My Father's Persistence

One of the things that I remember about my father is his lack of patience with lineups.  When he was little he actually fainted once when he was in a line-up at a movie theatre!

My father was one of those persistent people who could nag his parents unbelievably until he hoped to get what he wanted.  They, however, did not give in.  It must have been a terrible trial for his parents to listen to him because he wouldn’t give up and they wouldn’t give in.  When he was about seven years old he got it into his head that he wanted a boat.  His father was a sailor and they often went down to the harbour to look at the ships and boats.  My father had heard about a boat which he could get for “cheap” (it was just a little row boat) and he had saved up money from his errand boy job so he had enough money.

“Far, I want a boat.” He said for the umpteenth time.

His father looked down at him, looked out at the Limfjord (this is the sound that splits Denmark in 2) and then said “You can have a boat when you learn to swim.”

My father took one look at his father, one look at the Limfjord and jumped in then and there!  I don’t know who was more astonished of the two as Dad floundered about in the water or as his father looked on in amazement as he tried to swim.

He got his boat.

My father started his earning “career” when he was 7.  He was an errand boy for a grocer and he would ride one of those large bicycles with the delivery carriage on the back of it.  He rode it all over the town and between that and the fact that he talked to everyone he soon knew everyone in the town.  Years later when his sister was visiting us from Denmark they sat up long into the night catching up on this person and that person and finally my mother asked “did you know everyone in Norresundby” and both of them turned to her, smiled and said “yes”!

Addiction

Forget about philosophy and let’s talk about addiction.  Specifically, shopping.  I didn’t think I had a problem but I am looking at a stack of Christmas cards on my filing cabinet that needs to be explained!  I mentioned a while back that I have always loved notepaper and note cards.  I also told you about this wonderful new store called Papyrus.  Folks, I have become addicted.  I look at the cards and each box is more beautiful than the last one.  I cannot help myself.

Okay, that is a bit dramatic but you get my drift.

Now we are simply talking about a few little bits of paper with sparkle.  Can you imagine having harmful addictions like drinking, gambling, drugs and so on?  If I can’t break the habit of buying some silly cards how can I be unsympathetic towards someone who has a truly serious addiction?  Think about all the people who make New Year’s resolutions to go on a diet (apparently this is the number one resolution) and that most of these resolutions are broken before the end of the month.  We think that a donut or chocolate bar won’t kill us and yet obesity is a growing concern in our nation and heart attacks are now the number one killer of women. 

When we look at someone critically because they are overweight, are inebriated or have a cigarette in their hand we should examine our own conscience (and closets) and just see what little old addiction is clinging to us before we put on our haloes.  Maybe having too many Christmas cards isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it certainly has me thinking about why I feel compelled to buy every pretty one I see!

Is it addiction or compulsion?  Avarice?  Fear of never having anything again?  Whatever the cause it certainly indicates a fragility I would rather not admit to.  It is humbling but I really hope I don’t have to go to a meeting and say “Hello, my name is Sanne and I am a Christmas Card addict”.  My solution is to do a Christmas Card exchange with my friends so we can all have some pretty cards to share with our non-mutual friends. 

Well . . . I’m trying.

Anxiety Attack

I woke up in the middle of the night with my heart pounding, as though I had had a scary dream.  I couldn’t remember what it was but since then I’ve spent an anxious night wondering about it and trying desperately to get back to sleep.  Restless nights are not fun.  Listening to the clock ticking away, wondering “what time is it now”.  Tossing and turning.  Trying to count sheep.  Think about something nice.  Don’t think about the clock.  What woke me up?

I am not feeling fresh as a daisy this morning, anything but, and now I have to drive through our snow storm to get to work.  Oh joy. 

So I am trying to think through the clutter in my mind to find a story this morning and nothing seems to be jumping out at me.  I was reviewing my “book” last night trying to find a story I could lift but nothing seemed appropriate. 

