I've Been Inspired

I've been inspired by Stitchin' by the Lake whose most recent blog was written about small country churches - small in membership, not necessarily small in physical size.

I've told you previously that I was raised Norwegian Lutheran. At least that's how it ended up because my mother was raised Swedish Lutheran and my father Norwegian Lutheran. Back in their day there was a lot of segregation among the Swedes and the Norwegians. When my family finally settled in Small Town, USA, it was a community of Germans and there was no Swedish or Norwegian Lutheran church, not that it mattered at that point anyway. Just that it was Lutheran was more important. Here's a picture of what the church looked like when we moved here.


It was a country church built in 1892 on the bank of the same river Ole and I live by. It currently has a membership of approximately 250 active members. Below is a shot of the sanctuary. I just love the old Gothic design and was very sad when the council decided to abandon this church due to the fact that it flooded so frequently.

They decided to build a new, modern style building right in Small Town, and not that it's not beautiful in it's own right, it just lacks the character and the feel of the old church. I attended Sunday School there, was confirmed there and Ole and I were married there. We don't have the long history with this church that some of the community members do - some of my friends' families go back three and four generations.

When Lovely Daughter was ready to start confirmation we ended up leaving and transferring to a very large church (5000 membership) because of political reason. Church politics can get even uglier than regular politics. The minister at that time was busy driving all the young families away due to his dictating attitude. I won't go into the details, but over 50% of the young families left at that point.

As the years went by and Ole and I were lost in the huge membership we decided that we needed something a bit more personal. We made the move back to our little church and it was like old home week. Many of the young couples that had left when we did were in the process of returning also, and it was so nice to be warmly welcomed by many of the "old timers." At this point "that" minister had died. There had been several since him, but we returned about the time a new minister had accepted the call to our church.

He's a wonderful person - a 40-something family man who has had a "real" life prior to becoming a minister. He's an ex-marine that saw combat and didn't go into the ministry until he was 40 years old.

Stitchin' by the Lake wrote about the strong family feeling of a small church. I must agree with her - there's always someone you can count on to help you out in time of need. When Ole and I were being flooded so badly this past spring we received a number of calls not only from Pastor Mark, from the secretary at the office, but also from various parishioners making sure that we were okay, asking if we needed anything, or if they could come out and help with anything. That left such a warm feeling - knowing that you weren't alone in the battle and that you had people you could call on if needed.

A number of years ago a cousin and I went on a road trip back to the area where our parents had grown up. We decided on Sunday morning that we would attend that old Norwegian Lutheran church that our fathers had attended (our fathers were brothers). Now, mind you, neither of us had been back there for years - probably not since we were teenagers. Now we're both (ahem) "old bags." This is a tiny, little church, way out in the country that you have to drive on 10 miles of gravel roads to get to. Our grandparents are all buried there. We were late arriving and walked in just a couple of minutes before the service was to start. Believe me, we were very aware of all the looks and whispering that went on. But when the service was over and it was time for coffee down in the basement, you can believe that we were greeted by every single person in attendance and they ALL knew who we were!! We were the daughters of Arnold and Manfred and had to give a report on each member of our families. When it was time to go we both received hugs and warm greetings and lots of invitations to come back.

There's nothing like a small church on Sunday morning.

Love Lena

I'm Over My Snit Now

My previous post had to do with one of the things that's happening to this country politically. One of my blogger friends expressed a very unique idea - what happened to patriotism? We seem to be more interested in multiculturalism and the fear of offending another ethnic group than love and devotion to the United States.

Yes, I know we all came from somewhere else, or at least our ancestors did. I'm third generation from Norway and Sweden. Ole is third generation from Finland and Germany. Why is it that our ancestors came here and wanted nothing more than to fit in and learn the ways of their new homeland. If they bought something new and it came with instructions (which it didn't back then) they would have been printed in English and, by golly, if they wanted to read them they learned English. They didn't expect the instructions to be written in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish or German.

When my father started first grade he couldn't speak English. There was no ESL teacher back then - if he wanted to go on from first grade he had to learn English, which he did. It was difficult for him because Norwegian was still spoken at home at that time, but that gradually changed also as his parents integrated their way of life to the USA. But to the day he died he had a heavy Norwegian accent, even though he spoke English for 65 years following his promotion from 1st grade. Life was easier for my mother - her family spoke English at the time she was born. Although my little Granny still wrote all her letters in Swedish she spoke English also.

