bar, and in his low, raspy, smoker’s voice began to impart his great wisdom. Anyone who’s spent much time at the Coon Ridge First and Last Chance Saloon has heard it all before.   

“Life’s a journey,” he continued. “It begins with birth and ends with death. Between that beginning and the end, if you live to be 100, fifty years is the half-way point. The trail we each take and what we’ve done along the way determines what kind of life we’ll have after fifty. No two roads or trails are the same and that adds to the mystery and enjoyment, or lack of enjoyment of the journey. I’ve always liked Robert Frost’s lines, ‘Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’ Now, if you want to look at life like a road, and use the number 100 as the target you’re shooting for, then 50 is halfway, which means it’s all downhill from here brother! That can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. So tell me Tom, what kind of road do you see as you sit where you are now and look behind and ahead of you?

Tom drained the last of the Old Style he was working on and lined it up with the other empty bottles in front of him. He took a long drag on his cigarette and crushed it out in the overloaded ashtray. 

“You know Harry, you’re usually full of bull, but what you just said made sense to me. I know one thing, if I keep drinking and smoking like I’ve done in the past, the road I’m on is gonna’ be a short, dead end road. If I wanna’ live to be a hundred, I better clean up my act or I won’t even see 60. Thanks Harry. No more self-pity for me. Tomorrow I turn 50, but it’s also the first day of the rest of my life.”

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Try To Enjoy the White Stuff

Across the Fence #434

I’m ready to go looking for that mangy groundhog that predicted an early spring, drag him out of his hole, and let him experience this wonderful snow we’re still getting pummeled with.  Seems to me that since Groundhog’s Day when he didn’t see his shadow, we’ve had more snow than the rest of the winter months combined.

I think we set a record around here with 20 days of snow in a row. That was in February. Now we’re into March and a huge snowstorm is in progress. They predict that we may get up to 12 inches. Just what everyone wants this time of year when the majority of us have had enough of this white sh… I mean stuff, and want to see green grass again. Why is it that I never see a groundhog above ground during a snowstorm? Imagine they’re curled up all warm and cozy in their burrows below ground, dreaming of warm, sunny days, while we humanoids are shoveling and snowblowing our driveways, for the thousandth time this winter, and pushing cars that are stuck in snow drifts. 

All this talk of snow makes me question the mental stability of my Norwegian ancestors who had this whole country to settle in and decided to stake their claim in the frozen tundra. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, since they arrived in this area during the summer or early fall when the countryside was warm, gorgeous, and must have looked like a paradise to them. I wonder if they had thoughts of returning to Norway after that first tough winter when temperatures plunged way below zero and the snow howled across the prairie? In their defense, they were used to snow and cold weather in Norway, but the mountainous, fjord area along the southwestern coast where my Sherpe and Ostrem ancestors lived, had milder weather because of their proximity to the North Sea.

I sure wish some of them had written down their experiences and thoughts about those days, but I suspect they were too busy trying to stay alive than worry about leaving their stories for later generations. Fortunately, Norwegian historians have recorded the history and stories that go back to some of my early ancestors so I have some idea of what they did and what life was like for them. As I watched the new Viking series on the History Channel on Sunday night, I wondered if my ancestor, Gaut på Ænes (Urnes) was as ruthless as the Viking Chieftain on the Viking show? Grandpa Gaut was a Viking Chieftain in the 1100s. Historians say he was from one of the most powerful families in Norway at the time, so I imagine ruthlessness went along with being powerful. That’s why this Viking series interests me. It gives me a glimpse into the historical roots of my ancestors, the good, bad, and the ugly. As they say, you can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.

I guess I better quit complaining and wimping about the winter weather, or my Viking ancestors will disown me. Think on the positive side, it’s better to have a lot of snow in March than in November. March snow will soon melt. November snow could be our companion for five months. Plus, this will make for some great snowshoeing and skiing until it melts. 