When I speak with my mother about my retirement and my hope to retire “early” she keeps warning me that I will be bored.  I am not listening to my mother.  Or am I?  I know I am dragging my heels about setting a date using the excuse of “not enough money”.  My mother thinks I will miss my connection with the world.  But when you are awake in the middle of the night you are about as alone as you are ever going to be.  It’s just you and your mind there in the grey black of the night.  And trust me, there is enough going on in that noggin that I feel sure I am never going to be bored!

Aside from the obvious reasons for wishing to retire the biggest release for me is simply Freedom.  I would like to get up in the middle of the night, bad dream or not, and just feel free to enjoy the night without being anxious that I have to be refreshed in the morning to go to work.  Do you ever feel so bound down by your routine that you feel like a slave? 

Freedom 6/49 ah, a beautiful dream.

My Father

One of the things I remember most strongly about my father was his sense of humour.  He could laugh at himself just as easily as over any other hilarious story. 

            When he was a little boy of about 5 or 6 he asked his father if he couldn’t please have an allowance.  Somewhere he had heard about an allowance, perhaps because his older sister was receiving one and he seemed to think it was about time he received some allowance also.  The family was strapped for money but Farfar didn’t want to completely disappoint the boy so he told him that not only could he have an allowance but he had a perfect piggybank for him.  So my father went with him to the room that contained this piggybank.  There on the wall was a metal box with a slot for him to insert his coins.  Perfect.  It was quite some time before my father discovered that the metal box was the place where they would put money into to get the heat for the apartment!

            My father’s sister was seven years old than he and he simply adored her.  The worst thing that could happen to him was to have her become disappointed in him so when he got into trouble he would beg his mother “don’t tell Jonna”.  And my father got into trouble quite often, he simply couldn’t help himself.  He was full of energy and enjoyed playing out of doors.  One time he was playing in Skansebakken Park with a couple of his friends and he discovered a sewer drain that lifted up.  Naturally he climbed down into the sewer and his friends followed him.  They were having a gay old time, and for whatever reason they began digging about as part of their game.  Suddenly they came upon some artifacts which seemed very cool.  He brought them home and his father realized that they were of Viking provenance.  So off they went to the police station where my father told them how he had discovered them.  Then the museum was called and people went down to discover this new find.  But instead of my father being any sort of hero he was in trouble for having trespassed on city property!

            Another time my dad and his friends discovered a pile of those little rings that go on the nuts and bolts (and whose name I cannot recall) and then they discovered what a cool sound these things made when they were twirled on a stick.  And then they sort of hurled off the stick and flew high into the air, quite a distance away.  They heard some noise but it was a considerable time before they realized that when the rings flew away they were actually crashing into windows across the street and breaking the glass.  Once they realized what they had been doing they naturally ran home.  The next day there was an article in the paper about vandals destroying property.  Dad never confessed to having been the culprit!

            It wasn’t that he was bad, he never meant to do things that were wrong but somehow he just did some many different adventures that some of them were bound to get him into trouble.  One of his observations was that whenever the kids got in trouble, or was on the outs with other kids, they would run home to their mothers and the next time you saw them they were outside their home eating a sugar sandwich.  This particular story really resonated with us kids and when we were having a fight with one another (which happened often enough) and one of us would start bawling the rest of us would say “oh go home to mother and get a sugar sandwich”. 

When Steven Harper gets into one of his pouts I feel like telling him the same thing.

What We Are Made of

My parents told us plenty of stories about growing up under the war in Denmark and from adult perspective I certainly feel grateful that we have grown up in Canada where we have been safe from the threat of invasion and war.

            When my father was ten years old he heard the planes flying over Denmark and went home to his parents and said “the Germans are coming”.  (Germany invaded Denmark on April 9, 1940)  His parents didn’t believe him at first but soon enough the country became aware that they were invaded.  The Germans occupied the schools as living quarters so the children did not attend school with any kind of regularity.  Soon enough there was rationing of food, gasoline, leather goods and other things.  My father described how they made shoe soles out of old bicycle tires.  They had liquorice made of liquorice bark or root.  Under this war Danes began eating unsalted butter so that after the war they had become so accustomed to this type of butter that few went back to salted butter.  We always had unsalted butter in our home.

