books

Freedom’s Bouquet With Tea

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I worked with a man from Stalingrad that was fluent in English, This man, Stefan, ran the largest machine in the shop. After working on the shop floor for a time, this Russian was seen as the heartbeat of the shop. Stefan was always moving, lubricating, adjusting even while the huge machine was running.

There was quite a bit of noise from the machine as it worked and no one talked much to one another. Stefan hardly spoke to anyone except Bob, the foreman. He was the first person I had ever met from a mysterious country. The impressions of Grade School duck and cover from nuclear war did not seem to fit this man. He was a man with a good job.

A simple man, obviously of some means, Stefan wore old white dress shirts and woolen trousers. In the summers and the winters. He didn’t socialize but did share lunch with the men. The only heated room in the whole building was the bathroom, so that was the lunchroom too. Running water was handy and it was a welcome break from blowing snow and gloves that made assembly hard. This factory made power poles and cross arms that held insulators for the wires.

There was a loneliness from Stefan and it was expected when you saw him. Perhaps it was because of the war and his time at the battle in Stalingrad. Rarely did he speak of these things but myself being an introvert, set myself to be a servant to him. Reading Russian classics gave me the way to treat a Zek or prisoner. It can be seen from Dostoevsky’s writing of the mid nineteenth century. ‘The house of the dead’ is a good place to begin reading this literary trasure.

As a new guy in the factory, I knew I could attach himself to Stefan as servant to a lord. Small things like bringing in some sweet rolls known as Vatrushka or smoked fish to share. It is the way things are done when men are together in the prison of work. I had a friend on the East side, a great violinist, that knew the places to go for authentic foods. Kulich sweet buns and such too. I was intrigued with Russian culture and now, at hand, was a fellow worker that lived those things. It was a path to a desired friendship.

Gradually, Stefan began to understand my respect of the way Dostoevsky wrote of those things. There was even hot tea for break time and the very young man and the very old man began to talk. Drinking tea by sipping through a sugar cube. The deeper personal things that bond and enrich life. There was so much depth to Stefan. Indeed a man of the world and holder of the highest Soviet war medal, The Orden Pobeta which translates to ‘The order of Victory.” It is the rarest order in the world. Sometime later, Stefan showed me the actual medal. It indeed was beautiful. To actually touch and hold this badge of honor, given to his new friend was humbling indeed. It was at Stefan’s simple west bank house in an old cigar box.

They sat and sipped tea from the samovar and Stefan shared his story with this young man who understood a path that creates trust with humility and service. Not patronizing. Sharing lives.The childhood trauma of my story went deep into Stefan and a calmness of respect unfolded between young and old. They were now just men in our broken world. Talking about life.

That life unrolled before me and it was a whispered call to him. A knowing that told me to listen closely to a story that was pivotal to him too. The story was about a job that Stefan had when he first came to America after the second world war. Stefan spoke of that war. A war that began to end exactly two months to the day before I was born. D-Day, June 6, 1944 After that war ended and Stalin learned from his generals who the man was that inspired courage and determination to the people of the land to stand against overwhelming odds. Stefan was that man. He learned to shoot at his fathers side hunting wolves. A revered soldier.

As a national hero of Russia, Stefan could write his own ticket to life and he chose America. The allied country of the war and the land of freedom. Russia had created the gulag and incredibly, mirrored the Nazi methods within. They had learned from the masters of war well, and now knew the intoxicating aroma of political power. It’s in all of us really. The open door of power that seems so right, did God really say not to do this? It’s our history over and over again. Stefan could see this coming and did not want to stay in mother Russia and watch it unfold.

All veterans of war can envision the minds path that intrudes and dictates behaviors unwanted. Often, or not even recognized as what has became the feeling of fear and escape. That pathway that is felt many times and triggered by a noise, a phrase or a gesture, often by a loved one. He began to explain these things and I began to see the world. It seems no one knows your pain that is hidden in plain sight. A personality that shocks and comes out of nowhere from someone you know and perhaps deeply love. Anger and rage from nowhere suddenly appears. Trauma. A pool of darkness that has always been available to us if we grasp it. Everyone has been through hell, everyone. We hide it, often believing it is the way things must be. Always.Stefan was brilliant and had more than anyone’s share of these pathways. He still does have them. There is no way to be rid of them. They are tree stumps in your path that cannot be seen until it seems to be too late to avoid the stumble. He shared with me a way to unbuckle the reaction of fear. Take a deep breath to discard reacting to that stumble and decide on a true path to clear the mind’s storehouse one more time of the of the death visions. In a way that firing a weapon requires steadiness and release of breath and tension.

As you can surmise, this friendship was beginning to blossom between the old warrior and the young man. The introverts began to trust one another with their secrets.