Snow this time of year also makes for some great snowmen, snowforts, snowcaves, and tunnels. Over the weekend we went through Madison on our way to see our grandson, who is now crawling and pulling up on furniture. We did a drive-by of our old house in Madison, and snow was piled high on the curbs and in the yard. It reminded me of when Erik and Amy, along with neighborhood friends, would build snowforts with connecting trenches and tunnels. They had hours of fun building and playing in those structures and having snowball fights. One time I helped build a large Viking ship out of snow, complete with a Viking snowman in the boat. Those are things you can’t do if you don’t have lots of snow to work with. 

If you get a lemon, make lemonade. If you get dumped on with a lot of snow, pretend you’re a kid again and help build a snowman or a snowcave. Or grab some snowshoes and explore the white wonderland around you. You’ll be surprised at all the things you discover that you never noticed before. If you take some trails through wooded areas you may even surprise a deer drinking in a creek or see a red fox searching for a meal against a white background of snow-covered evergreens.

In winter we need to get in touch with our inner child again and get out and enjoy the snow and explore nature. Remember what it was like when you were young and snow didn’t bother you? If snowmen and snowforts don’t interest you, make a snow angel or stomp down the snow in a large circle with connecting links and play fox and geese. Remember when you used to play that during recess in school? If you’re really adventurous, get your family together and build a Viking ship out of snow. All these activities make winter much more bearable until the groundhog’s prediction of an early spring finally arrives.

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Where Did the Time go?

Across the Fence #434

It’s been an interesting week. Three conversations this week brought back memories of my days in Vietnam. In many ways it seems like yesterday, but it’s been 47 years since the ramp went down on our landing craft and we splashed ashore. 

Two of the people I had contact with this week were friends that I served with. Ken Lee, “Big Lee,” now lives in California and Kurt “Doc” Nagl is from Maryland. We were all in basic training together with the 4^th Infantry at Fort Lewis, Washington, and Doc Nagle and I went through medical training together after basic. I’m still Doc Sherpe to them. 

The first communication came from Doc Nagl. In Vietnam we were on Operation Hancock I together in April and May of 1967, working with the 3/8 Infantry battalion of the 4^th Infantry. The majority of us medics on that operation had trained together and were friends. We first got back in contact several years ago. He had recently posted a lot of photos on the 3/8 website from our days together in Vietnam. He had also posted photos of a 3/8 reunion from a year ago. Time passes and as I looked at the photos, I had to admit we have definitely aged. I still recognized all the guys in the photos from 1966-67. We were lean, mean fighting machines back then. But, who were all those much heavier, old duffers in the reunion photos? It hit me like a roundhouse kick to the gut. We had all grown older.

Doc Nagl seated in foreground, taking a break.

In my mind they were still the young guys I had trained and fought with. But 47 years has fogged those memories. Now it’s like looking through the haze and fog rising lazily from the steaming jungle floor and seeing ghostly images emerging slowly through the fog. This time they aren’t the NVA, they’re a bunch of old vets. Where did the time go? How did we grow so old? I answered my own questions. At least we had the opportunity to age and grow old. There’s a saying I read somewhere, “Do not regret growing older. It’s a privilege denied to many people.” Many of our friends weren’t given the gift of all these extra years that we’ve had.

The second communication came from The Highground, a 140-acre veteran’s memorial park near Neillsville, Wisconsin. They wanted me to know that they’re planning a ceremony on September 14 to commemorate the 25^th anniversary of the dedication of the Wisconsin Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. That memorial remembers our 1,244 Wisconsin brothers who gave their lives in that war, a war that most people in this country wanted to forget. I couldn’t believe it had been 25 years since that September dedication back in 1988. Where did the time go?

They asked if I would be the speaker at the 25^th anniversary celebration. I wrote back and told them I’d be honored. I was also a speaker during the dedication ceremony in 1988 when we unveiled the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial sculpture. 

Looking back, our struggles during the planning and building of that memorial, and making it go from a dream to a reality, were just as painful as the Vietnam experience. At the time, Vietnam veterans were looked down on as losers, and despised by many people in this country. Many veterans, including me, had been in the “Vietnam Closet” for close to twenty years. Even some veteran’s organizations wouldn’t give us the time of day when we started trying to build a memorial. A big city editor told one of our board members, “Why don’t you guys forget it. The war is over.” Another person told me, “How do you guys think you’re going to build a memorial? You Vietnam vets would screw up a one-car funeral.” That statement brought out my “Hothead Sven” gene.