            When my father told the story of the invasion he said “one million Germans occupied Denmark against 9 soldiers at the border”.  That was a bit of an exaggeration.  In the initial action there were approximately 120,000 Germans against 2 divisions of Danish.  The country did not accept the occupation quietly although initial resistance began slowly.  By 1943 there was a large wave of underground resistance and in 1944 there was an actual uprising in Copenhagen.  The Germans had been fairly reasonable with the Danes during the occupation compared with their attitude in other countries but the Danes were quietly furious when the rumour went out that there would be a roundup of Jews.  Under cover of night all but 472 of the 8,000 Jews are spirited across to Sweden or otherwise hidden by the Danes.  Of those, 70 lost their lives in the concentration camps.

            My father told us how even children were recruited to the non-violent resistance movement; they would distribute leaflets and they put sand in gasoline tanks.  At the same time, he described how the Germans could strike fear into people as they stormed up the stairs of apartment buildings in the dead of night.  One never knew when the door would bang open and Gestapo would be in your home.  He described standing in the street and seeing neighbours shot at because more than 2 had congregated on the street after the ban.  He saw his own mother dive into a building to avoid being shot while he dived into another building across the street.

            My family lived in Aalborg close to where the airstrip was and so there would be bombs dropped by the British to try to blockade the German air force.  London wasn’t the only allied city that was being bombed regularly.

            These were some of the stories I grew up on.  War is not something to be taken lightly.  And heroism isn’t the glory that we see in a John Wayne movie.  Heroism is enduring the ignominy of an occupation with quiet, stoic resistance until the tree is bent beyond endurance.

One Week

I was thinking about preparing this blog a couple of days ago and I had a really nice intro prepared in my head and do you think I can remember any of it?  The summation was, however, that philosophy is important in our lives.  How I came to that conclusion was roundabout (as always) but it was making sense in my head.  That was at 2 a.m. so perhaps that is why I am not recalling any brilliance of mind this morning.

            Whether a person reads or is merely an observer of people and life, philosophy does come in to play even though you may not think that you are being philosophical.  But when you make a statement such as “people are funny” you are observing the nature of people.  If you say “life isn’t fair” or “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer” they may sound like clichés but they are also an observation about the nature of things.  People have pondered the world since time immemorial and eventually it boils down to a subject they have named “philosophy”.

            I only took one course of philosophy in university but it was a full year course.  From the first day I noticed a kind of pretension in the language that was used and how quickly students parroted the vocabulary of the professor.  But what did it really mean?  I had a similar experience with Russian history as I found a certain idiom was used in that class and yet it all came down to something very vague.  It worked out very well for me because I could write in vague terms also and ended up with an A but I was very unsatisfied with my Russian class.  I quite enjoyed my philosophy class and I did learn a lot despite poking fun (in my mind) at the language.

            The point of this is that I am reading Walden and I see the same roundabout language coming through.  At the same time I also see a sense of humour that reminds a little of Mark Twain and John Steinbeck.  But what I seem to get out of Thoreau is that he doesn’t like control, particularly governmental control.  I certainly sympathize with him there.  I see this conflicted attitude in America; where on one hand they want to feel free as individuals but at the same time they are cramped in their thinking.  It’s a curious state of being.

            January stretches ahead of me and I think tomorrow will be an anecdote kind of day.  Stay tuned!

Children Are Still Children

The other day my nephew asked my mother “who was the best looking baby ever?” I piped up before my mother could say anything “me of course”.  Well, Christopher was not accepting that answer and kept pressing my mother.  Since she had three of her children sitting at the table looking anxiously at her she said “all my kids were the best looking babies” which pleased us but made her 2 grandchildren laugh.

            When my parents started going to the Burns’ Christmas parties Jeanette and I would watch my mother get dressed.  She’d fuss quite a long time over her hair (God forbid that she ever go anywhere without perfect hair) and then she would put on the dress that she had made for the occasion (my mother was a fantastic seamstress) and finally she would put on her best jewellery, all Danish gold, of course.  I would then take a picture of my parents before they headed off to their annual night out.