The perfect job Stefan was offered on his emigration to America was by the U.S. Coast Guard. They know what it is that makes a man ideal to be a lighthouse keeper and he was such a man. Tough and experienced and willing to be alone. An introverted man with the drive to do a job well. Learning the ways of clockworks and rotational precision was second nature to him. The tractor factory had many types of machines that required those skills. As a youth, boating on the Volga was also an experience that added to the requirements of the job, along his being a strong swimmer.The Coast Guard, new to managing the lighthouses of the country, also was well aware of the publicity of hiring a world hero and the ideal placement would give Stefan the peace he wanted.The lighthouse Stefan was sent to was in one of the world’s largest fresh water lakes, Lake Superior. It was to the an Islands lighthouse he was sent. It has a 3rd order Fresnel lens for the light. It has a 90 foot tower. It stands alone on a rock. Isolated and quiet. Few visitors.

There was however, no peace for Stefan when he arrived at his dream job. The real dreams kept coming and there was no place or way to hide for him. Just a lonely tower in the middle of a lake that had no meaning to him. The peace he thought he would find was pushed aside by his past once again. Pounding up that ninety food stairway gave him a bit of respite as all he could do was breathe and climb. Up to the top to look out upon the empty water, now alone and filled with only his panting breath and his medal of victory below decks. It was worthless now, just a bauble of his past struggles which had returned with him.

He was once again back to the tractor factory, spotting for Vassili Zaitsev and struggling for food and ammunition. The seemingly unstoppable Wehrmacht troops delayed somehow for a time. His comrades determined to defend their families. The captured Germans could have cared less about the propaganda speeches they were given, survival and those men close to them were only on their minds. Each side had to fight. General Khrushchev told them this was the pivotal struggle of the war.

What music to play today and which instrument to use. He brought his old French Minel viola along with and played now and then in a melancholy mood. He played a lot in B flat and the minor notes were beautiful and sad. Not even the fast dance music worked. His old fingers tried to build a concert of gaiety and, once again, the time signature changed and the fast tapping feet became another man’s that was walking with five others, carrying a sad wooden box. As the cigar box that he now carried with him with the medal inside. The cigars were smoke now. the box still carried the odor of their passing.

Now there was no need to find a hiding place, behind something, out of sight and for a moment, out of danger. There was no one on the island but him but the threats and violence of his life were there. The wind would blow and the storm surf would crash and his dreams roared on with the flash of another night in the ruins. Thunder indeed. The German sniper Major Konig was always searching and aching for his mirror flash on a spotting scope.

There were moments at his job that brushed away the past and gave him drive to make certain the beacon of light would reach far beyond his eyes. A clear danger signal to the ore boats steaming through the waters of Superior. Loaded, cutting the angle of the waves but still, the forward hatch dogs giving way to the astonishing power of water. Sending men out on deck to once more, secure the ships cargo bays. Stefan knew that fear too, it was no doubt similar to his own death looming large, just beyond sight, but out there. Waiting for weakness and powerful.

Those battle thoughts were oddly comforting, familiar. They gave reassurance to one man standing in the breach of the storm, a role as a defender. Holding the signal of danger with a beacon of light. The lighted path. These thoughts, bright as the lightening would shock him and one time brought a memory of an old story of a man that was brought to his knees with an incredible light. A story his mother had read to him. She was the true motherland for him. She knew many stories, ones of the old days, of mystery and valor. Books printed in Slovenia way before this war. Books that were not popular with government and it’s tight grip.

She told Stefan of another warrior from Eisleben that fought for truth, from Germany of all things. His name had been used to describe someone that created beauty out of fine wood. A lute player and builder. This man did indeed create beauty that caught young Stefan’s spirit by surprise. He would remember these moments. His musical mind was so powerful that he could hear a song for a short time after it had ended. Audibly. I have this odd gift as well and the two of them shared songs that still endure, heard now in their minds.

They remained friends long after they both left the cross arm factory. They both enjoyed my MGA convertible, driving out to obscure Russian enclaves with attendant coffee shops and restaurants. It was a solid friendship that they both needed.

One day, as they both sat near the Mississippi river with their tea, they began talking once again about the early days of their lives. The real early, pleasant days, fishing times. Stefan on the Volga and me in Northern Wisconsin. Both with their fathers, alone in good waters and catching fish that were plentiful and delicious. Old leaky boats and different sorts of fish that fresh, were the best. Tenderness remembered before the world’s darkness began to intrude on quiet and safe lives.

The age difference now between the old Bohemian and the young Swedish man was the same but they didn’t notice it and people they occasionally met assumed it they were father and his son. Somehow they went along with that too. “Kind of old to be your dad, isn’t he?” Idiott. Russian word. Seems to translate well.

The dreams still bothered Stefan and I finally was told by my very best friend of all to tell him about Jesus, the best friend of all. He was drawn the the story. I had never told him of the drugs and miracles I was delivered from. It was time to share, introverts and wounded man to man.