Despite all the obstacles, we didn’t give up. We had a core group of hard-working, dedicated board of directors, all veterans, who turned that one-car funeral into one of the finest veteran’s memorial parks in the entire country. It has become a sacred ground for veterans of all wars, and a place of spiritual and emotional healing for many. It will be good to get together in September and visit with old friends. I wonder if anyone has changed? I guess I know the answer to that question too.

The third communication was from Big Lee. “Hi Doc, how you doing?” He said he and his wife, Nancy, would be visiting her family in Michigan in mid-June and hoped to swing by Westby on their way back to California. I told him we’d have a mini-reunion here with several other guys from Wisconsin that we served with if he comes. He said he’d love to sit in the woods and talk one on one together, just like we used to do in the bush in Vietnam. Maybe we can take a trip to The Highground, take a walk on one of the hiking trails, and find a quiet spot in the woods where we can sit and discuss this journey we’ve been on.

Where did the time go? Time marches on and we’ve been lucky enough to be along on the march. We all may have changed in appearance, but the connection and closeness between those of us who served together will never change. I’ll always be Doc Sherpe to them.

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Mother Nature Still Rules

Across the Fence #432

Meteors, floods, wildfires, earthquakes, hurricanes, blizzards, droughts, tornadoes, and tsunamis show us that Mother Nature still rules.

We as humans think we’re in charge, but every once in a while, Mother Nature throws us a changeup and reminds us who’s really in control. We saw that again recently as a meteor went streaking across the sky and exploded in the Urals region of Russia near Chelyabrinsk, injuring over 1,000 people and causing much property damage. We’re told that it exploded with 33 times more power than the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in 1945. That’s a lot of destructive force.

Space is filled with floating debris and every once in a while a chunk hits the earth’s atmosphere and we see a “shooting star,” as many people call them. Most of them burn up before reaching the earth, but what if a large chunk of space rock hit a highly populated city. What if this 55-foot meteor had hit downtown New York instead of a remote area of Russia? The result would have been catastrophic. It would probably have flattened much of New York. At the moment, there’s not much we could have done to stop it.

Most people have experienced events in their life where they’ve been at the mercy of the natural world. Here in the Driftless Region we experienced two major floods in two years. We saw the destructive force of water as it flooded homes and businesses, wiped out roads and culverts, uprooted trees, and knocked out electricity and communications. The gentle rain that’s needed for plants and crops to grow, and provides us water to drink, wash, and cook with, also has a destructive side. As Trent Loos said in his book “The Best of Trent,” when talking about all things in moderation, “A little water is awesome. A lot of water is deadly.” 

That got me thinking about other forces of nature that have both good and bad affects, depending upon “a little” or “a lot.” In all of them Mother Nature’s in charge and rules.

Here in the frozen tundra of the North Country, we’re still experiencing winter. As we all know, a good blizzard can bring everything to a halt and nothing moves. Many of you remember the March blizzard of 1959. People were snowed in for many days. Regular snowplows had trouble getting through the drifts in our road. There was no place to shove the snow. The drifts were higher than the snowplows. Unfortunately, I was on crutches at the time from a leg I had broken in football, six months earlier. We still had an outhouse and no indoor plumbing. Getting through the narrow, shoveled path to the outhouse using crutches was an adventure I’ll never forget. But when nature called, even Mother Nature couldn’t stop me from my mission.

Here in the Midwest we don’t have to worry about hurricanes or tsunamis, but we do know about tornadoes. There again, we can marvel at the beauty of the clouds that bring us water that nourishes and sustains all life. Those same clouds can bring too much rain and lead to destructive floods. They can also turn dark and menacing and morph into destructive tornadoes that can level everything in their path. There is no way to stop a tornado that’s barreling down on you. Mother Nature’s in charge and rules.

