Life Experienced

Discarded

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I was in my twenties when I found an apartment that fitted my mood. Recently discharged from the military and I was going to art school! The apartment fit the inherited car from his Grandfather, an old, square shaped Buick sedan. It wasn’t like my first car, the British Racing Green MGA with the real knock-off spoke wheels and Pirelli Cinturados and a Derrington wood rim steering wheel. No, It was the car of my discarded Grandfather, now passed down to me. Discarded because the once strong fireman was not capable of driving or putting out fires anymore. It felt good to me to get that old Buick.

Grandpa had killed my cat when I was young, because it had to be as Grandpa could not have my cat in his home when Mom and her new husband went on their honeymoon to Sweden. I had no say as I was in grade school and felt discarded, set aside and not worthy of dialogue or even gentleness. Mom and her immigrant husband never went on that honeymoon either. One of those memories of the life of a person now dead but living within me. a.

It felt sort of similar too that my family sold my precious MGA when the draft came in with a whirlwind of death harvest for Vietnam. I signed up first before I could have gone west to the jungles. I went east to the Mediterranean sea instead.

So I sold Grandpas Buick right away, traded it for an Austin Healy Sprite. It felt good to be in a roadster again. Made up a bit for the Green MGA and the cat.

My apartment was a dump. Second floor above a Sherman Williams paint store on the wrong side of the tracks. Corner store, separate entrance. I had a neighbor who was down and out and bummed smokes from me. When I would ask him how things were going, the neighbor always said: “just take me to the dump” That memory reminds me of Marvin the paranoid android in Hitchhikers guide. “I’m not getting you down am I?”

It seems that the latest attitude we all have. “It’s at the end of it’s service life” or “that old thing? Too expensive to fix, toss it” “ You’re what! Pregnant! Git rid of it, You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!” and our favorite: “Heck, he’s over 80. Forget that cornea transplant. I mean really, how many years does he have left anyway?” “Put her in a home, she won’t notice anyway” And so forth. As side note, as I edit this post I just had eye surgery for cataracts and I am 81. Love it! I can drive without glasses now.

Feeling useless because the popular philosophy now is Existential in nature. One man in particular, a philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, went insane in the most beautiful country in the world, Switzerland. He came to the point of knowing the tension and despair for the loss of meaning in his life because of the loss of a personal God. His words are profound: “ But all pleasure seeks eternity-a deep and profound eternity”. Groucho Marks said: ” I want to live forever and I’ll die trying it” Truth from a great comedian.

Our country has found itself discarding our God of Creation perhaps because He is inconvenient and is sort of a kill joy because of all those rules he has. “I can’t follow all those rules in the Bible!” Of course we can’t, that’s the point of the rules. We need Him.

So we discard what we feel and know is not worthwhile to us. An old car, out of date food and personal relationships that are used up and don’t make us feel the way we want to. Or the way we feel we are entitled to perhaps. We have so much ‘stuff ‘ that it gets in our way when we don’t like it or need it. Broken things, old things past their expiration dates. Things that we don’t even remember acquiring. And so it goes on and on until it becomes easier to discard than repair. “That car, it was getting old and anyway, I was tired of driving it” How much different is it when it comes to this? “He was getting on my nerves. All this talk about going to a church marriage counselor! It was his fault, so I divorced him”

It seems prudent to us to just put it in a blue plastic container and park it down by the end of the driveway every Tuesday. ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water! Throw out the tub too!’ I can do what I want, that’s what the world says. Another philosopher, De Sade put it well: “If there is no standard, no real moral base, then that old woman walking down the road can either be helped or run over. No difference if there are no moral standards” Those standards have been firmly set by an eternal infinite loving God who knows us and desires us to love him with the same passion he loves us.

So, it’s our choices, the small ones that make a great impact on everyone. Should I discard this friend? This inconvenient baby? This old fashioned religious teaching? This God who never did anything I asked Him to do?

Always, always our choice to build, repair, embrace and seek truth in the eyes of the Man who is more alive than any man who ever lived. Jesus, the master repairman of old and stressed lives. It’s pretty good.

Norm Peterson / Jack Gator For continuation of this story line see ‘Motorcycle Pilgrimage 1-5

a. Mark Batterson “please, thanks and sorry”

Neighbors Noises

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I was curious. There was a noise about a mile away, maybe two that was irritating me. A noise like a Chinese water torture. A machine emitting the beep beep beep as it backed up. Over and over, all summer and fall and now approaching winter. None of my family was irritated, but I heard a constant A above C wherever I was working on the ranch. Over and over for months and finally it was time to find the source. Perhaps a bobcat or Track Hoe building a road or parking lot. Big parking lot.

Finally, the last wheelbarrow of dry firewood was stacked on the porch and I had it. I got into the old Ranger and drove to the noise. Backtracked once but found the source. There is a road that goes off the main highway to a gated housing community. New homes. Gravel road. Gator drove up to the gate which was open. An electrically operated gate. There was a new road punched through the woods covered with #3 coarse rock for a short distance. I could hear the beep beep and knew it was the source area. I began walking up after shutting off the truck with it in reverse gear selected.

