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HOW I LEARNED TO SKI..... My first 10 years were spent 15 kilometers South of the Arctic Circle. Snow was our friend and skiis and "spark'......a kind of stand-up sled were our transportation....I skiied to school every Winter day.....         |
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The town was at the mouth of a river that ran into the sea 25 miles up a fjord.......These brave boys were fending of the ice-floes that gnaw at the wooden pilings.
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Fantastic pictures of the old days. That is snow I still remember, not as high piling up along the houses like in the mountains. We had fun throwing snowballs and sledging down a hill whooping with joy. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, what you do are in harmony - M. Gandhi
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Fantastic pictures of the old days. That is snow I still remember, not as high piling up along the houses like in the mountains. We had fun throwing snowballs and sledging down a hill whooping with joy.
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I think the clothes hanging on the barn to dry are milking cloths.....They were usfor ed to wash the cow udders and to strain the milk..... The toddler with the ski poles has ski-bindings that everyone had on their first skiis.....you just kicked your foot into it and pulled it out so if (when) you fell, you weren't stuck....... I clearly remember going to church on winter days and outside the door, there were rows of brightly coloured skiis and poles standing in the snow, the curved toes against the sky......That way, if it snows while you're in church, you can still find your skiis..
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What interesting photos!! How much the world has changed from when we were young!! I sure remember the huge mounds of snow growing up in N/W Ontario. As a child, it seemed like great fun.
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1/8/2020 6:32 am |
Love This Blog Moms Family Parents Brother Sister All Born Oslo She Was Born Bellingham
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Very interesting. Perhaps this is part of the reason we are "tough old birds". As children, we weren't coddled and we got outside and enjoyed or battled the elements and we were expected to help with some of the work load. I'm curious...... in such a location, what was the main source of income. Be a prism, spreading God's light and love, not a mirror reflecting the world's hatred.
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Edmonton just got a dump of snow. I may be skiing to get groceries.
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I LEARNED TO SKI ON A HILL ON OUR LOCAL GOLF COURSE. IT WAS PRETTY COLD IN THOSE DAYS EVEN IN THE CHICAGO SUBURBS.
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Very interesting. Perhaps this is part of the reason we are "tough old birds". As children, we weren't coddled and we got outside and enjoyed or battled the elements and we were expected to help with some of the work load. I'm curious...... in such a location, what was the main source of income.
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The photos are from the museum in my home town of Mosjøen Norway..... You make me wonder if I could still "whoop with joy" and what could make me do it.....You have inadvertently given me a New Year's resolution.....I will find something that makes me spontaneously whoop with joy........  Happiness is when what you think, what you say, what you do are in harmony - M. Gandhi
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I have a photo of me in my desk at school there.....I am wearing my favourite sweater the colour of of hare-bells and I have, on my desk my most precious possession of the moment, which is a brand-new wooden pencil-case... the kind that had two compartments.The top one had a sliding lid and swung out to reveal the bottom compartment. We started school at 7, so most of us could read before we started school. Our kitchen and my friend's kitchens had hand-lettered paper signs with the words for everything in sight. My father's store and shop was on the ground floor of the same building as our home. Our apartment was also on the ground floor. My grandparents lived on the second floor and as well as their apartment, was a huge studio-space with a wall of tall windows that was rented by a cartography company. Sometimes I was allowed to visit. I would be very quiet and polite, and I would stand on my knees on a chair and they would give me a red, blue and regular pencil and I would draw "maps" and name the places very silly names. My grandfather had an art studio in the attic. There were several dormer windows overlooking the whole world. Grandfather also had a small hotplate on which he made coffee, special glue and boiled linseed oil. He ground colours in a mortar and mixed it with stinky stuff. I still have a painting that I "helped" him with.The smell of linseed oil immediately brings him up.....He was very stern, but had a silly sense of humour. I learned to read from the labels in my dad's store. He had a Marconi franchise and for years I thought it said Macaroni. My mother kept the books for the store and I was given those huge, heavy books to draw in after she was done with them.......They had blue and red lines and my mother's columns of figures, but with the stubs of my father's grease-pencils, I could draw a line bold enough to ignore them......and I drew and drew.......I entertained my family with cartoons....I could make a troll so scary it would make my sisters scream....and a scene so tender it would make my grandmother shed a tear........ Girls were taught to curtsy and boys to bow. To curtsy, we just held our arms at our sides, elbows slightly bent , and a quick .bend of the knees...a bob....the boy's bow was just a bob of the head.....But we were expected to show deference to adults in a social setting. School was one of those places. Always....When we moved to Canada, it took me a long time to break the habit. You see, the more nervous I got the more I bobbed and the more the kids laughed......Oh, that laughter....You see, they came to anticipate my bobbing.....I had this teacher who, when returning homework, tests, class-work etc, she would call us and we had to go to the front of the room to take it from her hand.......As soon as my name was called the whispers would start....would she bob or wouldn't she?......I suspected that the teacher was in on it and would call on me in order to witness my agony. I was already a laughingstock for my accent and mispronunciations.......and my funny, foreign clothes....ESL was not a thing in the 50's......
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I love following you into the past of your childhood. I walk around in your home and imagine the ones who left their traces and helped shape you. The kind of curtsy, quick bend of knees, was also part of my 'up-bringing'. When I started school, I had reading and writing skills, too. When my older sister did her homework, I was sitting beside her and copied what she was doing. My mother gave me an exercise book with lines to write on and a pencil...... I was ambitious to show that I could do it. Our school years started after Easter. - You had an accent speaking English? LOL I still have an accent LOL, and people tell me that I have a 'lovely' accent! Also the way I dress is European. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, what you do are in harmony - M. Gandhi
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