SUNDAY 2024 05 12

MY TWO MOST RECENT PROMENADE COMPANIONS

Anyone who becomes homebound like me considers himself lucky if he/she (Swedish word for that is "hen" can count on having friends or other people who can accompany the homebound while hen takes a promenade.

During the week just past I took two of the longest walks I have managed so far and write to thank my promenade companions.

The first one, a new person came on Friday, a beautiful day on which I was promenade-eager. The second was my best friend Ann - see further down.

He was a young man, one of the group of promenade companions provided me by Göteborg hemtjänst (Home Services) each of whom can walk with me for 30 minutes. He was the newest in what is now a group of 5 or 6. I do not name any in this group nor  do I show any photos, but I do begin by noting the languages they speak, first and foremost their mother tongue and then others.

I asked him, and he first named Swedish and English with Swedish being the essential language given that ethnic Swedes have long life expectancies, greatest for women. I am not an ethnic Swede meaning that I was neither born here nor grew up here. I am a "line-of-descent Swede on both my paternal and maternal sides, and my Big Y genome shows that I share a line of descent with a group of 7 or 8 men all born in Sweden.

The third language my new promenade person named was Dari, the language spoken in Afghanistan that is related to Persian or Farsi.

Once I learn those things we have a good basis for conversation. But interestingly, he began by asking me what I had been in my adult life and  I replied Geology Professor and explained a bit because not everyone knows what geology is.

Then I tell my aide about my familiarity with people with background similar to his/her/hens. Familiarity thanks to almost 30 years as a Red Cross Volunteer at Red Cross Language Cafes in Linköping and Göteborg. I ask when my aide came to Sweden but do not ask any questions touching on politics here or in the home country.

As I have reported earlier, every such walk and every new walker brightens my life.

On Saturday, my best friend Ann turned up as usual, bearing food, even a gift, and ready to help with the usual chores, then take a walk, and then engage in always interesting conversations.

The gift was a surprise for this reason: I had said I had more or less lost interest in drinking wine but I had not given up and just wanted to associate it with special moments. That moment turns up below.

Then I said that I was sure on Saturday that I could manage very well walking to the stables at the edge of the forest, the stables that were Ann's home away from home when she was growing up at the Frodi home not far from the stables. We started walking, turned onto the main dirt road that leads up to the lakes, and came to the stables where in one of the electric-wire enclosures were two women caretakers going in to provide feed for two horses.

Ann established her credentials as an accomplished horsewoman with a long history of work at these stables, and she was allowed in and was even allowed, I believe, to give one horse an apple, otherwise not to be done.

This made her extra happy and we could then go to one of my favored destinations, part of the horizontal forest where many 100-year old or older beech trees lie on the forest floor. I was happy also, so we could walk back here to 3B.

Then with the sun now shining down on my balcony from its position on the southern horizon we could have fika - Coffee plus - and pick up again a conversation about one of my closest Swedish friends at the Red Cross in Linköping who could discuss American novels and novelists with me. a soecial interest of hers. She like her female age mates and close friends of mine at the Red Cross are no longer living but still rememembered fondly by me.

Written Sunday morning at 3B with a brilliant blue sky above my balcony. And yes, I sipped the wine Ann had given me, slowly while looking toward my forest. Perhaps I will manage to insert a selfie of that moment latet.

 Annika returns as Guardian Angel 4

My post pointing to Annika's unique role as one of my Guardian Angels was deleted when problems arose for both my blog and Gmail. Microsoft has informed me that both are working again so here are the first words about Annika's role.

Annika has commitments that in total are beyond doing, so her usual style as concerns helping me was to be a pinch-hitter (American baseball phrase) who could handle an odd request when I needed food or medicine that suddenly was no longer in a cabinet here at 3B.

Tuesday, 14:35 23 April: I edit this post with reference to the next sentence in an earlier draft: "If she was close by..."

Today she was close by having driven here to come in and tell Ann (already here) and me that she, Annika, had an offer too good to refuse. The offer was to drive us up to Lyckan, the coffee shop-restaurant at the top of our mountain from which one can look down on one of the two big lakes.