Realizing I might look out of place, I grabbed a couple of papers out of the glove box. Looking like an inspector of sorts as I walked up the wobbly rock. There was a parked truck just up ahead. It wasn’t bad going until I got past the truck. Then wet clay with puddles. Nope, too mucky.

Nothing within sight, curiosity somewhat satisfied, I started back to the truck. No truck. What! I looked left and right for it and rounding the corner, saw the truck. It was parked in a ditch on the wrong side of the road. A rather steep ditch and walking up to it, I found the ditch as ‘a bit wet’. Truck was ok, started but just spun the wheels (not 4wd). Suddenly a young man up on the hill at the only home on the road so far, called out to him and said he could help. A tractor started and began to warm up in a shop and the young man walked down his driveway with a canvas tow strap and chain attached.

Astonished, I immediately got down on the wet ground and hooked the strap to a convenient tow hook on the front of the Ranger. The strap was of a perfect length and shortly, down the driveway came a nice sized New Holland 4wd tractor. Gator easily hooked the hook to a small length of chain on the top of the bucket. A nod and thumbs up from the driver, back to the Ranger and the tractor pulled me out to the road. I crawled back under the front end of the truck (now with wet pants but not in 2 inches of water) got the strap off and the young man came off the seat of the tractor. He had a lit cigarette and I asked him for a smoke. Standing there with the crisis over, I was back in the military when only a smoke would do to relax. I have not smoked for decades but it is the thing to do when your life has been saved.

Several cars drove by, high end cars without a glance in their direction. Nice Mercedes’. A few minutes earlier, there would have been a serious problem. A sixty thousand dollar car with an old Ford rolling backwards across the road. I must have missed the last quarter of an inch engaging reverse or perhaps it just popped out from the strain of the steep road. The parking brake cables had long ago broken and if you are familiar with rear drum brakes, the repair is not fun, expensive and who needs parking brakes anyway? We never think those are also referred to as emergency brakes. I didn’t, I do now.

It was amazing and impossible. Shaking and humbled, I drove home, thanking the Lord over and over for His protection and help.

My expotition (family word from wind in the willows) was successful as my rescuer filled me in on the development project. It was a driveway to a sold winery that overlooked Little Trade Lake. A good friend and neighbor that lives on the lake, Rick, the was pleased as this turn of events. The winery had numerous parties that echoed over the lake waters late at night.

We could hear those parties now and then, but high above the water with amplified acoustics, it was over the top for our friend Rick. Of course, as a small bonus, lake development in rural America is funding a large amount of township taxes. I lived in the ‘cities’ most of my life and can comprehend the quiet of rural lake cabins. Mostly quiet. Now it’s power bass boats and jet riders but only on the weekends that are warm. As a pleasant sound, those weekends are sprinkled with kids laughing and sporting their parents side by side ‘golf carts’ up and down our road. It has to be an incredible feeling of freedom for them and does not irritate me at all. Just the incessant beep beep backup alarm on a bobcat. For months.

We disconnected that on Rick’s bobcat a long time ago when we serviced and used it. No one has gotten run over yet.

It’s pretty good. Norm/ Jack

The Lost Ring and the Saved Soul

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was a restless night for me. I discovered the morning before that I had lost my wedding ring. I’ve worn it since 1992 and it means a lot to us. It has an inscription inside with the wedding date. There is another one too in italics: “Through headwinds and tailwinds” Julie and I met on bicycles under very strange and beautiful circumstances. Unbelievable ones. That is a story for certain. It involves a Lutheran Pastor, a bartender in Washington state, A camp cook and the bartender’s grandparents. It’s been written and published already, ‘A bicycle built for two’

So, back to the ring. The whole family clan began looking for the ring. Could be it was stripped off my finger when I removed gloves outside? (It’s happened several times) Search the garden, the wood shed, the garden tool shed, the glove box in the house and car. You get the idea. It was perhaps thrown off my hand in the night when I shook off a carpal tunnel numbness! The only way to search the room’s carpet was to move the bed. An awful lot of dust and the usual vacuum cleaner task. Incredible mess. After the bed was moved 90 degrees and the cleaning began in earnest, a dusty journal was discovered. In it were Details of my week long ministering to my old navy best friend Chuck, that was in hospice in Maryland. Cancer. That journal Hadn’t been seen for sixteen years. No ring was found. They left the bed turned ninety degrees and cleaned a lot. Their thorough cleaning was very thorough and they had been thinking about vacuuming there anyway.

Reading the found journal revealed memories that came came like a flood once again. Tears from that long ago relationship came. The trouble and the trauma that had been shared with my best friend. We were together at sea during the war between Israel and Egypt and Syria. Chuck introduced me to what he called a pep pill to keep them awake on long 24 hour watches. Communication duties in the top secret radio room. Wartime status. Those pills worked pretty well, we bought them in port from the pharmacy down the street from our apartment. They were pure meth and Chuck got addicted. I used them as needed. Chuck needed them and used them.