            The next day we would get a recount of what happened at the party, how many people got drunk (everyone but my parents, of course) and who was the best looking couple there (my parents of course).  Well, my parents were an extraordinarily good looking couple, no doubt about that, but we always used to chuckle behind their backs about that comment.  Then when I was 18 I went off to Denmark to visit my family for several months.  When my mother’s father would take me around to visit that side of the family he would push me forward and boast “she looks like me and my family” the implication being that we were all next door to Elizabeth Taylor in beauty.  When I finally got home again I told my parents “now I know where you get it from.  Morfar sure isn’t shy about bragging on good looks”.

            The funny thing is that both my married sisters and my married brother would come from whatever function they had been at and say the exact same thing.  The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.  Third generation is not lagging behind in that department.  “We were the best looking couple there” has been known to fall from other lips . . .

            Modest?  And you had to ask . . . . what does this have to do with philosophy?  Humour as medicine is a philosophy, and it helps make you live longer when you can laugh at yourself.

The Straight and Narrow Path

My mother can always make me laugh when we decide to get serious.  We were talking about the Bible last night and straightaway she is dubious because “the church was out for themselves”.  Then she went into her favourite discussion of the loathsome, despicable, lousy bastards that were the priests and bishops of Denmark through the ages.  It was a mistake leaving my Encyclopedia of Danish History with her.  She knows all 22 volumes by heart, I swear!

            For a good woman my mother is really quite surprising when it comes to religion.  She will have none of it.  She believes nothing good can come out of a church, synagogue, temple or what have you.  Religion is out for themselves and simply manipulate honest people, duping them of their money (and in the old days their land and other worldly goods).

            “Okay Mum, but surely there are good pieces of advice that come out of the Bible.”  I say.

            She’s dubious.  Perhaps.  Maybe. But you can get better advice from the Familie Journalen (the Danish magazine she frequently quotes).  Oh dear.

            My mother is, in her opinion, an atheist.  At the same time, she would like there to be something else but she is extremely doubtful that there is an after life.  As my father said “it’s a good story” but the imperative proof is not really there.

            So what does all this rambling have to do with the straight and narrow path?  If you remember your Bible Matthew 7:13-14 “. . . because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction . . . whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life and few are the ones finding it.”  Leading a good life is not that difficult, but leading a life that could end in everlasting life (if you believe in that way) is hard.  So if one is truly religious one’s life may become very narrow indeed.  I think Emerson took a different approach in his sermons because he very much espoused the development of the mind, of individualistic thought and the search for betterment of the soul.

            It amazes me to listen to the primaries in Iowa where the Americans still believe that religion should be brought into politics.  Why is that?  Are people genuinely religious or simply paying lip service to what they believe is the expected norm?  How many people in America really believe 100% in God?  If there are as many as the politicians apparently believe then I have to ask, why is America so rotten?

            Something to think about.

Recovering my Equilibrium

Three days into philosophy has me looking with foreboding on my calendar where it indicates there are 31 days in January.  Why couldn’t I have picked this theme for February? 

            As I spoke on Friendship and Inconsistency I will take a whack at History according to Emerson.  I rather like some of what he wrote here as he felt that we are one with history.  As each generation develops we gather the learnings unto ourselves.  I am not in agreement with this being the case for all of mankind although we certainly utilize the inventions as they develop, in fact we are incredibly adept at taking on the new as evidenced by our debt for each new bell and whistle that comes along!  However I don’t believe Society learns much from one generation to another insofar as becoming more civilized in the true sense of the word.

            There are plenty of people who read the Self-Help, New Age, Philosophy and other kinds of books that come out.  Some truly take the messages to heart and live by the “new” revelations.  For instance Ellen DeGeneres is so enthusiastic about “The Four Agreements” that she gives the book to friends and acquaintances.  I read about this book and Ellen’s love for it in O magazine nearly 10 years ago and promptly went out and bought it.  It is a simple and yet a powerful little book with some great ideas for simplifying one’s pain in life especially as it relates to other people inflicting pain on to you.  I particularly liked the description of the other person’s poison and the advice not to take it to yourself.  I am quite sensitive to bad conduct and take it very personally so I constantly have to practice second agreement “don’t take anything personally.