Whenever the sky turned dark and it looked like a bad storm was approaching, Dad would herd us all into the dark, damp cellar for protection, in case high winds or a tornado might be involved. We had to go outside to enter the cellar through a door that pulled up. The rain often soaked us as we hurried down the old, stone steps that led to the cellar. Dad would pull the door shut behind us. Sometimes the wind was blowing so hard he could hardly pull it down. A flashlight was our only source of light as we huddled in the cellar until the storm blew over. There was no place to sit so we just stood and waited. Toads and mice also occupied the cellar, so we weren’t alone. One time when we emerged from our dark sanctuary, we saw several large pine trees had been uprooted and blown down in our yard. Fortunately, all of them had missed the house. Another time the tobacco shed had been flattened. 

Storms always helped remind us that Mother Nature was still in charge and could do whatever she wanted. All we could do was hide in the cellar and hope for the best.

Farmers know they’re always at the mercy of the weather. Good weather, with enough rain to nurture the crops, means a good harvest. A drought or high winds and hail can destroy a crop. Those are all things a farmer can’t control. Even the best farmer couldn’t stop Mother Nature from delivering a hailstorm that would destroy a tobacco crop that was ready to harvest.

As we travel through life it’s good to remember that there are some things we have no control over. You can fret and worry all you want, but it won’t change things. Just remember that Mother Nature is in charge, will do whatever she wants, and our job is to make the best of whatever she delivers into our lives.

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So God Made A Farmer

Across the Fence #431

During this year’s Super Bowl, a two-minute advertisement for Ram Trucks featured excerpts from a Paul Harvey 1978 address to the Future Farmers of America Convention, along with still photos of farmers and farming. I think it was one of the most memorable ads among a plethora of forgettable and annoying commercials. 

A New York Times obituary said of Paul Harvey, “In his heyday, which lasted from the 1950s through the 1990s, Mr. Harvey’s twice-daily soapbox-on-the-air was one of the most popular programs on radio. Audiences of as many as 22 million people tuned in on 1,300 stations to a voice that had been an American institution for as long as most of them could remember.”

I’m one of those who remember. I bet many of you remember his introduction each day, “Hello, Americans, This is Paul Harvey! Stand byyy for Newwws!”

In case some of you aren’t familiar with this wonderful piece, here's the full text of Paul Harvey’s 1978 ‘So God Made a Farmer’ speech:

And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a farmer. “I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a calf and yet gentle enough to deliver his own grandchild. Somebody to call hogs, tame cantankerous machinery, come home hungry, have to wait lunch until his wife’s done feeding visiting ladies and tell the ladies to be sure and come back real soon – and mean it.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt. And watch it die. Then dry his eyes and say, ‘Maybe next year.’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from a persimmon sprout, shoe a horse with a hunk of car tire, who can make harness out of haywire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. And who, planting time and harvest season, will finish his forty-hour week by Tuesday noon, then, pain’n from ‘tractor back,’ put in another seventy-two hours.” So God made a farmer.

God had to have somebody willing to ride the ruts at double speed to get the hay in ahead of the rain clouds and yet stop in mid-field and race to help when he sees the first smoke from a neighbor’s place. So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bails, yet gentle enough to tame lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-combed pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the broken leg of a meadow lark. It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed and rake and disc and plow and plant and tie the fleece and strain the milk and replenish the self-feeder and finish a hard week’s work with a five-mile drive to church.

“Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ‘doing what dad does.’” So God made a farmer.

“And that’s the rest of the story. Paul Harvey… good dayyy!”

Paul Harvey pretty much summed it up in that speech, “So God made a farmer.” He made a lot of them, and he’s still making them. This world needs farmers if people want to eat and survive. That food you buy in the supermarket doesn’t just miraculously appear on the shelves. Farmers are working from before dawn ‘til after dark to see that those shelves remain full. It’s not an easy job. You have to know a little bit about everything if you’re going to be a farmer. 

When I was young, just about everyone I knew was a farmer. My parents were farmers. My grandparents were farmers. Most of my relatives were farmers. All my friend’s parents were farmers. It was the only way of life we knew. Our immediate world pretty much ended at the line fence around our farm. Beyond the line fence our world included the community that attended our rural one-room school. It was the hub that tied each farming community together.

For the farmers and their family members within that community, farming was not a 40-hour a week job. The norm was 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. There were no paid vacations. For most farmers there were NO vacations.