It wasn’t too long until the CID came knocking at our apartment in Naples, asking about drug usage. I was open and honest and told them about the legality from the pharmacy. They asked about marijuana too and I offered that a cook aboard had some that helped with the shakes from the pep pills. Suddenly we were in handcuffs and taken aboard to point out the cook as he sat in a corridor, also in cuffs.

We all got locked into a Marine brig on shore and the cook came after me in the night with a purloined knife. Chuck ‘set him aside’ the cook survived and was still in general population and we decided to escape. We climbed down from the third floor using a handy drain pipe and ran for our lives. I felt threatened and Chuck just wanted to get high. Maybe he made up the knife fight. Perhaps.

We were captured, tried and sentenced to hard labor in Spain for a half year and stripped of pay and rank. An honorable discharge ensued after a review years later by a friends uncle, a Kennedy. But my Navy career was over. Thanks Chuck for the disappointment and loss. It was not a good time for me to think about not making in to the brown shoe navy ( chief ) And I was doing so well. My division chief cried when he saw me being led away. I was his protege and successor. That was the end of the sixties.

Driving alone to an early prayer meeting, I began haranguing the Lord about the ring. The usual rant we all when things are difficult and not making sense. “Where is my ring! You know where it is Lord!” His answer was, of course, immediate and kind. I was reminded that gold ring would not follow me into eternity. Neither would my 18th century viola nor the 100 year old Gibson Mandolin. However, the story of me gently responding to Chuck’s dying request to visit will go with me to heaven. I answered Chuck’s question “So what’s the good news?” Indeed, there is very good news about forgiveness, redemption and the romance of Heaven. However, I still blamed chuck for the disaster and I held resentment within.

A lot of you know exactly what It is about. I asked Chuck to meet me when it was my time to cross the bar. Chuck cried when their parting embrace ended. They both knew that living at the hospice is not usually a long term situation. When I arrived Chuck did not want to talk about Jesus, just reminisce and watch movies. We talked about Jesus anyway. The tears shared were powerful and knowledge of what was said was understood by both. To meet me meant he had to be there.

A month after the visit, Chucks wife called and said he wanted to talk with me. Right away he said “what are the words?” I answered that there were no words. Lets talk. We talked for an hour and a half. “Let’s just talk to Jesus right now!” So we did. I forgave him for all the trouble he got me into with the drugs and such. We talked more about all the things that matter on the party line to Jesus. After that hour and a half I asked him how he felt about revealing ourselves to one another and with the creator of all things listening in. “I feel pretty good actually” was his answer. ” Is that it?” Pretty much I replied.

A very short time afterwards, Mary Lou called and told me that Chuck was going to be baptized.

A few weeks after Chuck’s, baptism, I saw him entering paradise while I was praying in a local church.! A clear reality, my eyes wide open. He was walking away from me and he turned and pointed his hand over his shoulder and said five words that I will never forget: “It’s better than you said!”

He vanished and there as a bit of excitement on my part. Mary Lou left a phone message at home. She said Chuck had died that morning. I called back and told her; “Thanks Mary Lou! I know he died this morning because I saw him go. I gave her the five words he said. It was and the best good news she could hear! Chuck had ‘crossed the bar’ and was home. I am interested in what I said to him! It will be fun finding out.

All that trauma, the war, the pills and the court marshal led up to salvation for Chuck. Many decades before this happened, I was addicted to heroin and also heard five words as I was going for more heroin in front of me. “Life or death, choose now” Five words, decades apart that were less than one day in the courts of the Lord. Paths to death turned mourning into dancing for joy. Another dying that led to life eternal ,for both of us.

So I surrendered my angst about my wedding ring of gold and realized that the journal with the details of five words were only found when we looked for the ring. It was till missing after five days. Gone for good, impossible to search through leaves and grass around the farm. Sad, but reluctantly surrendering the ring because I now knew I would not take it with to cross the bar.

I went for my usual lap swim at a high school pool about 20 miles away. Early morning, around six am. I began swimming in the lane next to the wall and on the third lap, looked over into the deepest part of the pool and saw a round object that was dark. It looked like an O ring that was black. Could it be! That is where I was doing the backstroke five days earlier.

I asked a young gal that was swimming in the next lane if she dives. She said “sure” and I asked her to please dive down 10 feet and bring up that round object. She did and popped up with my wedding ring! Not so shinny after five days in chlorine and bromine, but it was the ring. The inscription said so.

A wonderful release of the sad loss, I held on tight to the ring and did a short swim and texted a picture home of the ring. It was Impossible that it was still there in plain sight. pool Not vacuumed, not in the drain close by. How deep Lord? How deep do you want to go?

I still swim there and I still work it out to swim in that same wall lane. I always look down when I get to the end at the deep part. I saw a necklace a few days ago and told the lifeguard and maintenance man about it. It had beads on it and it looked like leather. Lost and found indeed. I never have seen that young girl that dove for my ring again.