The story of deliverance went deep into Stefan and the war was eclipsed by the promise of war defeated. The light of the explosions and lightning was flowing into him along with the long ago story of the man delivered by blinding light. The story once again told by me that was the same one Stefan’s mother read to him when he was a boy. It went deep and deeper still till they both began to shed tears of the truest friendship anyone can have. Stefan and Norm now were together with a bond that will now last forever.

(many real events and and then woven together with dreams in a fabric of truth) Jack Gator

Wisdom and Satire from Old

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Quotes from Andrew Arndt’s Mother

He is the security you seek in Money

He is the high you seek in Alcohol

He is the ecstasy you seek in sex

He is the health you seek in doctors

He is the song you seek in Music

He is the dance you seek in performance

He is the beauty you seek in traveling

He is the wisdom you seek in books

He is the peace you seek in worry

It is Jesus that you seek

Quotes from the Philosopher Diogenes

Alexander the Great was reported to have said, “Had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes.” Once, while Diogenes was sunning himself, Alexander came up to him and offered to grant him any request. “Stand out of my light,” he replied.

(There are many other references to this incident, principally Plutarch, Life of Alexander, XIV.1–5.)

When asked why he went about with a lamp in broad daylight, Diogenes confessed, “I am looking for an honest man.” Seeing a young man blush, he remarked that it was the complexion of virtue.

Why do people give to beggars, he was asked, but not to philosophers? “Because they think they may one day be lame or blind, but never expect that they will turn to philosophy.”

To a young man who complained that he was ill suited to study philosophy, Diogenes said “Why then do you live, if you do not care to live well?” Of grammarians, he was astonished that they desire to learn everything about the misfortunes of Odysseus but nothing about their own.

Of mathematicians, that they keep their eyes on the heavens and overlook what is at their feet. Of orators, that they speak of justice but never practice it.

When asked why he alone praised an indifferent harp player, Diogenes replied “because he plays the harp and does not steal.”

When asked what wine he found most pleasant to drink, Diogenes replied, “That for which other people pay.” 

Photo of G.K. Chesterton and his wife who I owe some of these compilations to.

The Streetcar The Dentist and a Violin

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was in the middle of the last century that as a preteen I was given the task of taking streetcars to the family dentist. I know, it’s sounds like a long time ago. It was. Streetcars were the way to get around town. Everyone knew where they went. As the buses that replaced them, there were placards in front telling destination and the routes were memorized by all. There were transfer tickets, if you asked for one, that enabled the ride to go further in a different direction.

I was five or six years old when I went by myself downtown and further. There, of course, were young kids that would roll a big snowball onto the tracks. Harmless fun as the trolly would plow through them easily. The bigger kids would do those sorts of things. I never did it but saw it done by boys quite older than I. Older by a year or two! Usual seniority of life in public school.

We all would throw a penny off the top of the Foshay tower downtown. It was the tallest building in town and is still there. Now it’s the smallest tall building in town. Word was if the penny hit someone it would go right through them! Terminal velocity of a coin that weighs the same as a hummingbird.

The elevator was free but you had to use a coin to use the telescopes. It was a Nickle which could buy candy as well. A conundrum to a young anti-social Asperger genius. Three Musketeers or a Butterfinger. Tough choice. I thought the splitting of the Musketeer bar was a nice image of comradery. Too messy, no one ever did it.

So, onto the trolley (which had to switch the electric pickup mast when a change of tracks had to be done) the conductors had neat uniforms and a coin box with a little chrome handle that he would constantly twirl to sort out the coins dropped in. I Still remember the sound. Right hand, kachinka, clatter, kaching, etc. I would Get off on Hennepin avenue and walk down about six blocks to Washington avenue. There was a news stand on the corner and they always had the latest science fiction magazines. Later they hawked Mad magazines along with newspapers from all over the country. The next trolley would take me to the family dentist. Great, fun trip.

The streetcars are long gone, along with their tangle of electric power wires overhead. The tracks are gone and recently, tracks got put back in for fast and quiet streetcars. Metro transit. Every one misses the ding ding bell and the rattle of the glass and chrome change hopper. At least people my age do.

It was much later in the end of the century that I was shopping for my first fiddle and a friend in the string instrument world steered me to that family dentist! It seemed the delicate skill sets were just the thing for fine wood work. Oliver G. Olafson was the dentist/violin maker. He made 26 of them in the 1950’s The auction houses of today know of him and list his violin work as ‘inconsistent’ mine must be a consistent one.

I bought one and my friend bought one too! We called them by special names and they aged well. Since the dentists name was Olafson, mine became Olie.

My dentist was known in Mineapolis’ instrument players circles and the choice was good and neither of us needed dental care at that time. There was no Novocain for us either. The bow cost was even higher. It’s good advice from fiddle pros to spend more on your bow than on the fiddle itself. A local shop had a one star N.R. Pfretzschner bow for a few hundred dollars. The bow is now worth 3 to 6 thousand. It’s a nice bow. Musical instruments get better when they get older. Just like us.