In the photo below taken by Annika you see the name and the place. Lyckan is well known for at least two reasons: 1) It has the best banana bread of any of the three places Annika visited when I was more mobile, and 2) Lyckan offers a perfect waffle with blueberry jam or sauce and whipped cream on top. Delicious, and it was lunch time. This was the first time I have been able to walk in my forest, and it felt wonderful to be surrounded by my trees.

Ann is helping Annika at her apartment now but later she will send a photo or photos of Annika and me hugging a very big and very healthy pine tree. That photo will appear below.

    Ann took this picture as we were leaving Lyckan. Looks like I have gotten shorter. I guess we can estimate the circumference or diameter of that tree which must be in the 150 year-old category. Thanks Ann.

Annika took a little fast walk along the beginning of the trail that goes around the two lakes, a 10 km trail that she often has run on when she drops in here at 3B. I used to run the first part of that trail and can see it clearly in my mind as if I were running on it. When I ran there alone I would come to some pretty steep stairs where I would turn around since going down steep stairs was no longer something I wanted to do.

Now I will begin the first essay in a series I am going to write after being inspired by reading historian Sven-Eric Liedeman's essays published under the title I NOVEMBER (In November) in which he reflects on being older, for him being in his early 80s.

My essay will be about the trees and forests I love, a subject he does not write about.

Annika may not write about trees but she too knows and loves them, and her photographs of them let the trees speak for themselves.

She often comes by here to switch into her running clothes and then take off to run the 10 km route.

Just now she cannot do that since she recently dislocated a shoulder. After that happened she came here to sleep a couple of nights where it is usually so peaceful one can really get a long satisfying sleep. She got two nights of good sleep and then another whole afternoon while I too was restoring myself with a long nap.

Heavenly.

More photos to come! Who knows, maybe a nap too. I did not get the nap because a new promenade guide came by so I leaped out of bed and opened the door. I will write about her in my posts about the hemtjänst people that come here. She heard me speak and right away said "It's raining." I looked and saw that it really was coming down. So I said Jag ser fram emot ett besök av dig en annan dag. 

A SUNDAY MIRACLE HAS HAPPENED, WE WILL CALL IT FRAN WARREN'S HIT SUNDAY KIND OF LOVE

I have worked all day to try to restore my gmail and my blog and always saw the swedish word pausa next to the big L- Then I worked at my Microsoft account and also created a second Gmail. And to get this I had to click on something new to me vy skriva .Swedish for go to the window Write Now I can see font selections. This will be the high point of my day

I reveal my long ago familiarity with Big Bands and Big Band singers by citing Fran Warren. As I remember that, many stations banned her song. I will google and enjoy my coffee break reading about that after googling. The New York Times told an an amazing story about Fran Warren, told by Jazz writer John Wilson in 1979. Three cops arrested her and put her in jail because they said her husband was a crook. He was. She got out of jail and someone who was in the music business filed a suit against New York City. Fran Warren got $500,000. She was so well off that she no longer had to work if she did not want to. Her husband got out of jail and went straight, got a legitimate job. I hope my brother Ron reads this and can find Fran Warren singing that song. He can sing along.

I publish and look to see if there is a comment line. There is no comment line showing after I opened this. I leave it now, I want my coffee. 15:25 at 3B. Ron you can leave a heart see smiley above.

The quote below is taken from a New Yorker Magazine article about Guru type (or Con man-my choice) Peter Attia who will take your money and in return will tell you what he thinks you must do to enjoy becoming older.

The author of the New Yorker article presents this one line rejoinder that I firmly support and to which I add my own single sentence. 

"The Harvard Study of Adult Development has found, in eight decades, that human connections may be the single most critical determinant of long-term happiness and health."

As any reader of my most recent posts at this blog know, I am writing about all the people with whom I maintain human connections and thus add to my happiness and health.

I add this statement, based only on my personal experience during the past 10 years or so:

I read and write every single day, and the act of writing, saving, and printing always leaves me feeling more alive, aware, and happy than I would have been if I had not read and written. Doing that both by writing by hand or depressing a set of keys tells me I am quite okay. 

How about you? What do reading and writing do for you?