Now we're being invaded by other ethnic groups who want all the benefits and freedoms of the United States, but somehow still want to maintain their culture. I see nothing wrong with that - I still maintain many of my ancestral cultures, like eating lefse, although I refuse to eat lutefisk or even have it in my house. Maintain your culture, BUT don't force it on everyone else. That most definitely includes religion. I don't care who you believe in or if you believe in anyone/anything at all - that doesn't make your religion right and mine wrong. Nor should I have to do away with any public displays of my religion because it offends you. Your religion might offend me but in the USA that's one of the freedoms that we have - or at least I thought we had. It seems to be slowly disappearing.

Anyway, I've had my say - now I have to go start loading the RV.

Love Lena

I am SO Crabby

So you better be careful and think twice about reading this entry today. Don't say I didn't warn you . . . .

We're leaving on vacation next Tuesday morning - I hope. So naturally I've got this long list of things I want to accomplish before we leave. But, as usual, things never go according to plan. Ole says I always bite off more than I can chew and the lists I make are always too long. Maybe he's right, but something happened tonight that REALLY got my goat!!

I have all my flowers set up on a watering system so all I have to do is turn a knob and everything gets watered. So far this summer I haven't hooked it up to the automatic timer because we've had so much moisture I only turn on the system when the pots start to dry out.

I worked outside all afternoon in 90 degree heat, futzing around with this and that, trying to get things ready to take care of themselves for the month that we'll be gone. One of the things on my list was to hook up the new automatic timer that I bought at W-mart earlier this spring. As I said, I haven't needed it yet but things are getting dry now. I've had timers on my watering system for years, but to this point have only had one timer per water line. The new one I bought as the capability to handle four lines and can be set to turn on each line at a different time and shut off automatically.

I dragged the box out of the drawer I had tossed it into out in the garage, opened it up, put in the batteries (I could figure that out on my own) and then opened the instructions to see how to program the four different zones.

I paged through, and then I paged through again, and then one more time. Then I brought the instructions to Ole and had him look at them. He paged through them several times and do you know what? THERE WERE NO INSTRUCTIONS WRITTEN IN ENGLISH!!! There was French, Spanish, Chinese, and it looked like Arabic to me - BUT NO @#$*& ENGLISH!!

Last time I checked I thought I was living in the United States where we all speak English - did I miss something somewhere? Did something happen when I wasn't looking?

Tomorrow that timer is going back to W-mart even if I don't have the receipt. Not only is that manager going to get his *&^% timer back, but I'm also going to give him a piece of my mind!! I may never buy anything from W-Mart again.

WHAT is this country coming to anyway!! What's happening here? It's been happening so slowly that lots of us just don't pay attention. Years ago (about 20 or so) when Lovely Daughter started junior high - the first year she brought home the school handbook - all written in English. The next year she brought home the handbook it was divided into two sections - English first and Spanish second. The third year she brought home the handbook Spanish encompassed the first section and English was in the back. Boy, I guess that put things in perspective for me way back then.

But this takes the cake and makes me REALLY P.Oed.

Okay. I have to go settle down now or I'll never sleep tonight and I have too many things to do tomorrow.

Love Lena,

PS: I'm so grumpy over this happening that I think I'll just let my flowers fry while we're gone. I just don't care anymore.

The New Kitty on the Block

Now we don't live on the edge of the world, but you can certainly see it from here. Just hold your hand over your eyes to stop the glare of the sun and look west. It's there. That fact was brought home to me very recently because a cougar seems to have moved into our community.

No, I don't mean a middle-aged woman with a taste for tanning beds, martinis and 20-something pool boys. I mean a mountain lion. One of those big cats that you see in the movies perched on a cliff getting ready to pounce on you as you walk by. A wild cat.

Apparently one of our neighbors heard a strange sound - almost like a woman screaming - one day last week. He went to investigate and found a mountain lion just a few miles from home. It had apparently been injured, but he didn't stick around long enough to find out how.

Now I'm really freaked out - do I dare let MY livestock out anymore? Will my kitties and dogger be somebody's afternoon snack? I've watched enough National Geographic to know you should fear anything nicknamed the "mountain screamer."

Strangely enough the subject of mountain lions had come up in conversation at fellowship after church a few Sundays ago. One of the people sitting at our table stated: "You don't want to mess with a mountain lion. If you run from them they'll attack. If you see them bounding on their haunches, it's already too late. You're lunch. It's better to turn and stare down the critter. Charge and throw rocks if necessary."

The thought of intimidating a 160-pound killing machine with a nasty glare and a handful of pebbles didn't seem conducive to survival to me.