My surrender after the discovery of that Chuck hospice journal was a lesson never forgotten. Surrender. Die to the world and embrace life. He gives and takes away indeed. Grieve and rejoice. The good news, It’s pretty good, Jack Gator / Norm Peterson

with thanks to Henri Nouwen for inspiration

Unrepeatable Beauty

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

There it was, so fleeting perhaps and gone quickly. So many moments in our lives that stun us that we cannot reproduce. The fragrance of a smile in the midst of a ferocious storm or a measure of music that was perfect, even in a recording cannot reproduce the moment you heard it. A memory of beauty is not the moment it was seen or heard or even smelled. A farmer working his field with the music of his machines. A hummingbird, dancing in the lilac bush just outside the window that I opened. The sound of It’s wings, the sight of the bird going back and forth, dancing for his mate just inches before him. Exciting, unexpected and so intimate that I had to sit on our bed and thank my creator for that gift.

The beauty of paintings that come close is a slight opening to the painters grasp of a face. The Mona Lisa of Leonardo described by Vesardi :”There was a smile so pleasing that it was more divine than human” As I meandered in the halls of the Vatican almost sixty years ago, I was silent and amazed at the masterful paintings, the priceless paintings that came close. They made me long for the painters mind and visions that he tried to capture. Beauty close but not all of it. The smell of the oils, the touch of the brush on canvas and the gift to see what conveys some of the experience.

Later in my life there are moment’s still strong in my memory of desert sunsets. The sound and motion of lying in my bunk at sea, rocked to sleep with the rush of the warm bunker oil beneath the deck. Describing it can invoke memory but it is not being there. Beauty and comfort in a war.

The sound of laughter and an overwhelming partnership between a couple next to me. We were playing and singing in upstate New York, Cafe Leena near Saratoga . I was with Bill Hinkley and Judy Larson on my left. The song was obscure but the music swirled about them. Judy’s laugh and Bill’s smile created beauty for eternity.

A small storefront in Northwest Wisconsin that my family had transformed into a place of musical worship was beautiful. To the family, remembering years afterward of those moments of unity indescribable. We all played and sang together in the evenings. The small, hand painted sign over the sidewalk, hanging from the awning is gone. (Recently, that prayer room has been turned into a tattoo parlor.)

When we were there, the Pioneer bar that gave free internet to us through the brick walls. It burned badly years after we left and that bar looked like it got the wrong end of a 105 mm. Next to the burned bar building was a closed bakery storefront. No small tables with good breakfasts and glass cases displaying the sugary delights. All memories that cannot be captured with photos, smells or conversation. No more pedestrians walking out with with white bags of donuts. Those memories are stored away within and are precious.

As I edit this, the bar is being rebuilt, with the bakery part of it. A common plaza shared by them offers me a vision of sitting there with a crafted beer and a donut, enjoying the new view and ‘sus’ the ambiance of a rebirth. Worship music on the jukebox perhaps? God does interesting things.

The sighing of the wind through a tree top, the sudden smell of flowers as my son rides by on his opposed transverse 4 cylinder Honda. The sound of the power coupled with that wind. Where does it come from and where does it go? That is an old question asked by Jesus to Nicodemus. No isobars and satellite images that guess at where the breath of God comes and goes. Nicodemus could not answer that question either. Can you? As the song goes, “This is the air I breathe”

A combined beauty of things seen, felt and smelled that cannot be captured to enjoy again. Fleeting and a glimpse of eternity. Our memories are reminders but not the real moments, of stunning beauty

My navy best friend Chuck told me about it in five words. “It’s better than you said!” He said those words appearing to me just as he died several thousand miles away. Another memory, strong, stunning and indescribable. I do wonder what I said when I visited him. We grasp the wind and paint with our camera’s lens, beauty heard and seen.

“At the family burial plot, all the people I have ever known are buried there—the bouncing boy, my mothers pride, the pimply boy and secret sensualist; the reluctant military man; the beholder at dawn through the hospital glass of my first born child. All these selves I was I am no longer, not even the bodies they wore are my body any longer, and although when I try, I can remember scraps and pieces about them, I can no longer remember what it felt like to live inside their skin. Yet they live inside my skin to this day, they are buried in me somewhere, ghosts that certain songs, tastes, smells, sights, tricks of weather can raise, and although I am not the same as they, I am not different either because their having been then is responsible for my being now.” Frederic Buechner: ‘The Alphabet of Grace‘

It’s pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

Unexpected Grief and Joy

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

One of those jobs to clean up the closing of a lifetime. It was a gardening day and the weather was pretty good except for the mosquitoes and expected tick removals. A bit of weed removal with the swell DeWalt battery powered weed whacker with four .40 ‘strings’ on the business end. Culvert, dandelions in the garden. Usual mess of doing things the lawnmowers cannot do. Tipped the business end just so to utterly destroy the pokey plants and the dandelions. I took the weed whip and put it in the pick up. It was nowthe time to do that delayed chore on the township road up ¼ mile from the mailbox.