            If you haven’t read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz I highly recommend this book.  Once you have read it I recommend that you refresh yourself with it at least once a year to remind yourself on how to live your life with serenity.

1.     Be impeccable with your word

2.     Don’t take anything personally

3.     Don’t make assumptions

4.     Always do your best

These are simple guidelines but if you have certain tendencies it takes a lot of practice to stay on the straight and narrow path. 

Mother's Thoughts on Emerson

It behoved me to get my mother’s opinion on Emerson’s so I took my book along for our New Year’s Day feast with the happy hope of intellectual conversation Abildgaard style.  Here’s what transpired.

            Mother again told the story of the Gajol licorice.  Then we wrestled with Trivial Pursuit, watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes, discussed fashion and education and surrendered to a turkey dinner!  I got home to review my Facebook page and was told “enough Emerson and more Abildgaard”.  Oh dear, what to do?             It seems that people enjoy hearing about the fallibleness of others rather than ideas or philosophies so I will succumb!  (mind you I am already starting on Walden by Thoreau so be prepared for a dose now and again).

            When we were kids we had a lot of family nights when we would watch television with our parents.  I remember when “Bewitched” premiered on Monday nights.  We all loved Samantha the witch and my parents enjoyed the show as much as we did.  I wonder how many people today watch television with their children, and just what are they watching that is relatively harmless these days?  Saturday nights we had special back to back shows.  First we would watch “Lost in Space” and then would come “The Wild, Wild West” and while we sprawled on the floor we would also want to stay close to our mother in her chair as she was in charge of the treats.  When we didn’t have candy to be shared Mom would sit with a bowl of apples beside her and peel them one by one, and then hand us slices of the apple with the edge of her knife.  We loved eating apples this way.  My dad would lay on the floor with us, his head propped up on my mother’s chair (it wasn’t that we didn’t have a second chair or a sofa, Dad just enjoyed being stretched on the floor with us).

            When we were growing up we stayed home 99% of the time.  I can probably count on one hand the amount of times my parents went “out” throughout my childhood.  If they went to visit Kaj og Signe then we went with them and vice versa, their kids would come with them when they visited our house.  I don’t think my parents went to a company Christmas party until I was a teenager – and by that I mean when I was 16 years old!  If they went to a movie they would go to a drive-in and we kids would be with them.

            I asked my mother if her parents ever went anywhere without each other and she said no, her parents would go to a Saturday or Sunday movie – together.  They would walk downtown together to the movie house and return home for their afternoon or evening coffee.  That was high living back in the ‘40’s.  I asked her if she thought any of her uncles had ever had an affair and she was shocked that I would even ask that question.  She said her uncles were like her own father and such a thing would absolutely, never, ever have happened.  Then she recollected how her dad and his brother would spend an afternoon.  On one occasion in particular they were out in the rowboat “enjoying” a political discussion along with their nephew (who was close to my grandfather in age) when Mom (standing on the beach) saw her dad dive into the water.  He had become so excited in his discussion that he lost his teeth and had to go in after them.  That was their idea of a good time!

            What does this have to do with Emerson?  Nothing at all, but it is a precursor to Thoreau and his time on Walden Pond.  When I hear people talk about what they did with their children on the weekend I wonder “why?”  It seems out of this world to me that thousands of people take their kids to one hockey game after another; and then they take them to malls to “shop” and then they go to MacDonalds to eat and I wonder “why do you live in such a big house when you are never home?” 

            Are we not comfortable in our own homes, with our own thoughts, with the relatively simple things in life?  Don’t people know how to talk to their children, or their spouse? 

            So maybe referencing philosophy is kind of important after all in finding out who we really are inside?