That fiddle of mine is so loud that a microphone is usually not needed in small rooms. It’s a beauty. I am not aware of what it is worth. With age comes wisdom. Sometimes. So far I have not been listed as an antique writer but who knows. I can imagine the antique road show now. “We’ve got an 80 year old Swedish model that is a little careworn. Still has hair of sorts and speaks pretty good.” A lot of miles left on this one!”

Actually I have already been bought and the price was impossible to imagine. You know the buyer, at least I pray that you do. He was a master carpenter and worked with wood . He is known throughout the world. Ask me if you are curious and I can introduce you to Him. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Remodeling

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There was a job that I took on. I had not worked for many years, regularly that is. People would tell me; “Must be pretty good to be re-tired now!” bristling inside as though they were really telling me; How does it feel to be somewhat useful and just hanging about on the couch?

I would then tell a joke about I didn’t need new tires and that I was working harder then ever. I was, somewhat. Not behind the desk and in front of the toolbox with my name on a blue work suit. A business I built up for four decades, it was hard at first, not being in charge but after a botched anesthesia, I began having seizures.

A friend took over for a short time and then left with out much notice or contact. Our automotive Shop is still in great shape, but the work is now on our own stuff Our youngest son, Soren, takes care of all of it. He is a chip off the old man, brilliant. He does not run the old business He takes care of everything in the mechanical build, repair and maintain department for us all and our friends. He works at a local business and makes much more money than fixing vehicles ever paid me!

Soren tore down the original shop which was a garage that was old 50 years ago. I had it built onto decades ago and the front new building has a snazzy German vehicle hoist (Nussbaum) Soren then designed and totally rebuilt that back building from the foundation up. Beautiful work and the mice no longer have a drafty freeway to enter. A shop cat makes sure that is not an issue any more.

I now work at Gardening, firewood, land upkeep, and writing about my very strange and exciting life. Hurricanes at sea, betrayed love, deliverance from heroin by five words from Jesus. Things like that. Bold things, near death experiences. Imprisonment in Spain, torture by jailers, preceded by escapes and living on the street in Rome. Work on the railroad steel gangs and bold section men who could handle the steel tools and rails. A Hemingway life.

Many more things I write about and my editor at the local paper encouraged me and was attempting syndication of my columns. Four years went by, syndication never happened and I got let go for writing too strongly about Jesus and his Father by the new manager of that paper. C’est La Vie.

I am still writing and send my columns to a great paper in Northern Wisconsin, The Bottom Line News and Views. I am Contemplating a collected column book of 365 columns. It wouldn’t sell on the planet Mercury very well. Why even think of sales on nearby planets? They are pretty close to us as interstellar distances go, and the info on life is sketchy. Shipping would be a big issue too. Maybe E books?

A day on Mercury lasts longer than a year there. It’s Pretty hot and the bookstore distribution business has yet to get Amazon on board with those markets. Those thoughts float in with my love for books by Heinlein, Azimov and Lewis’ Sci-Fi. Neuron cross fires. It helps me write but could be distracting to read.

Then along came a job paying good money for traveling around the extended area, interviewing people for a government program. The Census. Ostensibly an every ten years type of job. Perfect, even pays mileage.

I got a plastic badge and lanyard, a clipboard and an iPhone. I drove a lot and found roads not traveled and places that were somewhat unpleasant and threats from people that didn’t want to talk to me. However, the pleasant folks that opened up their homes and front porches made up for it.

I got pretty good at establishing common ground and had some great chats about experiences in the military. Often, some would notice my demeanor and know that I was a man of faith

Working for a little extra cash. Great conversations occurred and made all the scary encounters fade into the background. Connection. The shared lives that were just like everyone’s: Heartache, loss and loved ones gone. There once was an invitation to share sloppy Joe’s at a lakeside cabin. They where pretty good and the buns were firm and not greasy.

A memorable visit introduced me to homemade Kahlua. ‘Grandmas night-night juice’ she named it. She gave me a flask of it and it was pretty good.

The money I made was earmarked for a new sidewalk from the our house to the shop. It was worth all of the tough interviews. The connections with people from the high end, golfers putting near their private aircraft to the very run down houses with wary women peeking out from the edge of slightly opened doors. All of them worthy of the love of God. Equally and, in their own ways, somewhat open to this strange Scandinavian at their front door.

Of course, there was a bit of tension when deadly force was mentioned in retaliation for me daring to show up for the government’s people counting. A slight short peek at a holstered wheel gun for my perusal. People of different ethnic backgrounds, poor and rich, helpful and insulting. It was life in a distilled time of weeks and roads not traveled. Road food and decent pay.

A side benefit was a sign in the back window my car that had a real official government look about it. Tailgaters would get close, get a glimpse of the sign and suddenly drop back a decent amount. I wasn’t driving a Dodge charger like the squads, but it was very subtle and effective.