It was time to remove the old sign for the shop. The really nice one put in when the boys were young and the sign bright and visible. A sign donated from the local parts supplier and put up with a sticker from the county on the back that made it official, it was just far enough from the private field and close enough to be seen with an arrow pointing down Lakewood drive to our sign at the beginning of our driveway. Fine Tuning Automotive Repair also on a big black metal pole. The road sign was a beauty decades ago. Now the wind and weather had taken their toll. Part of it was torn and the words and arrow sort of visible. The sign at the driveway is still there. We had an Eggs for sale on it for a while.

The shop had been closed less than a year after my best worker, really a son, had so little good work, that financially it closed. Excuses flowed from me and about technology difficulties in the automotive field. Financial updates, recession in the country. Reasonable excuses. That loved and faithful worker lost interest and the cash flow was less than a good job as working as a machinist in a local business. A good decision for good work that a talented metal manipulator and machine tool worker could do.

Decades before that time, I ran the shop by myself since the late 70’s and it was enough for our small family to survive on. Our new man who lived with us, ran it for a few more years after I had a period of seizures and was aging into my 70’s.

Big jobs, as before, were the meat and potatoes of income. Engine rebuilding, brakes and suspension problems. The reputation of my shop was electronic diagnosis and repair. When I began the business as a ham radio guy, I was not afraid of wires and electronics. The business grew and after a while, I doubled the building size. The old wood stove was replaced with modern waste oil furnaces and the sliding wood doors upgraded to real ones with electtic openers. Things like that. The electronic tools increased and technology did too. Check engine lights came on and hardly anyone knew what to do to put that light out with the accompanying loss of performance.

The reputation of my shop was solid and drew customers by word of mouth without much of an advertising budget. Customers from other counties and restorations now and then for thousands of dollars.

It was closed now and our friend who lived with us for years was getting ready to move away to a different life with his new life and newly wed wife. They left and took everything that was his contribution to the repair tools. Even an Led light bulb in a ceiling fixture his distant dad gave him. Understandable nostalgia. They moved to his Dad’s place, 35 miles away. There was no reason to stay and his Dad needed him there. It made sense but still was hard to see them go. They don’t see each other anymore. The memories of their times together are vivid. Worshiping with him on piano, my son on drums, Julie and I also singing and myself on viola and violin. oddly, there was no communication from him and his wife and it was hard. The big Bumper to Bumper lighted sign on the front was still there but the fluorescent lights had long been out. The parking lot started emptying out and the land line was canceled after a brief message of the shop going out of business.

The shop was still warm and my tools were still there. My youngest son, Soren, and I worked on the family machinery and there are no more tow trucks arriving at night with ’emergency repairs. Often vehicles that had not been running for a year or so. The emergency was that vehicle was now needed by the owners

So I unbolted the road sign after gardening and put the battered pieces in the truck bed. I then drove up to the local big dairy tourist shop for a bottle of Merlot wine. I could not get out of the truck. The Minnesota license plates kept rolling in and rolling out with ice cream cones and fresh cheese curds in hand.

I could not get out of the truck. I felt like I was driving a hearse and there was a body in the truck bed. More than the phone goodbye message, more than the big empty parking lot, more than the absence of our close friend and his wife. The loss and the finality fell inside me and the death of Fine Tuning was final. I took the sign to the metal scrap yard the next week and the burial was done. Some tears inside the old Ford Ranger as the tourists came and went. After a time of mourning it was time to move on and get things done at the dairy. A few pleasant words with the wine tasting gal and a sip of good wine from her and a bottle of Merlot, it was time to head home. The spring tourists had snapped up the fresh cheese curds.

The body in the bed was now quiet and the familiar farms and homes on the country and township roads were seen as stable and unchanged. A few new names can be seen on some of the mailboxes. I still see the one with the front door blocked by missing stairs. Home again for the Friday Shabbatt and the sign, dead in the truck bed, acknowledged by Julie and she understood my sudden grief. The morels, asparagus with the good Merlot were delicious.

Years later our son who began supporting us, started the complete remodel of the shop. Removing the customer counter and many of the bolted on tools and workbenches and pulling down the ceiling in the old back shop. It all went into a 20 foot long roll off and a borrowed bobcat hauled a lot of blown in insulation and panels out to that roll off. New trusses and panels, rewiring all the ancient stuff that was there from 50+ years ago when I moved to the farm. A new roof and siding. A propane furnace that is now required by our insurance company and all the things that need updating on a massive project. I helped, at 81 now, slower but able to haul branches and tree parts that had somehow appeared at the back of the shop. We had removed the huge totes parked there that held the waste oil and sold them and the furnace. Now was the time to get the debris removed. The roll off delivery driver bought the lighted sign for his man cave! He even helped to remove it. Four foot square sign up about 12 feet on the front of the shop. The wasps had made a weather proof home there and had to be evicted.