 Swedish National Hemtjänst - Swedish National Home Service

   In my post yesterday, April 16, I provided a prevue of today's post in the form of a photograph. There I was, a neighbor on one side, and my Home-Service person of the day, whom I designated as I. I am waiting for him to appear today since this is one of my "Let's take a walk days."

   I do not know exactly when he will appear but I do know that there are 4 of us on this street waiting for him to turn up. The other three are women, ages unknown. I am the only male and I am pretty sure I am also the oldest.

   Now I am going to tell you, my American family about the different kinds of help I get here and wonder whether there is a counterpart in your part of the USA.

   I will continue to use a single letter for each person, if there is an individual who is helping.

Mathem - Mathem is an On-Line supermarket that shows me on-line a bright image of every object that can be ordered with price and weight, volume, or number as is appropriate for tomatoes as a familiar example.

   Home Services has registered me with an account that is set up so that I do not pay anything for delivery. One of the HS staff appears on Monday every week, ready to take my order. This week it was S who would place my order. She is a young woman who is a Kurd born in the Kurdish part of Iran bordering a Kurdish part of Iraq. She wears the traditional Muslim Chador and has just ended Ramadan with traditional celebration here in Sweden.

   She sits down, takes out her phone, registers me at my account, and is ready for me to tell her one item at a time what I want to order. I name it and she with lightning fast thumbs finds a picture and shows me - a container of milk for example. Tell her which kind and how large - Light milk, 1.5 liters. That becomes number one on the list.We move through my choices, and I am told the total cost at any point. I choose to end when the total is 450 Swedish crowns.

   She sends the order, tells me delivery will be on Thursday morning between 9:30 and 11:00 and that I must be here to take the delivery which will be in large cardboard boxes. All the frozen foods must be put into the freezer directly.

   I used to have to take a trolley to either a small local store, Tempo, or to a very large supermarket, ICA Focus. I would have a back pack and weighted down take the return trolley and walk a few  100 meters to my door. Always too heavy, often too difficult. Not any more.

   S asks if there is anything she can do for me as she leaves and yes, she can. She can take a brown paper bag with food waste to be put in a container across the street. That food waste will become fuel to be fed into a giant incinerator where water is heated to high temperature. Hot water from that incinerator arrives at every apartment or business in this area, hot water that heats my home and also heats water for my kitchen and my bathroom.

  I will add others to this post after each has done something for me. Noontime, Wednesday, signing off.

International Day With Ann and 

my Ethiopian promenade guide at 3B

Ann was my first Guardian Angel to be presented here in my blog. She has been here twice a w eek since that first day, that day treated about 5 posts down.

Today, Tuesday, April 16, was very satisfying and especially importtant because it illustrates the importance of being able to take promenades with a support perso aad the importance of wide-ranging conversation in keeping home-bound people of sound mind and body.

Settling In --When Ann arrives she has to first settle in so we can take our time to talk and have  coffee and, for me, the fancy cookies she bought at the very fine bakery at Frölunda Torg.

   We did that and we have gotten quite good at having conversations about matters within our wide range of subjects in common.

   Then time for my first walk of the day when Ann will carry a big box of stuff to the recycling cente located across the street in back of the white truck. The building is where my Frisk Rehab physical therapist is located.

   We took my longest walk to date, down along Allén where all of the trees are not at all well,  won't survive very long. Then we came back and really settled down to talk about my getting low-cost taxi service and then, about something very different, the country where one of my walker assistants I was born, Ethiopia. He was scheduled to come today and I was sure that would set the stage for an interesting conversation. Why? 

    Ann lived in Ethiopia, I was a manuscript reviewer and English language expert for a team of maternal care researchers at Karolinska who had a major project in Ethiopia, and I am learning all the time from "I" ( choose not to use the names of the many people who come here to help me)

   He did appear, I introduced him to Ann and her to him, and they were quickly into a fascinating conversation since she knows the area where he came from and where she lived.

   Then he and I left to take my second walk for the day. Ann went out onto the scaffolding and took the picture of us, stopping to talk with a neighbor of mine who helps to keep the lawn spic and span and also arranges get togethers.

I am in the maroon jacket in the center, my neighbor in black to my  left, and I on my right.