I guess my chances of bumping into a cougar amid the flatlands of western Minnesota have recently increased. So now - besides sauteing myself with DEET to ward off West Nile virus and Lyme disease - I must also prepare for a possible puma attack while working in my back yard. You see, our property fronts the river along which the mountain lion was first seem.

It's a jungle out there. I envision one of these fierce cats eyeing me from behind a tree and thinking: "Mmmm, spiral-cut ham (me), brisket (Daisy the German Shepherd) and Vienna Sausages (my kitties, Lucy & Simon). An all-you-can-eat-buffet!"

In the meantime I'll continue to consider ways on how to best protect myself in case of a wild cat attack. First on the list is to get rid of the bacon perfume!!

Love Lena

MORE on Boobs, Hooters & Knockers

Ole’s been out of town for a few days – he left me alone and headed out for a place called Little Sturgis, Kentucky. I’m not sure I’ve forgiven him yet – well, okay – I guess I have because I had a really good time while he was gone.

Friday night was karaoke night down at the Local Watering Hole. I haven’t been there for a long time, and my friend Carol (from Bob & Carol fame) thought we needed a Girls’ Night Out. So I met Bob & Carol down there along with a number of other local folks and had supper with them. Now the Watering Hole has a cook that makes the best darn barbecued ribs you could ever ask for. They fall off the bones and melt in your mouth.

When we were done eating Bob went home (he never hangs around for karaoke) and Carol and I were flapping our lips – you know how women can get after a cocktail or two. About an hour later a lady and man walked in and proceeded to take a seat at the next table. I recognized the gal instantly as my old high school friend, Vicki, who moved away eons ago and only comes back here on rare occasions.

She had her back to me so I went up behind her and gave her a big hug. She was so shocked she was speechless. We haven’t seen each other for years and years. So she and her hubby moved over to our table and we proceeded to relive old times and talk about all kinds of carryings on (is that a word?) that we did way back when. You see, Vicki and I lived next door to each other from the time we were 5 until we were in junior high. Then my family moved a few blocks away, but we still hung out all the way through high school and got into a bit of trouble here and there. Nothing serious, just shenanigans.

Being I had just written in my blog about getting my first bra, I brought the subject up and we giggled about it. Then she brought up her own first-bra story. And it goes like this:

Vicki’s mom had small breasts and as they walked together through the lingerie department toward the counter in the back, bras of amazingly big sizes (at least to Vicki) were laid out on display tables. At a volume that apparently sounded like a police siren to her mother, Vicki asked, “Do people really come that big?”
When they reached the clerk at the counter, her mother spoke in a volume to match Vicki’s, “Do you have bras for beginners?” Vicki, of course, was mortified.

Back in those days, in the late 1950s, Marilyn Monroe – who was chubby, even fat, by today’s standards – was the feminine ideal all women aspired to. It didn’t take long to become apparent that Vicki’s puny boobs would never match Monroe’s. In fact, she never outgrew a beginner’s bra, which, until she discovered foam inserts, looked wrinkly through the fabric of anything she wore except the heaviest sweaters. Cleavage has never been a part of Vicki’s life.

Early on, then, she determined to ignore her boobs (no point in wasting time being miserable over something that cannot be) and when, in the 1960s, feminists began burning their bras as a symbol of throwing off male cultural oppression, Vicki got rid of those needless harnesses and she has been happily bra-less ever since.

That doesn’t mean she could stop thinking about her bazooms. During the standard recrimination period when her marriage was breaking up, her husband once shouted, “And I never liked women with small breasts, anyway.” It cut her to the core although, in due course, she has recovered.

But involvement with her nearly non-existent breasts didn’t end with her marriage. Every mammogram (agony when there is nothing for that cold, metal, grapefruit squeezer to grasp) showed tiny, white dots on the x-ray that each physician assured her must be biopsied to determine if they were cancer.

Those poor, little boobs have been chopped open six times only to find on every occasion that the spots on the film are unimportant calcium deposits. Vicki can read those pictures now as well as any radiologist and no one has been allowed to cut into her boobs for two or three decades. Nor will they, until she sees something different.

Meanwhile, in the wider world beyond Vicki’s personal boob travails, breasts – mostly naked or barely covered – became a cultural fetish. What would spring break - and even TV, these days - be without wet tee-shirt contests. Wonderbras and their like have created cleavage where none naturally exists (where were these when Vicki still thought she needed them?). Most cable news anchorettes appear to be hired as much for their unmistakably impressive chests as their facial beauty. And there is hardly a woman cop or lawyer in television dramas whose shirt or suit jacket isn’t open nearly to her navel – even in court.