The sidewalk to the shop then was done with a slight color and texture added in. It is easy to shovel and sand in season. We should have one from the porch to the driveway too. Why not put one in from there to the garden gate! “It ain’t happening” as the local colloquialism says. I would like to do those Census activities every ten years and it’s been twenty and I haven’t got a job offer again. Maybe they found out I was enjoying the job and that is not an attribute for government work. Politics is an exception of course.

I would have a good time on the “What’s my line” show. Comforting, ministering and praying as well as writing about those things would be an accurate job description. The pay is heavenly and a good investment too. It’s pretty good. Jack Gator

First photo is of the back half of the shop before restoration Second photo back half restoration third photo is of the sign on the front of the shop (sold to a collector that drove the roll off dumpsters)

Read Henri J.M. Nouwen’s ‘The wounded healer’ for clarification.

Synopsis of a Fool on the road to Redemption

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

A recall of my life is now being revealed to me, bit by bit. Indeed all the mistakes, roads taken that had no outlet or were literally dead ends, were there to take me to a place I did not know I was going. This is the reason I was given the opportunity to write this book. I thought it was my idea!

The Author whose books anchor a sagging bookshelf in our library, has given me hope and excitement as he has done for so many. C.S. Lewis. The first name Jessie Seline and I decided on for my Fiddling Gator identity was Jack. {It was Clive Staples Lewis’ nickname.}

So many authors have that first name in fiction writing and Jessie and I decided it was perfect. Punchy like Jack Dempsey. Masculine and only four letters long. It stuck after being known as ‘Mr Gator’ for years. That story comes to light in this book. A simple newspaper article about my role as a judge in a fiddle contest with a cartoon of an alligator, rocking back on his tail. playing the fiddle.

I know, without any doubt, that our Lord Jesus has me on speed dial to my spirit. I did not even know I had a phone like that before others before that have those, taught me how to listen. I listened when I was a big fool and now I am a tool. Those two letters are close on keyboards and are pushed with the left forefinger. Pointing the way to Him.

My counselor, Mr. Beeves, told me he had never met a man with more trauma than I. He also told me it would always be in my mind and would have six tenths of a second to turn off the reaction of fight or flight to perceived new trauma. Recently, I have asked Jesus to have a USB port put into my head and a jump drive with a program to dive deep and encase those memories where they belong. The past. He has recently acquiesced to that request! Very recently. I did not know He could do that or that I could ask. Look for the port if we meet and I will split hairs with you and show it to you.

Go, Set and get ready. Go to Him set your heart before Him and with Him, and you are ready. Stay on that Highway to Holiness, for “the road to hell is an easy slope, soft underfoot with no warning signs” a. I have asked many friends that were near death to meet me as I ‘cross the bar’ to eternity. I saw one of them leave with five words as he disappeared: “It’s better than you said!” It is.

a. C.S. Lewis

Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 4

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment




Bruce left a week or so after we arrived in Berkeley. He had enough adventure after our ride out. I am not certain how he got back. He stayed over in town at Earl Crabb’s (Humbeads Map of the world creator) place for a while and in Hollywood at John Braheny’s. After that, we lost touch. I stayed on at the mansion on Shasta Road in Berkeley.

I got a good job at the local art theater as a projectionist. We showed odd films like ‘The Apu Trilogy’ and it was fun. I knew carbon Arc’s as that was what we used on our ships to signal night or day. They were bigger than the movie projectors. Bright.

I Showed a picture about a crazed sniper that had a scene where he was shooting a movie projectionist just as he was peeking through a small window to see the next switchover to the second projector. It’s old tech. There are small white dots in the upper frame of the movie, on the third dot I would pull the lever to turn one on and the other one off. In the movie, the sniper was drawing his bead at that changeover time. Exactly. I started crouching down and getting weirded out. Post production staff humor.

    I had to clean up all the popcorn boxes after the show and it took a toll on my back. I was most in a front bend from all the riding and bouncing about as well. I got some doctoring and workman’s comp for a while. I had to lie on a window seat bench at the mansion until Charlie moved out. I got his room and things were doing OK. An interesting German pilot was in another room down the hall and he had a fireplace.

    There were other tenants. An English professor that taught at the college and an odd girl that had emotional fits now and then. She would throw herself down the stairway on occasion and sob at the bottom. I went over and held her until she calmed down once or twice. I knew what she needed as I can be like that. Self esteem and frustration in communication for sure. The other tenements were lase and used to it. I was used to the feeling from childhood. I am worthless, unloved.

    The owners were overseas acquiring art work of some sort and life there was working out for me. It seemed to fit as I was another art fixture in the house as were we all. Musicians, Professors, An ex Fighter pilot from WWII and the like. Nice place, fireplaces everywhere and you could see the San Francisco bay from the western windows. 5 Million dollars plus even then. Rent was affordable!