I was pleased with the transformation and all the new space for our machinery, boat and the still useful tool boxes and attendant bigger tools. 30 ton press, 3 freezers that were now easy to get to. Usual things that garages are full of, usual farm things. Even room for the Kubota tractor and snow blower. Warmer and handy without all the necessities for a commercial operation. I did not have grief this time, but relief and astonishment at my son’s vision and speedy work. He is very talented and fit for the work. I am over 80 and can still run a few things. Mostly the wheelbarrow and the small John Deere LT with a trailer. I never did run the old wheat combine. Too many chains and gears and the cab makes you feel as though your are in a carnival ride, hovering in space.

The grief has been replaced by acceptance and the pleasure of change. It was gradual but did not take a long time to see the logic and rightness of my son’s vision of his inheritance. Very pleasant to see that and even help to do it. Not many older people experience this part of life. A lot of farmers do. They get off the big tractors and combines and hang out with their sons and daughters who inherit the vision of family farms.

Life itself is the inheritance and values around the pancakes and home grown food. I am blessed by our lord with these gifts and I know that Daddy is pleased to give them. “Come to me and all these things will given to you.””I pray this for your joy.

“Your Daddy’s so proud of you., your Daddy’s so proud of you. You are faithful with much, faithful with little. Faithful with words for others. Well done, well done. Daddy’s so proud of you” A,

I live for this vision and the joy of His gifts and presence.

It’s pretty Good. Norm/Jack

A. A song I learned at River Valley Christian Church.

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

Soiree

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was a perfect day for a garden party. Carrie had everyone there and she and Emily were out in the garden. Some tips were welcomed about potato bugs from Emily. She showed how they moved and where they came from. “Under the ground?” Yup. But you can control a small amount of them by just squishing them as they emerge. Or there is a benign way by using diatomaceous earth powder! Any bug with an exoskeleton can be controlled. It was a new word and very good advice from an expert on those things. Bugs.

The round patio table was set with delicious looking pastries and snack sorts of things. Crackers and French Brie. Croissants and small glass dishes filled with pesto.

There were fine china cups that seemed to expect coffee and linen at the places where lawn chairs were set. A high English tea picture set for the honored guests. Gary began digging into the brie and, as another writer, was delighted with all his fellow writers, and good friends, coming over to the table to join him

There was lively conversation approaching as Dave and Sally were on either side of Nigel excitedly filling him in on Scripture verses that explain how this glorious party resembles another to come. Bob was dancing before them, sometimes walking backwards and giving encouragement to the three of them. How exciting it must be to hear these grand stories. Battles and victories with noble people. Suffering with unbelievable impact. Many things almost hidden from casual reading that book.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, just off the porch, I and Peter were whipping up a brew of excellent coffee. Fresh ground and just flown in with Carrie and Peter’s last visit to St. Helena Island. Best coffee beans on the planet for only twenty dollars an ounce. What a smell when the grinder did its work. Oh my, I never thought I would even smell coffee like this! Ecstatic with historical ledge kicking in. The very island that Napoleon was exiled to! Wondering if it was worth his exile to have that coffee every day.

Eddie came in with a really nice linen towel around his arm and he was dressed to ‘the nines’ with an excellent servants black outfit. He delighted everyone when he walked out with a tray loaded with the best espresso ever. Sugar and cream in matching china as well.

It was a gathering of fellow writers that came to enjoy one another’s company and hear stories from experienced raconteurs. The soiree lasted until the evening dew began and the grass was sparkly with the moonlight.

Have you ever thought what heaven would be like? What the King’s table that Moses and seventy some people got to dine at with the creator of everything that is and will be? This was a dim preamble of sorts.

Writers can be persnickety and filled with themselves, but not today. Not in the garden of delights. What a gift for these poetic people to try and capture it in words that just didn’t seem adequate to describe it all.

It’s pretty good, Jack Gator / Norm Peterson

Parking Diagonally In Small Town America

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Nature and God—I neither knew yet Both so well knew me. They startled, like Executors of my identity”

Emily Dickinson

Frederic Wisconsin, is a small town with almost a thousand people, and several deer. A small red fox runs across the state highway by the gas station around 4:30 every morning. The town has a restored railway station which is very authentic. There’s a caboose on a siding, a semaphore signal, a metal-wheeled cart with wood barrels and a bright yellow track-section car. A chain-saw carved wooden bear, stands near the roadbed where the metal tracks once ran. We live 7 miles to the west. A short buggy ride for the Amish who are half a mile from town.

The train station anchors Main Street, which is about a block and a half long with diagonal parking. Frederic has a smattering of small shops: a hardware store, two bars, a library, and the usual shops that sell antiques and knickknacks to tourists and used furniture to the locals.

Leaving town on the state highway you will find a gas station with well made waist-expanding doughnuts a car dealership and a tidy golf course with another bar. It is a cute town with a nice cafe and a second rate self-service car wash. The people in the town are fairly reserved but will speak with you if you speak first to them. A few of the people will wax nostalgic about the glory days of the railroad and the daily passenger train.