January Thoughts on New Beginnings

I thought I would start out by reviewing some of the inspirational writers of the past and one of the most common American philosophers quoted is Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I first encountered Emerson through the writings of Louisa May Alcott whose father was one of those free thinkers who thought they could philosophize 10 hours a day and somehow food would still be put on the table despite not using animals on a farm, eating meat or wearing wool or leather.  Needless to say this did not seem like a group of men I thought I could learn from!

            I have since opened up my mind to venturing into Emerson’s work with the idea of understanding American intellectualism.  How does America go from a reverence for a free thinker like Emerson (a man who dared to question established religious thought) to being a country filled with ultra conservative thinkers who, 200 years after the birth of Emerson, still question evolution.  Emerson’s work on Self-Reliance is interesting considering he was writing circa 1830 about an individual’s need to avoid conformity and false consistency.  I sat down to study it again yesterday and chewed on it for quite a while.  It is easy to see how one can twist the thoughts around to mean something which I don’t believe was intended.

            The truth, unhappily, is that most people resemble a school of fish, they follow along without really comprehending where the current is taking them.  It is rare to find a lion among the fish, one who thinks alone and moves away from the current trend.  As Betty Smith described the characters in her book, individualists are not easy to find in any century and with the sway mass media has on people today I suspect it is rarer today than ever before.  Emerson says that “the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude”.  It is true it is not an easy thing to stand out against the politically correct view at a cocktail party where one doesn’t wish to start a disagreement and embarrass the hostess.  But when a fish throws out a sentence such as “smokers should pay double the health care costs” or something of like nature it’s hard for me to let that roll over the group as though I accept it is a universal truth.

            I have been thinking quite a bit about his thoughts on consistency as I found that a bit unusual but the more I thought about it the more I realized that it really jives with the old Viking philosophy that one could only be true to a vow for a year because after that things change.  In the same way, as the world changes and circumstances change perhaps some “universal truths” may also change.  So happily I can blog along inconsistently from day to day, month to month and year to year and simply point out that Emerson believed it was a beautiful thing to be inconsistent.

New Beginnings for 2012

I am not big on resolutions, most years I don’t even make any but it is nice to start a new year with some fresh ideas and enthusiasm.  Last year I wrote a bit about how I felt with resolutions; that one should seize the moment rather than wait for a milestone date to start something.  I still believe that, however it doesn’t hurt to turn over a fresh page simply in attitude.  When one goes back to work after the holidays it is nice to feel a little more energy is going with you to the office

            I am also not one to lay a lot of faith in predictions although I enjoy listening to some of them.  I am pretty basic in believing if you guess enough things you are bound to hit the mark once in a while (this is sometimes called the Jeane Dixon effect).  So for me what I expect from 2012 is more political scandal (how hard can it be to go wrong on this one?), the Canadiens will take home in the Stanley Cup (it could happen!) and it is going to rain in June in Alberta.

            But with a new year started I would like to take a new approach with my blog.  I will try to build some structure into it and fly by the seat of my pants as I so frequently do!  Brace yourself for some philosophy, life lessons, quality lives, rhapsody to nature, childhood adventures, poets, humour, the material world, what women really want (not Mel Gibson), Growing Old vs Growing Up and  . . . the journey thus far.

            If the structure appears a bit heavy ease your mind, having read me for the past year you know that this cannot last, that the humour and irony of life will pop up whether I try to suppress it or not!  For the last week I have been reading Emerson (oh yes, I am starting off on a heavy foot) and this morning the old chap has inspired me to wax eloquent on Friendship.

            Not only have you heard of a Fair Weather Friend but you have most likely experienced that sort of “friendship” in the course of your life.  You may also have been betrayed by a friend or thought you had a friend when really you were met with opportunism.  Emerson consoles us with this thought “it never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space . . . If he (the lost friend) is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining”.  Some friendships may be transient but rather than regret the passing of a friendship simply think about what was good while it lasted and then bless yourself for those friendships that are unshakeable and true.

            I am blessed with a circle of friends that are true and faithful.  I quote again “if you have one friend you are rich.  I’m rich.” 

            Isn’t that a great note to start 2012 on?