Like everything else that once was, the face of the American farmer is changing. Farming is a scientific, high-tech, big business. Many tractors and machinery can cost more than a house. Computer technology has become as big a part of farming as the plow. You better thank God for continuing to make new farmers who’ve been able to adjust to the changing times. Without them we’d all be starving.

I’m glad I had the opportunity to be raised on a farm. I look back at those years as something to be proud of. 

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Valentine's Day Cards Are Special

Across the Fence #430

Valentine’s Day was one of those gut-wrenching days when I was in grade school. It ranked right up there with having to recite a piece at the Christmas Sunday School program. I could empathize with Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoon when he would go to the mailbox hoping to find a Valentine from the little red-haired girl that he had a crush on. The mailbox was always empty. Poor ole Charlie Brown.

Unlike Charlie Brown, everyone in our one-room country school received valentines. No one was forgotten. Each student decorated a box with a slit cut into the top where valentines could be inserted. We each had our name on our box. Everyone was supposed to give a valentine to each student in our school. We usually had only 18-22 students in all eight grades. It wasn’t like today when there are hundreds of students in a school. 

Our mother would buy a pack of valentines, usually the kind that were die-cut into shapes and printed on one side only. We would write on the back of each card to personalize it to the person receiving it. Usually we just wrote the name of the person and our name. If it was a close friend or a girl you liked, you might add an extra line or some silly poem or limerick. Some cards had a special verse and you would reserve them for a special girl or one you hoped would become special. I’ve said before that you needed a PhD in code deciphering to understand a valentine’s message. That included trying to read between the lines of the cards you received from the girls. 

On Valentine’s Day we all exchanged our valentines, putting a card into each person’s decorated box. You could hardly wait to get home and go through them to see what kind of cards people had given you and what they had written on your cards. 

“Valentines are stupid, valentines are dumb, so why should I get upset, if you don’t give me one?” “Roses are red, violets are purple, you’re as sweet as a pail of maple surple.”

Linda said that her grade school in Platteville did the same things we did. She went to the city grade school instead of a one-room country school like I did. She had more students in her class than we did in our entire school. They had 26 students in her grade. For seven of our eight years we only had two in my grade, Donna (Gilbertson) Kjelland and me. Linda’s school only exchanged cards with the kids in their class. There was no way they could exchange valentines with the entire school. It would have cost their parents a fortune and a decorated shoebox would never have held all the cards. 

Linda always found it special, deciding which valentine to give to each person. You didn’t want to give just any old card to those classmates who were special friends, especially if it was a boy you liked. A lot more thought went into the selection of those cards.

In 4^th grade, Linda liked a certain boy. On the back of the card she received from him, he had signed his name and had drawn little hearts all around it. Now that’s a card you don’t need to decipher. The message was very clear; he liked her enough to personalize it with hearts! She put that card in a drawer in her room and saved it for many years. Lucky for me, Linda and her young friend didn’t become a serious item in later years.

Valentine’s Day has become much more than just exchanging cards. It’s become a marketing bonanza for businesses. Gifts that some people think will put you in good standing with your sweetie are fresh flowers – mainly red roses (about a dozen should do it), chocolates that come in a heart-shaped box, and a romantic, candlelight dinner at her favorite restaurant. You could also throw in a teddy bear holding a red heart. I see a lot of them in stores this time of year. A nice bottle of her favorite perfume would also be appreciated. I understand jewelry has also become quite popular as a Valentine gift. Uff da, this Valentine tradition could set a guy back a few bucks compared to that simple card back in grade school.

If you just give your sweetie a card, she may wish she had a second chance at that young guy that drew hearts on her card in grade school. Actually, a handmade, hand-drawn card has much more sentimental value then any store-bought card created by Hallmark. On Valentine’s Day, Linda and I will have dinner at Old Towne, one of our favorite restaurants, right here in Westby. I might even give her a card and draw some hearts on it. 

No matter what you give that special someone this year, don’t forget the card and add a personal touch, just like you did in grade school when you wanted to let someone know you liked them. The right card can be special. It can add a little more sunshine in someone’s life. Valentine’s Day reminds us that spring is just around the corner as each day gets longer, and the warmth from the added sunlight feels wonderful. It’s a great time of year.