What does all this concentration on big, bazoom-sized breasts mean, Vicki wonders – if anything? Without wanting to give away too much of her personal history, no man has ever fled when he got her clothes off and if any didn’t enjoy themselves, they were, unlike her husband, gentlemanly enough not to mention it. Oh, and not one didn’t come back unless she intended it so.

Which brings her to the present day.

Although Vicki’s lifelong determination to ignore her baby boobs failed, she is nonetheless chagrined to discover in old age, that even her little ones are not immune to gravity. She didn’t expect it, but sag they have.

On the other hand, she and I both believe we (and all other old women) would look silly with perky, upturned tits, so she waits gleefully for that eighth and most satisfying deadly sin, schadenfreude, (pleasure derived from the misfortune of others) to overtake her when one day, a pair of surgically-enhanced, 85-year-old, artificial hooters eternally pointing north, rolls into view.

I can't wait either (chuckle)!!

Love Lena

Boobs, Hooters & Knockers!!

Yes, Readers, the topic today is breasts. You know, those two things that sit on women’s chests also known as boobs, bazooms, bosom, hooters, knockers, jugs and a hundred other names – some of them not so nice. But we’re going to be nice today – not gross.

It was 1958 and I was in 7th grade at one of the junior highs in Big City. I was a country kid and had come from a small town school, tossed into classes with the cool, suave town kids that were so much more progressive than us country kids.

Fortunately there were six of us girls who had gone to school from 1st grade on, so we were all in the same boat. I guess our mother’s didn’t realize that we were growing up because none of us were wearing bras at that time even though all the town girls were. We knew this from having to shower after gym class every day.

Do you remember how embarrassing it was to have to undress in front of all those girls wearing your little undershirts? But even more embarrassing were those ugly gym uniforms we had to wear. They were anything but sexy.

Our first school dance was coming up, and us small-town girls had managed to talk one of our mothers into giving us a ride into school so we could attend the dance, and another mother to come and pick us up. This was all a big step for our parents not knowing any of the kids from town or what they were like. We assured them that there would be parent and teacher chaperones at the dance walking around through the crowd and surveying the hallways so there would be no city boy that was trying to take advantage of any of us. We were country hicks, you know, and weren’t up to speed on things like going steady or necking in dark corners or things like that.

Planning for this dance consumed all my free time - what to wear, how to do my hair. I thought through each and every aspect of the upcoming dance. I dreamed about it at night, I practiced conversations I would have while dancing with a boy, I saw myself floating in his arms and perhaps putting my head on his shoulder. I was simply flushed with excitement.

What kind of jewelry, where would I get it, could I borrow it from Big Sister, should I wear gloves, what kind of perfume. On and on I went. It was in this kind of dream state of minute imagining that it suddenly hit me: I had not yet graduated to the stage of development where I wore a bra.

I vaguely remember slamming the bedroom door, throwing myself on the bed and sobbing my heart out. Eventually, mom, who needed me for some errand, came looking for me and found me in a state of despair. She couldn’t imagine what had led to this latest drama. I blurted out that we simply had to go to town to deLendrecie’s and that I had to have a bra and I had to have it before the big dance.

Mom assured me there was no rush, a little spaghetti strap tee shirt like I wore would be just fine and to calm down. Her solution made me even more hysterical, the floodgates were wide open and Niagara Falls couldn’t compete with my waterfall of grief. Not just tears now, but the snot running down my nose and wild gulps for air.

I pleaded and begged for a bra, I simply HAD to have one and if I did not, I could not go to the dance. Mom did not get the connection and just shook her head and walked away. She was just so out of tune with things.

I had thought through every tiny aspect of the party and so I told mom that when the boy would dance with me, he would put his hand on my back and he could feel if I had a bra strap there. If he couldn’t feel one, I was ruined, a freak, he would know I had a tee shirt on. I would be humiliated and ridiculed forever. I needed that bra. I needed that strap on my back. It never occurred to me that my underdeveloped front side might be any sort of giveaway to anything.

So off we went that weekend to deLendrecie’s. I was beside myself - my first bra. I can’t say it exactly had what you would really calls "cups,” but then I had nothing to put into cups and understood, then and there, why some of the girls praised the blessings of Kleenex.

No, my first bra was kind of like flat knit material that covered the front part, had the straps over the shoulders and the all-important requisite of fitting around my chest with the hooks and eyes at the back - where the boy would rest his hand and know I was a woman.

Let the party begin.