    I fell in with a crowd of Jaguar owners at the local coffee shop (Mr. Peets first one on the Northside) and they, of course, were as crazy as the rest of the Bay Area people were. Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the holding company, Grace Slick and Jimi Hendrix. Sly stone was somehow connected with the fighter pilot.

    It was gloriously crazy in 1968 and I was finally where I wanted to be. Living with people that were on the same path of Timothy Leary’s dreams of “Smash your brains, Crack Em’” LSD, pot and other drugs flowed down Lombard street to Haight Ashbury and then across the bay bridge to Berkeley. Mario Stavio and the free speech movement and my new friend that played Boogie Woogie piano, crazy Mike. A Chinese Jag mechanic in the mix and I fit right in with my Martin D-28.

    Joan Baez played a parlor Martin and she was . Bob Zimmerman was still back in Minneapolis at the 10 o’clock scholar getting warmed up for world fame. It was pretty good.

    One night, crazy mike had us jumping with his piano. It was an upstairs apartment and there came a knock on his door. It was the police. They told him after 10 he had to stop making ‘noise’ as the neighborhood was not on board with bold rhythm. Oscar Peterson stuff with swing extraordinary skill.

    The next night, at precisely ten o’clock, mike blasted out the window with a big battery bullhorn. “You may have noticed that I have stopped playing” He did and we loved it.

    Joan Baez played a parlor Martin and she was the musical ballerina of folk. Bob Zimmerman (Dylan) was still back in Minneapolis at the 10 o’clock scholar getting warmed up for world fame with Joan and other class acts. They all had National Enquirer possibilities but Rolling Stone was rolling of off the press along with Mad Magazine. Hipsters and hucksters abounded in the bay area and I got entwined with Sly Stone after a little more adventure. Any musician that was riding the surf roaring under the golden gate was there.

    Music was on the move in the bay area and we were riding that wave. We thought we were pretty neat and inside the sine wave of progress and coolness. Rebels with a cause. Obnoxious with charisma.

    It was pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

    photo of Bruce Berglund and his guitar.

    Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 2

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    Sitting at their campsite, Bruce and I talked the day over. “we agreed no weapons with” We wondered what we would do if the local boys came as told they would. “We’ve got the tent poles that we aren’t using tonight!” I believed this was Bruce’s solution. “We can carry those poles under our right arms so that only the metal Farrell’s show! They will think we have shotguns” We wondered if this was possible. “Is that the best idea you’ve got?” It was settled and the we settled in our sleeping bags under the stars on this moonlit night.

    Sure enough, around midnight, the sound of slamming pickup doors was heard from the parking lot of the campground. “Well, here we go” We started walking towards the young toughs side by side on the pathway. Our tent poles pointed at the ground and the moonlight reflecting off of metal exposed. The metal that was just meant to join one pole to another. “ Don’t shoot till we’re a little closer” Bruce said in a very loud whisper. Those small town punks took one look at us and those pickup doors slammed shut again. There was a roar of a small block engine, and the townies were gone.

    Not long afterward, the town cop showed up with his squad and somewhat surprised asked: “You boys OK?” Sure, quiet night officer we answered. Puzzled and baffled that weren’t a couple of bodies lying about, the town cop nodded his head and drove off. Tipped off by the townies, just checking for the carnage. we decided to break camp early and slipped away at midnight. Headed for the Oklahoma panhandle and close to the famous route 66. Seemed a safe and promising thing to do.

    The next town was indeed in Oklahoma and it was a bright Sunday morning when Bruce pulled over to the side of the road with his engine racing up and down. “What’s going on Bruce?” It seemed the BMW did not want to connect the engine with the desired ahead motion. Sitting next to one another on the ground of the well groomed grass, we began to disassemble the drive train of the bike. We were getting pretty good at those sorts of things. A short time later Bruce announced: “It’s the woodruff key on the driveshaft, it’s sheared off!”

    Looking at the Sunday afternoon one horse town was not encouraging. There seemed to be tumble weeds blowing down the short main street angled off the highway, no one was in sight and there was no traffic heard nor in sight. Great. Suddenly, A tall young man was in back of them asking “What’s the matter boys?” They looked at the young man and said rather sadly, “sheared a woodruff key on the driveshaft.” That man didn’t even blink about a motorcycle having a driveshaft and in a calm voice said: “My father owns the hardware store and I’ve got the keys, lets go see what we can do”

    Astonished, they followed him and his keys as he walked down an alley to a door and opened it. Turning to them, he said: “go to that Graymills cabinet over there and pull open that top drawer. There, back in the third compartment, 8 millimeter.?.take a few” They took about three of them. Back to the bikes Bruce put the key in the driveshaft and fit with a perfect ‘snick’ We turned to eagerly thank the tall young man and he was nowhere in sight. It came out as: “Hey Bruce…were did he go?” It wasn’t until decades later I laughed and finally got the line “My father owns the hardware store and I’ve got the keys” Of course, the Lord, our Father owns everything!