When first told of the twice-a-day train schedule, I knew I had missed something by being born 20 or 30 years too late. Of course, the tracks are gone except the siding with the caboose but the roadbed is now a merged bicycle/snowmobile trail. The bicyclists park by the bakery and the snowmobile folks park at the bar on the corner.

Much to the towns confusion, the bakery has been closed for several years from a fire. Now they only sell wholesale and the main street side windows are covered up. There has also been a fire next door above one the bars. A fire no-sale. Two for the price of 1. Soon, the two buildings, which were destroyed, will rise from the ashes become one. A patio for patrons of the bar and bakery will finish the project. As I write this there is still windows and doors to install and the insides finished. The town is excited about the project. Have a pastry with your beer and relax.

There are five churches of the usual preferences, and even a small Amish community on the edge of town. Their carriages and the clip-clop of the horses add charm and fertilizer to the main street. The small town chugged along pretty well and the years brought the expected changes. A late night two dollar store and an old department store now selling secondhand furniture and dishes. There are treasures worth searching for: top line toasters and old hard-bound books. The two dollar store has a red box for last years latest movies. I always wonder why everything anyone buys from those quick two dollar stores smells like laundry detergent.

The early-morning men gather every morning, parking in the same parking spots and sitting at the same table. sipping passable coffee and eating good sourdough toast. The restaurant on the corner was named ‘Beans’ and now is known as ‘The Tin Shed.’ It is an early morning place of connections and warmth on winter days. The Tin prefix refers to the new metal siding. Well done face lift. The huge ventilation fan, dripping delicious smelling grease is still around the corner over the sidewalk. Bacon and french fries mingle their smells delightfully.

On those snowy winter days the village sweeps while its people sleep, the snow and drift removal goes on with the metallic rasp of shovels and the diesel snort of the plows. Some merchants shovel other store-front sidewalks because they have hearts for it. There is camaraderie in the winter, a hunkering and shared misery too: dead car batteries, ice on the roofs and leaking roofs in downtown with all the flat roofs common in row-house shops.

The down-town sometimes appeared like an old man with teeth missing. There were too many empty store-fronts. The draw of the big box stores about 25 miles south takes a toll on local merchants. A small town can only support one antique store or one that has used books, Jackets and couches. Frederic had a burned out bar, the bakery with no public access, an empty appliance store and an excellent hardware store, an old one with everything you need. A new pharmacy and clinic. There is a friendly grocery store with a deli and things the big box does not handle. (My favorite is Lingonberry jam.) There is an exit power door that sticks open slightly and that is a reminder that the wholesale grocery business operates on a rather slim margin. It still works but keeps the entryway nicely cool in the winter.

There is a food truck that shows up in the summer by the old railroad depot with great gyro sandwiches. A tow behind coffee business is faithful a block up the main street parked at the laundromat lot. Great coffee. to be continued

r

Eleven Dollars Short

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I drove About 20 miles out of my way, but it was an undeniable mission. I wrote a column, Scrap yard or junkyard, and it was the scrap yard I was going to.

A few weeks before to this mission, the man that owns the yard worked on a part I needed.He extracted a seat belt assembly out of a 25 year old Ford truck. It was for our old Ford Ranger that needed one. This time it was the right one. First part did not fit at my first acquisition and the reel was locked up. Oh, got to go back and get one that fits and works!

The owner and I had a laugh the last time we were together, teasing a city man who was startled by a snake in the trunk of a vehicle he was ‘inspecting’ near where we were working. He even took a photo of it. A huge rat snake, a scary looking thing when you first meet one. Harmless to us, the smaller mammals don’t like them.

When we encountered the snake man back at the office, I made up a Latin name for the snake and the last word of my invented sentence was ‘Morte’ “It’s a two stepper..better stay clear and don’t throw anything at it again!” The owner, Harold, winked his right eye at me and we had a little smile together. Military bonding time. I paid 25 dollars for the first assembly.

I returned a few days later and told him the door sticker on the truck said 1999 built in November. The truck was actually a 2000 according to knowledgeable gear heads and I missed that small detail. Plus the reel on the first part I got from him did not work. The reel is at the bottom end of the seat belt assembly and that’s the part that allows the belt to be pulled up. If there is a crash, the reel locks up and keeps the belt tight.

Off he went to find an assembly that worked and he found one out in the yard. I heard him with the battery operated whiz wheel grinding away at the sheet metal on the door of the scrap truck. Tough extraction just from the auditory cues as I sat in his shop chair waiting for him. An old chair with stains and worn out. Obviously his chair. He returned and the reel worked. He handed it to me and declared: “twenty five bucks. I worked pretty hard”

I was hoping for a ‘warranty’ so all I had in my wallet was fourteen dollars. He looked at me and my well used truck with four ones and a ten on the seat. He accepted the money and put out his hand for a shake on the deal.

The owner of the scrap yard is older than I and he wears his age well. A Short man with runnels of wrinkles on his face and a focused gaze. He was just coming out of the side door of his home when I drove up today. A man driving a Jeep wrangler was leaning on the door jamb, chatting.