Living in the Past

They say you can never go back – and I guess that’s very true. Things are never the same as “they used to be.” When Ole was in the Navy we lived in Iceland for just over two years. One of our greatest desires has always been to go back and visit again; to make the trip with dear friends of ours that lived there at the same time. Unfortunately, when you’re young, busy raising a family and trying to get ahead in the world, those kinds of things get put on the back burner. As of September 2006, the NATO base was closed – turned back to the Icelandic government, as it should be. But it would have been fun to see it once more in full operation.

Ole was an Electronics Technician, responsible for the maintenance of all the microwave gear that was used to communicate with all the submarines, airplanes (spy planes –shhh – don’t tell anyone) and various ships that were patrolling the North Atlantic during the time of the cold war with the Soviet Union. The North Atlantic was a busy place then, and Iceland was in a very strategic location. Ole had an extremely high security clearance at that time, so he really couldn’t talk about a lot of the stuff that he did. I remember when he was investigated for that security clearance – they did everything including look down his shorts (hope they saw something interesting!) along with everyone else’s shorts that he knew – both presently and in the past.

I was fortunate enough to get a job working as the secretary for one of the Commanders of the NATO base. (Back then we were called secretaries – not administrative assistants. I guess we were secure in our status knowing that we, in reality, ran the offices, and didn’t need any new and improved titles to make us feel important.) Commander Davis was in charge of the Supply Office – the location where EVERYTHING that the base used to function was kept and disbursed. There were six divisions within the Supply Office, and each division was supervised by an officer of a lower rank and a secretary, along with a number of enlisted men. There were a total of 300+ enlisted men working in the Supply Office at that time, a number of Icelandic Nationals, and seven American females – one for each division and myself, the Commander’s secretary.

My specific office consisted of the Commander, myself, two yeomen (male secretaries), a mailman, and a couple of chiefs. In my opinion, a Chief (E7, 8, 9) is a disposable entity in the Navy – their sole purpose in life is to hold a coffee cup (snicker) and sit with their feet on their desk.

You would think that in a situation like this our office would have been very busy – but I have to say this was one of the worst jobs I’ve ever had due to the lack of enough to do. I would accomplish my workload within a couple of hours in the morning and then had nothing to do for the remainder of the day. I have to say that the Commander was well trained in holding a coffee cup and sitting with his feet on his desk also, as were the other six division heads.

So my days got very long. I read magazines, wrote letters, paid bills, anything I could think of to make the time go faster. AND I played Ann Landers to a lot of the guys in the entire Supply Office. THAT got to be quite interesting. I didn’t apply for that job – it just happened. I must have some kind of sign on my forehead that says “good listener” because people have always unloaded on me and still do. I heard everything from stories about married guys that were having affairs with Icelandic girls (Iceland is the land of “free love” – more on that later) – to guys who were trying to get a Section 8 (just like Klinger on Mash). Most of the time it was an information overload, believe me. One young man, in particular I struck a tight bond with. He was a fellow Minnesotan, an 18-year old from the Iron Range, who had just found out his girl back home was pregnant by another guy. He still wanted to go home and marry her. He finally did, but wasn’t granted leave until after the baby was born. He came back to Iceland, served his time and then got stationed stateside. I often wonder what happened to him. I should try to look him up sometime.

Then there was a guy from Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. He was a true hippy and I often wondered what he was doing in the military at all. He was tall and slender with a handlebar moustache that would wrap around his head and meet in the back when he stretched it out. He used a lot of wax on it and coiled it to keep it in order. His best buddy, from New York City, was a short red head with rose-colored granny glasses. They made quite a pair, and when dressed in civies (civilian clothes) you would never have guessed they were part of the military with the exception that they didn’t have ponytails. I have to say the military standards back then were quite different for haircuts than they are now. And especially in Iceland, things were much more relaxed. Most of the guys had big moustaches, LONG sideburns, and hair that touched their collars. Not the clean-cut shaven, shorthaired military you see now.

Then there was Chief Conroy – one of those Chiefs that had a permanently malformed hand from holding his coffee cup all day. He was probably in his late 30s or early 40s, with a beer paunch and an attitude that thought he was God’s gift to women (yuck). He was constantly trying to put the make on all the young females in the department. Fortunately being non-military, I could tell him where to go.