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Imagination, Creativity, and Toys

Across the Fence #429

If you grew up around Westby, Wisconsin, skiing was a part of your life, especially ski jumping when I was young. I think skiing goes hand in hand, or foot and foot, if you prefer, with our ancestors coming from Norway. They say Norwegians are born with skis on their feet. That should scare any soon-to-be mother of Norwegian descent! I think the desire to strap a pair of boards on our feet and slide down a hill is in our genetic make-up. Flying through the air on that pair of boards just adds a little more excitement to the fun. 

This year the Snowflake Ski Club in Westby hosted their 90^th annual ski jump. It used to be a 90-meter jumping hill but it’s now 118 meters. That’s 387+ feet for the metrically challenged, which includes most of us.

Back in the 1950’s and early 60’s we always went to watch the jumping. Some ski jumpers that stand out in my memory from those days are: Ralph Bietila, Gene Kotlarek, Art Devlin, Billy Olson, Joe Perreault, John Balfanz, Lloyd Severud, Art Tokle, Rudi Maki, and of course Lyle Swenson from Westby, who captained the U.S. Olympic team and competed at Innsbruck, Austria in 1964.

When my brother, David, and I were talking on the phone one night this week, he reminded me of a ski jump we built when we were in grade school. I had forgotten all about it until he started describing it. Then the images started flooding back from deep within the recesses of my memory. I wonder why our mother didn’t take a photo of it to save for posterity? Perhaps she didn’t find it as great a marvel of engineering and artistic ability as we did. 

We built it out of cardboard pieces that we cut from discarded boxes. We think we got the idea from a miniature ski jump that was displayed in the window of the Flugstad Hardware Store during the annual ski tournament. That ski jump is now on display in the window of Dregne’s Scandinavian Gifts, where Flugstad’s store used to be. 

David was the engineer and I was the artist. Between the two of us we think we built a pretty fine ski jump. We cut out all the strips to use as supports and struts and fastened them together with that white paste in a jar that we used as glue in school. We curved the cardboard for both the scaffold and landing hill and then glued white paper on it for the snow. Our scaffold even had sideboards on it so the skiers wouldn’t fall off. 

Yes, we even made ski jumpers and gave them the names of those jumpers from the 1950’s listed earlier. They were also cut out of cardboard and colored with crayons. We made the skis from used popsicle sticks. We can’t remember how we bent the wood up in the front to form the skis. We think we soaked them in water to make the wood more pliable. Then the skiers were attached to the skis and we were ready for our tournament. We had to keep the skiers straight up or even tilted a little to the rear or else they would topple forward when going down the scaffold and hill. The incline of our scaffold was pretty steep so the skiers could slide fast enough to fly off the takeoff and not just plop over. 

As David said, there was nothing electronic about our old ski jump, but we had a lot of fun playing with it in the living room. Most of the materials to make it were recycled from things that would have been burned or thrown away. We didn’t spend any money on it other than the paste. There’s something special about toys that you make yourself. It gives you a satisfaction and feeling of accomplishment that you created and built something. You also have hours of fun making them. 

Our toy making didn’t stop with ski jumps. We also built our own earthmoving equipment, caterpillars, and dump trucks out of broken tobacco laths. I wrote about those toys several years ago. If you have a copy of my first “Across the Fence” book, you can find that story about the creative use of tobacco laths on page 99.

There again, it helped that David was the carpenter and builder, and I was more of the designer, trying to make them look good. We were a good team. We used our imagination to create many of our games and toys when we were young. I was glad to see our kids also use their imagination to create things. Everyone needs to keep their brain creatively active, no matter what age they are. You’re never too young or too old to learn new things. Better yet put the old and young together. If you have grandchildren, get together and create and build something. I hope I can show our grandson how we built tobacco lath trucks and let him help put them together.

We need to let kids know that back in the dark ages, before computerized games and electronics, people actually made toys and games with their own hands. We let our imagination and creativity run wild and the toys we envisioned in our mind, soon took shape and came to life.

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