    (To be continued) Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

    Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 3

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    .. After the dust- bowl town with the Angel and the woodruff key, we were on Route 66 and westward bound. Gas was cheap back then our slim wallets still had enough to get to ‘the city’ in California.

    The bar up ahead looked promising after all that desert in Nevada. It appeared to have just been dropped into place. A small parking lot with two cars, one of them with California plates. There was literally, nothing visible from horizon to horizon. Just the endless highway. A few dust devils and actual sagebrush.

    Out of the saddles and into the bar we strode, awkwardly as riding can do things to your body that doesn’t relate to standing and walking. It’s just the odd feeling from all that vibration that your hands are on opposite arms. Weird. Akin to my illusions at sea when land would not be visible. After a few weeks in the ‘middle’ if the ocean, it seems the ship is standing still and the water is flowing by!

    Any way, most motorcycle riders get the upside down hands thing after 100 miles or so, no one talks about it. Our bikes were a little rougher on the road than today’s huge highway cruisers. Bruce’s BMW was a little smoother than the Indian Tomahawk/Enfield. I shudder even now thinking how it would have been on the 600cc Matchless single.

    So after we shook off the muscle memories and went in, the bar had two women patrons and the barkeep. The two women were older and looked at those two young men like coyotes gazing upon a nice jack rabbit nearby. Smiles and almost instantly, an offer to cool down with a few cold ones. ‘Sure’! After a few (the women were drinking hard stuff) it was revealed that one of them was a California Senator and the other woman was the Senator’s aide.

    Betty Fiorina was the Senators name, I never forgot it. It pops up now and then in the news and in my mind.

    Lots of laughs and some mild flirtation ensued and it was time for the gals to hop into their Buick convertible and us to kick start the bikes and weave down the highway. Blood alcohol content, who cares? Not a car in sight and road hazards were an occasional sign and a few lizards or ruckchucks. 1. If you noticed, motorcycles now do not have kick starters. You have seen them in movies where you heave your body up in the saddle and push hard on the way down onto a pedal on the right side of the machine. It usually started on one kick.

    Class act meets Brando and Lee Marvin and no one knew what to do except drink and laugh. Much later, a decade or two, I caught a name on some senate bill and it’s the same last name of the Senator they met. Family business. There was a photo and she looked very trim and self assured. Splitting image of mom.

    Onward to Northern California and the back entrance to Berkeley on Shasta Road. Bruce was confident, I was just stunned. The place we wheeled up to had several chimneys, a tile roof and a pretty good view of the San Francisco bay . More class and style than either of us had ever experienced.

    An old friend of Bruce’s, Charlie Jirousek, lived there with about six other people. He was a luthier and built guitars out of Brazilian Rosewood. So he was broke too. He also had a massive Malamute, North, that shed hair at a bodacious rate. A month later, Charlie covered the C.F. Martin logo on the tuning head with one of his, a mother of pearl arrow. His guitar business was called ‘Arrowhead’ I was concerned that even at this time, the Martin logo would encourage theft. It works. To this day musicians that hear of play it remark on it’s tone and beauty. “what is it?” I tell them to look inside the sound hole. Martin D-28.

    Charlie had a big sack full of the hair and stated someday he would make a shirt out of it. 4 decades went by until the shirt appeared. It had an odd smell and dogs seemed attracted to Charlie. So The three of them spent a lot of time around the main living room fireplace playing guitars and eating peanut butter from Charlie’s jar. A half gallon jar. White bread used now and then. It was enjoyable for me to meet another person as pleasant and eccentric as we were.

    To this day, I still enjoy a peanut butter sandwich with heavy butter on both slabs of bread. Add the thick crunchy style peanut butter. Those sandwich’s were free and the music was excellent and heart felt. A lot of joy around that fireplace.

    We all knew what our lives were like as we played the same music. Leadbelly, Blind Blake, Willy McDowell. It’s called country blues music. There was one tune, Old Country Rock that just hit the spot. We played it a lot. It was pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

    1. Ruckchuck . An animal nearby in the weeds that makes a lot of noise. Scared away by an aluminum cooking pot swinging in front of our headlamps.

    A Door Gunner and the Old Fiddler

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    It was a beautiful drive, one I take often to a small church about 8 miles north. On Fridays that old Lutheran church gives away bread from a bakery 80 miles south. Every Friday for years they have done so. I pick up as many bags as they will give me as I give away most of to a local secondhand store about 7 miles to the East. Caring Hearts. I like to drive those rural roads.

    Today, I drove past a place of good memories, on a lake called Wood and glanced at the places on the road before the lake that I like to look at. Old abandoned houses that used to be pretty swell and houses that have acres of metal junk around them. Wind-rowers, hay loaders, antique bulldozers. Tons of steel, waiting for nothing, akin to tossing old scrap lumber out to be burned out in the field thing. How that stuff got out there and what the price of steel is going for occurs to me. Reminds me of an old forest that is past it’s prime and the mess that is too. Wood lying about is a lot easier to look at.

