There are many stories Norm has written. Most of them based on his life. His adventures, his misadventures, harrowing moments and moments of extreme bad choices and the escape from some of them. Other escapes are in the works, those will be posted as they occur. Norm likes to put blame on his upbringing, his Asperger’s and other peoples short comings. We all do this. He is also finding out that he is the creator of most of his problems. Excuses are fun to fall back onto but it usually turns out to the falling on one’s sword over and over. “A mental ook what I was powerless to prevent” Perhaps some of these columns will ring truth to you and some of them will be found unbelievable. They all happened, Norm knows. He was there. Enjoy these short columns, most of them end quite well. It’s pretty good.

High school in North Minneapolis, Graduation in 1962 (Patrick Henry). The family moved there just as Norm was entering kindergarten. His sister, 4 years older, had been at a one room schoolhouse in Golden Valley for four years when they moved. She was more of a country girl of course, Golden Valley was a very small place at that time. Grandparents lived very close by and across the road from the Golden Valley golf course. North minneapolis was very quiet and the drugs and car jackings were about seventy years in the future for that neighborhood. Ham radio became Norm’s big hobby and his bedroom wall was covered in QSL cards from all over the country, a few from Europe. He sold as his ham gear to buy parts to customize his 1937 flathead Harley. Chopped with ape hangers, hi-fi purple with upswept megaphones. Chromed springer front end and suicide clutch. Loud and just in time for his senior year. A few trips to California selling encyclopedias and living on purloined oranges and grapfruit from neighbors.

I worked at North American cross arm and Conduit in an unheated building all winter and eventually took another trip to Los Angeles and took up surfing at Hermosa Beach. Six months or so later, joined the Navy to avoid the Jungles of Vietnam and volunteered for the Submarines, ostensibly to be trained as a nuclear engineer. Instead, they turned me into a top secret radio operator overseas and wound up in the six day war in the mediterranian sea. I Came back to the ‘land of the big Gedunk’ (navy term for USA) and went back to Berkeley with a vietnam veteran, my best friend, and got into more trouble. Read about it in the series of those times in Motorcycle Pilgimages here. A bit more later I am on an intense relationship with Jesus and now am on a prayer team at Eagle Brook church in Lino Lakes, Minnesota. I write under the pen name of Jack Gator and all the stories are true Except the most recent one about Lot and his wife.

I live in NW Wisconsin with my lovely wife Julie and our youngest son, Soren. I ran a very successful foreign car repair shop for 40 years here and our other son, Bjorn, is the media director at Eagle Brook church in Blaine. We have 30 acres of paridisical land with hills, beauty, and a wonderful life with Bedford Falls about 20 miles away. Same sort of mansion and friends with Jesus consantly being who He is. Pouring out grace and unexpected surprises along with the usual yanking out things we thought were important and putting real things in their place. It’s pretty good!

Jack