I tried to dismiss the notion it was important to return whenever I had the cash to give him what he deserved. It was one of those gentle and persistent communiques from God. It’s impossible to ignore God when He does tells these things to me. I pray you have these experiences too. I walked up and stood next to the leaning man and held out a ten and a one for the scrap yard owner.

He remembered me, he remembers everything. An astonishment and a smile was given. Another hand shake of our eyes. I told him “ you deserve it for your work” I knew this was right and true.

My drive back home was relaxing. The new pavement on County B was smooth and the detour ahead signs were still up waiting for the paint caravan to finish up.

It was pretty good Norm / Jack

Scrap Yard or a Junk Yard

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was hard to see, I did not know it would be so. I was looking up one of the Navy ships I served in and found it had been scrapped down south. There were a few photos of it and some of the steel that was salvaged and sold. I looked for a moment for the 02 level up by the bridge, a gun turret or maybe my porthole aft on the mess deck when I first reported on board. All gone except for a few guys like me that have memories of the old fleet oiler. It was one of three ships I served in and I imagine the other two have met similar fates.

Recently I went to a scrap yard about 20 miles away, looking for a part for a 25 year old Pickup that we bought from a good neighbor for a dollar. It didn’t run and the windshield is cracked. It needed some suspension parts, it still smells mousy and has a few quirks. I was now seeking a drivers seat belt assembly. It was torn and would not move through the metal belt loop up high. It would get caught when the door closed and it was unsightly and not as strong as it used to be. It appeared to be chewed on by a dog that was bored.

The scrap yard has been there for decades and is known by the other scrap yards as specializing in Ford vehicles. Perfect. I drive Fords. My first commuter car was a Ford that I drove every day for work at the Railroad section yard in Dinkytown Minneapolis. An easy commute from NW Wisconsin of 75 miles. Every day. It was a 1941 coupe and I put in a brand new engine before I moved up nort. That’s local lingo for north. “Hey you going up Nort this weekend or no?” It’s worldwide language quirks that identify our ethnicity. You know how it works eh.

So, off I drove to the scrap yard to see if a seat belt unit with retractor wheel was …somewhere. The owner and I roamed about and he knew where to look. It was a hard job to break loose those 20mm torx bolts and I could tell by the grunts and battery impact tools that it wasn’t going as well as hoped. Language pronouns and other crude exclamations came forth across the weeds and debris to where I was sitting on the tailgate. As I am a retired wrench wielding pro I know that hovering over a tough job is a non starter for fellowship.

It was out and we drove back in his old side by side with all the tools rattling in the little bed. How much I asked. “Twenty five bucks”. OK. I handed him a twenty and ten, got five in change and put the parts on the floor of the old Ford and motored home.

It was the wrong one. I got the year wrong. I had it right according to the door sticker but it was a year later build. That was a moot point as the retractor was stuck. Back to the scrap yard the next day and the search began again. The owner is astonishingly older than I. He was old ten years ago. We got on pretty good as I am ‘getting up there’ as the saying goes. This pleasant fellow was in the Enoch School yearbook.

This part was close to correct. The seat buckle was OK and the lower fastener was dinged up when it had to be cut out of the body with an electric whiz wheel. I asked him how much and the amount quoted was the same for the wrong one. “Twenty five bucks.” I looked and told him all I had was fourteen. He said, “OK, Fourteen then. I worked pretty hard on that job.”

I acknowledged his work and difficulty for the second visit. He looked at me, my rusty truck with the cracked windshield, and smiled put out his hand and we shook on it.I plan on returning once I get the folding money together and give him the remaining Eleven dollars he deserves.

It was a wreck of a place and there seemed to be acres of vehicles on the property. To a gear head like myself, it was pretty neat. His office had trophies from car shows made from stroked pistons and rods and many accouterments of the genre of car shows, formula 1 racing memorabilia. It was a glorious mess.

A few polite questions and we knew we had a mutual society of sorts. I met his wife who earlier gave me a cold water as I was admiring her patio flowers and wind chimes. I was relaxed in the dark Homeric shop as the Odyssey and the Iliad flowed by in the wind. The chimes nearby were the Siren’s call to comfort on the patio, but I stayed where I belonged.

I put the seat belt in yesterday and it works. It needed some tweaking to fit but it is OK.

Some illiterate people would call it a Junk Yard but that image is of cranes with claws and magnets. Piles of brake rotors and pyramids of squashed cars and refrigerators. Not old cars that had been yours or mine with weeds and trees growing near and in them.

The recycle generation embraces the concept of the scrap yard. Not in my back yard though. It got close when my shop had dead cars that people couldn’t afford to fix were parked in the lot. It’s a gentle slope, soft underfoot and with no warning signs that leads to the scrap yard. a.

Just ask around when you need that rear view mirror for your old 2CV Renault and someone will know someone that will put you on the scent of the right scrap yard. Adventures await.

It’s pretty good Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

A. A ‘slightly’ modified quote from C.S. Lewis, ‘the great divorce’

See Eleven Dollars Short for the conclusion

What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?