    I drove past wood Lake (we have a lot of nice ones nearby) and remembered an old friend that was a veteran like me. He had it rougher and served on Helicopters shooting people out of the door with a belt fed machine gun. A .50 or .30 caliber. Don’t remember him mentioning that. A war in Vietnam that no one wanted, a war I was drafted into as I was in basic training for the Navy! I just missed that meat grinder. A returning veteran was hated by many Jane Fonda fans. Danny Carlson was this veteran’s name. He was friendly to me and our stories were good to share with one another.

    Danny knew I was a country western fiddler on the local bar circuit and he wanted to have some fun and put on a fiddle contest at his lake shore home. OK, I got hold of another fiddler, Bill Hinkley, and we set it up with a stage overlooking the lake and advertising it at the local watering holes. We even took out an add in the newspaper. This was a big deal for towns under 2000.

    We got a half dozen fiddlers to show up for the chance for the 1st place prize and the beer kegs would set the stage for some good fun. Bill and I started out demonstrating what fiddling was with Bill’s wife Judy on guitar. Then we started the contest. Bill, I and Judy (official judges) got to sit right up front on the beautiful manicured grass which sloped gently down to the lake. Quite a few people showed up.

    Good acoustics too from the water. Near the end, an older fiddle player showed up. He was at least as old as I am now and needed a bow. We got him one and he started sawing away. His tone was off and the speed wasn’t there, but the Bill and I and Judy looked at one another with a nod. This was the stuff of legends. We knew what this man had been and in our ears, still was. Bad bow, arthritic hands, bent over and knowing it was the best he could do. We gave him the 1st place without a doubt. Bill and I were thinking that we can even play at this man’s age we would be blessed to fiddle as well as he was. Uncle Zeke was his name and where he was from and were he went is still a mystery.

    “The struggles and events of his life are just the cover and chapter page of the book of his life. The book no one on earth can read is the real story and every chapter is better than the last” 1.

    Dan a short time afterwards, died across the road from his lake home in his trucking outfits office from carbon monoxide gas. In his sleep. My wife, Julie almost died from the same danger from a bad propane furnace way out west when she was camp counselor before I met her.

    So Every time I drive past Danny’s old lake home I think of these things and ask Jesus, why? Why take Dan and spare my wife with only a bad headache and some temporary cognitive loss’? We will never know until I read that book of real stories that I can’t read now.

    Somehow, in some way I find that answer adequate. I still ask why these things happen and am getting better and waiting for the answer I already know. Ask me sometime and I will let you in on what He says to me. Usually stop, look and listen. I am so glad Julie survived that carbon Monoxide and we have this incredible life together. Thank you Lord!

    Somehow I know there will be that book about Danny I can read and I will read it with him. I will share those books with my old Navy buddy that will hand me his book as he reads mine. It’s pretty good. I like reading really good books.

    Norm Peterson. (aka Jack Gator)

    1. G.K. Chesterton “the apostle of common sense”

    In Retrospect

    / Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

    A beautiful October morning that started with windshield scraping and is now showing the glisten of maple leaves in bright sunlight. Drying just for me to gather and spread onto the strawberry plants within our garden.

    It is October 16 as I compose this and I decided to sit in the living room sunlight and read a delightful book, A year with C.S. Lewis. It is a gift to me from one of my mentors and good and loved pastor. I read the quotes and entry for today and realized that today is the day that C.S. Lewis’ The lion the witch and the wardrobe was published in 1950.

    I was six years old then and had just entered first grade at Loring Grade School about six blocks away from our home in North Minneapolis. My sister, Diana, was in fifth grade and soon to be in Junior high at Patrick Henry School about six blocks away to the east.

    A few years have past since then and I have been through the usual life we all experience. Again, in C.S Lewis’ The problem of Pain, there is wisdom that struck me today as encouraging. This book was quoted in my Calendar for today and the assurance of my life unfolded.

    “I have seen great beauty of spirit in some who were great sufferers. I have seen men, for the most part, grow better, not worse with advancing years…” 1.

    As the sun advanced across the living room floor, I began to see my life once again. Many interesting escapades and many close calls along with poverty, imprisonment and bitter sarcasm resulting from my embracing that pain.

    And yet, somewhat recently, I have begun indeed growing better and not filled with fear and hatred of the world and myself included with it. A gentling and calming that surprises my family and other friends. I still keep my wit and humor but it is now tempered with a romance of life that gently pushes the pain aside. I like it and the opportunities to give the little bit of that transforming Grace from our Lord are coming forth. The thrill of action and prayer abounds when the transformation and healing come forth from Him.

    There is great hope and Faith growing within me and those are the very gifts of God.

    It’s pretty good.. Jack Gator scribe

    1. C.S. Lewis The problem of Pain The type writer photo is the one that Jack and Warnie Lewis used