For some reason sailors drink a lot of coffee – probably out of boredom or something. At that time Ole didn’t drink coffee. Each week one of the sailors in his office was assigned the job of coming in early to make coffee in the big 100-cup pot so that it would be ready by the time the officers came in to the office. Well, when it was Ole’s turn, he didn’t like doing this because he had to be there by 6 a.m. in order to have it ready by 8. So one morning when he was there alone, and before he got the coffee going, he found a dead cockroach, stuck it in the spigot from the inside to plug it, and then went on about his business making coffee. The first officer came in, managed to get a cup of coffee, but it didn’t come out very fast. More officers came in, and the coffee was running slower and slower until finally it wouldn’t come out at all. They knew the pot was full, so they started poking around in the spigot and cockroach parts started coming out!! Ole didn’t get out of making coffee, but he got a few chuckles out of that one.

Here’s a picture of me in my office – freaky glasses, huh?

They say you can't go back - but I sure wish I could go back to being that thin!!

Love, Lena

My very first time camping

The 4th of July has come and gone - a big camping weekend for a lot of people. Ole and I usually plan to take off on an extended trip ab out the middle of July and plan to be gone about a month or so. We usually head for the high country - the mountains out in western Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. This year we've had to do a bit of rearranging due to a commitment that Ole has - he has to go to Little Sturgis, Kentucky in mid July and will be gone for a week. So we won't be able to head out on our vacation until the end of July. I'm SO looking forward to our trip - I really need a break from all the work we've had this spring/summer.

As kids growing up we didn’t do any camping. I guess my parents had enough of their version of camping when we were gypsies living in a trailer following the road construction crew. About the most outdoorsy that my father ever got was going on regular fishing trips even though they were only a day long. It was mandatory that us kids go along every Saturday or Sunday and spend the afternoon out on the lake. My father had a homemade pontoon boat that he had installed a Model A engine on, steering wheel and everything, so we could really zip around the lake and get to those fishing holes quickly. I digress.

So by the time I married Ole and we moved to Iceland, I had never experienced any form of camping out overnight. Now Ole had been a Boy Scout as a kid and loved camping. He had experienced what he SAID was a wonderful week up on the Boundary Waters Wilderness Area of northern Minnesota. Sleeping in sleeping bags on top of rocks with mosquitoes big enough to suck you dry of blood and then carry you away; finding the biggest rock you can to hide behind to empty your bladder and hope there’s no bear within reach; those things just aren’t my idea of a good time.

So we’re living in Iceland and along comes the 4th of July weekend. Ole decides we’re going to take a camping trip up to the northern part of the country and rents tents, sleeping bags and all the gear we need without consulting me. “Come on, Lena, pack some food, we’re going camping!” Yah, you betcha (Grrrr). We managed to cram everything into the little Volkswagen Beatle that we had at the time and took off – in the rain.

Now mind you, there are only 30 miles of paved road in Iceland that go between the NATO base and Reykjavik, and obviously we’re not going to Reykjavik. You can’t even call the other roads gravel – they’re covered in cinders which is an abundant material leftover from all the volcanoes that blow their stacks in what seems to be a regular interval on the island. In many cases the roads aren’t even built up, they’re just plowed through the cindery soil with a road grader leaving windrows of cinders on each side for you to get your wheels caught in when you meet a car. Most roads are only one lane wide, so meeting another vehicle can be quite an adventure

We eventually made it to our destination where we were actually able to camp in a campground so we had bathroom and shower facilities, but it was still raining. The day came when we had to start for home, and by this time due to all the rain the roads were quite greasy and slippery, so we didn’t make very good time. There were no hotels along the way, which Ole wouldn’t have spent the night in anyway – after all we’re CAMPING. Nor were there any actual campgrounds. And remember, there are no trees in Iceland either – just rocks. So about 10 o’clock at night we pulled off the road and set up camp alongside a pretty little stream. Remember, it’s still light out at that time, and it’s still raining. I found a big rock to hide behind, did what I had to do, gathered water from the stream to heat so I could wash my face and hands and crawled into my sleeping bag ready for a good night’s sleep, or as good as I could expect.

Now Ole has always been a very sound sleeper. You could explode dynamite under him when he’s sleeping and it wouldn’t wake him up. About 3 o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a very loud scraping sound, I opened my eyes (it’s still light out, you know) and was sure I saw the entire tent shaking and quivering. Oh my gosh, I thought we were in the midst of an earthquake with nowhere to go. I just knew the earth was going to open a big crevasse and swallow us up and no one would ever find us. The noise and the shaking kept on for what seemed like forever. I was finally able to shake Ole awake, and in his groggy state of mind he unzipped the tent to see what was going on. We had been invaded by ICELANDIC SHEEP who were chewing on all the tent ropes, I suppose trying to lick the salt off that had accumulated from human hands over the years. It took only a few more seconds and one end of our tent collapsed on top of us!! As soon as the sheep saw us they skittered away to the other side of the stream and stood there watching, and probably snickering, at those stupid humans who were trying to put their tent back up.

We made it home without any further adventures, but I refused to ever go tent camping again. And we didn’t – until after Lovely Daughter was born.

Actually she was several years old when we bought our first camper – a pop-up tent camper – still a pain in the neck and not warm on the cold nights. Then we graduated to what we called “The Egg.” It was a white fiberglass trailer about 10 feet long, just room enough for the three of us to sleep in, and room enough for the big black lab named Jess that we had at the time to sleep on the floor. There was a furnace in The Egg, but we rarely had to turn it on because Jess gave off so much heat he managed to keep the place warm.

One September we were involved in a campout that consisted of old car enthusiasts. A couple of the guys who had come to the campout without their wives had gone out to the bars for the evening and came back quite late. This campout took place in northern Minnesota, so the night was quite frosty. These two guys had their tent camper set up next to us so we could hear them when they came home. Ole and a couple of other guys had decided to play a joke on them and turned their camper around 180 degrees. Of course it was quite dark when the guys came back from the bar, and thought they were on the right end of their camper but for some reason couldn’t find the zipper to get in. We could hear them scratching around on their tent, stumbling here and there, and then a big yell when someone tripped over the tongue of the trailer which wasn’t where it was supposed to be (chuckle). Well, they finally got situated inside their tent but hadn’t really prepared for the temperatures so they were pretty cold and couldn’t go to sleep. Finally one of them knocked on our door and asked if they could borrow Jess, our dog, in order to keep warm!! Of course, I wouldn’t loan them Jess, he was OUR heat source – and the only extra blanket I had along was the one that Jess was sleeping on. So I offered them Jess’s blanket, full of dog hair and holes, and they gratefully took it. Jess didn’t care, he was always warm anyway.

We slowly graduated upwards in our camping experiences, and now we camp in this:

It’s a 40’ diesel pusher motorhome with a superslide and all kinds of bells and whistles. I have more conveniences in my motorhome than my mother did in the trailer house that we called home and had to live in 12 months out of the year. My mother would have thought she had died and gone to heaven if she had been able to live in that.

Isn’t it amazing what we take for granted?

Anyway, that’s the story of my very first camping trip. And I'm so anxious to get going again on our next trip headed west.

Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

Way back in the dark ages, when I was a kid, there was a popular song called “Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer.” Anybody remember that one? I do remember having beautiful, hot summer days with blue skies and big puffy white clouds rolling in every afternoon. I remember sitting on an inner tube floating around the lake with girlfriends and just doing nothing except giggle and laugh and taking in the sun.

Then the Fourth of July would arrive and we knew it was downhill from there. Summer was half over and it wouldn’t be long and we’d have to start thinking about going back to school. But by the time September rolled around we’d all be ready for getting back in the routine and back to the friends we hadn’t seen all summer. We’d had our dose of sunshine and vitamin D, hot weather and sleeping in every morning, and drive-in movies until the wee hours on the weekends. Not that summers weren’t exciting, but in a different way.

The Fourth of July has come and gone. In these parts, the major problem is that we really haven’t had any summer yet. The weatherman better hurry up and produce something before the snow starts to fly again or I’m going to fire him.

The Fourth of July is summer’s Christmas, or at the very least, July is summer’s version of December. Substitute gin and tonics for Tom and Jerrys or beer for eggnog, buy fireworks in place of presents, and hang the stars and stripes rather than greens..

Celebrate! Make merry! Party hearty! Let the good times roll! Heaven knows our spot on the planet is dying for some honest to goodness exuberance. After a dastardly dose of below-zero blizzard stuff at the end of winter followed by record flood and mud, plus a miserably cold spring and then lots of rain and more flood and mud, we could use some extra jolly in our July.

Nobody expects “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” in these parts anymore – at least not in the plural. (We are not greedy people.) We know we’re lucky to score one hellacious-hot, four-day weekend during the whole summer season and we’re OK with that. The problem is, if not in July – when?



Love Lena

God Bless the USA

May you all have a wonderful 4th and celebrate the freedom that some have worked so hard to achieve for us.

Love Lena

I'm Not a Gun Moll - BUT - - -

Hey there, this is Lena coming to you from the Land of Nothingness. I currently have nothing going on in my life. Nothing went on yesterday or the day before, and I don’t expect anything to happen tomorrow either. So when you have nothing going on in your life you have to look to the past for something to write about. Oh, well ~ ~ ~

So I guess I’ll fess up to the fact that I have a past connected to the FBI and Al Capone. Yup – that’s me – but I wasn’t one of those gun molls or anything quite that interesting.

When Ole was in the Navy and going to school at Great Lakes, Illinois Naval Station, we lived in an apartment about two blocks from the main gate. Now anybody who’s ever spent any time around a large military base knows that the neighborhoods around the gates are not known to be the nicest areas. They can be pretty rough and tumble and scary.

We had quite a “classy” apartment (snicker) – it was an efficiency above an abandoned laundromat. The kitchen was behind a folding door and the bathroom consisted of a stool and sink in our apartment, with the bathtub located “down the hall” and shared by two other apartments. Believe me, I NEVER took a bath unless Ole was home and sitting in our apartment with the door open and watching the tub room door. It was kind of a scary situation. The only thing this apartment DIDN’T have was cockroaches!

Downstairs and next door was a little local tavern owned by a Greek and a Pollack. Very nice people who kind of adopted us and watched over me when Ole had duty on base. I had to park across the street and down a hill, so about the time I was due home from work either Gus, the Greek, or Bill, the Pollack, would be looking out the window to make sure I made it safely from my car to my apartment door. They also helped me get my car started several mornings when it was bitter cold and Ole had already left for school.

Just to give you an idea of what the neighborhood was like; the first weekend that I arrived in North Chicago and moved into the apartment Ole had duty, which meant he had to stay on base for the entire weekend. There I was in this dirty apartment, didn’t know a soul nor did I know my way around. So I spent the weekend cleaning the place up, scrubbing an inch of grease off the stove, a layer of crud off the sinks, etc. It was Saturday morning and I needed to shake rugs, so I found my way down the long dark hallway to the back of the building where I had to go down a long flight of stairs to get outside to the alley. I shook the rugs but noted that there were a lot of tipped over trash cans and some blood spattered around. I found out later that two sailors had been knifed the previous night after some kind of a barroom brawl – right on my back step. Needless to say I spent the remainder of the weekend in the apartment with the door locked.

Now our apartment rent was $90 a month, my car payment was $70, and Ole’s military pay at that time was $32.64 every two weeks, leaving us with quite a deficit. This meant I had to find a job. I had quite a bit of experience in the hospitality industry, (hotels/motels) so happened to come across an ad for an assistant sales manager (which I had done before) at a place called the Hotel Moraine on the Lake. It was located several miles down the shore of Lake Michigan in a Jewish suburb of Chicago called Highland Park, IL. I applied, was interviewed by the general manager, a Mr. Mueller, and was hired on the spot. I would be working with all the people who were booking events into the hotel, which included a lot of bar mitzvahs and bas mitzvahs, along with making calls on businesses selling the facility for their meetings and conventions. It was a fun job in that respect.

Now this hotel was built in 1892, had numerous huge ballrooms/convention rooms, 200 guest rooms, a pool, tennis courts, and a beautiful stone bridge that crossed a ravine with a path down to the shores of Lake Michigan. It had been quite a resort in its day, and it was rumored that Al Capone had used it as a second headquarters during his heyday. When I began going through the stacks of file cabinets that lined the walls in my office I found several pieces of evidence that this was indeed so. At times he would rent the entire facility for his gang, allowing no one else in during his stay. I found old newspaper clippings referencing gun battles between Capone and other gangs that had taken place on the site, as well as connections with FBI raids during that period of time.




Now being a naïve little girl from Minnesota, I didn’t think twice about the fact that when Mr. Mueller gave me a tour of the facility that there were certain sections that I was told were OFF LIMITS to me. He told me that these areas were never used, were always kept locked and I had no need to be there.

About nine months later on a Sunday morning the headlines of the Chicago Tribune read “Hotel Moraine on the Lake raided by FBI for Interstate Gambling and Prostitution.” Once again, being a naïve young woman, I headed back to the hotel on Monday morning and as I approached the door I was met by two FBI agents informing me that the hotel was closed. I told them who I was and that I had come to collect my pay check. Of course they were very interested in the fact that I was the assistant sales manager and I was taken in immediately for further questioning. I gave them what information I had, which was nothing, and because of my pure, sweet, innocent face, they must have believed me because they let me go.

Apparently Mr. Mueller had a “thing” going on the side that was mob affiliated. The last I heard both he and the bookkeeper were doing hard time in prison. And I honestly knew NOTHING about any of this during the time I worked there. Honest. You DO believe me, don't you?

Love Lena