   We walked and talked about my other helpers, all of whom I knows, and he said he will be back tomorrow for another visit and walk.

   This became a wonderful day and I use this story as the lead in to a future post about my helpers.

    Comments welcome, just click on comment below this text.

 Guardian Angel III

 

I present Guardian Angel III, my son Gary Lundgren who did an almost impossible task, finding 3 days when he could put himself in this position where he who towers over me could find a seat with room over his head. He is officially retired and had recently made one Trans-Atlantic trip that took him and his wife to a ship traveling up the Norwegian coast so close to Sweden but not free to drop in here at 3B.

He took on the Guardian Angel role to come here to see what he could do to help me and to get up to date on my new life, home alone at 3B supported by the Swedish Home Services system staff members and my very own family angels.

Another Frodi Sister - Here is Gary with Ann Frodi's younger sister, Majt at the entrance to 3B. You will learn more about Majt as Guardian Angel V or VI perhaps but here we stick with what Gary had to offer his home-bound father.

Gary and his wife had already booked a vacation in Jamaica but he was able to squeez in a 3 or 4 day trip to Göteborg, move in at 3B and get to work in my apartment  while I told him all about my new life where I never can leave my home alone.

Immediately, here on Swedish time 6 hours different from State of Maine time, he went to work in my kitchen. He restored it to like new condition listening to me and telling me about his life as a grandfather with three grandkids, all three of whom are my Great Grandchildren.

Here I am reading a card from Daphne Lundgren who gets to spend quite a bit of time with her Grandpa. Photo of Daphne coming, I hope.

I first met Daphne when she was only a few months old, and that was fun. I will not be making any more trips to the USA so I rely on the grandchild trio to make cards just as I did about 87 years ago, cards I  still have.

Gary and Majt really hit if off together talking non-stop a mile a miuute while Ann and I sat on the couch that opened up was Gary's too small bed. Majt and Ann left and Gary got his first chance to hear about my local support team, a man from Ethiopia, a woman from Somalia, another woman, a Kurd from Turkey whose parents had fled from Turkey to Borås where my helper was born - do not know her name yet. There is also a woman from Bosnia who cleans my apartment, and last but not least, a Swedish woman who grew up here and knows a lot about support offered in a building across the street from me where girls with troubled lives get help to restore those lives to a life that is at least better in one or more ways.

Signed off here at kl. 17.01 on the 9th, and sent the link to this blog to Madeleine our Red Cross leader at Kåken, the restored prison that houses a library and the Language Cafe where we Red Cross volunteers get to know visitors who come from just about everywhere. I miss being there since my 25 years as volunteer gave me one of the very best things I have experienced in Sweden.

Today, April 10, I want to note that Gary also has become a very fine writer and shares with me an interest in many different aspects of life here and in America where many troubling things are happening. He has become my number one best correspondent and writes replies to all of my Emails by placing paragraphs in colored text between mine. 

In other words, there on the printed page is a conversation that took place as if we were talking with each other but are not. We read here in Sweden that school kids no longer know how to write by hand and that leads them to being unable to express themselves by writing in their phones. When one writes by hand, one's mind functions differently and more slowly, often with good results.

I hope to add photos. The next Guardian Angel will most likely be Annika Frodi-Lundgren, Circus Annika. After Annika, I will close Part One of these blog posts by telling you about the people who help me here and also about my Red Cross colleagues who I miss so badly.

Wednesday, April 10, kl. 16:15 sun shining down on 3B.

Guardian Angel II

The light will soon be shining down on Guardian Angel II at this location. She is my daughter Julie. I use the phrase "shining down" because I have today googled the phrase Guardian Angel and found that the Old Testament has much to say about Guardian Angels. I too have much to say - in writing - but only one at a time. I write this on Saturday afternoon here at apartment 3B, 3:47 in the afternoon and will make writing II my Sunday project. 

Julie had planned her trip so carefully, flying Iceland Air via Keflavik as I have so many times. Then finding a home away from home where she would be in My Forest, Delsjöskogen just a short morning walk away from my apartment which is located at the lower northern end of the road that leads up to what I will call sister Annika's pond, the pond Annika runs around and swims in as often as possible.

Julie in my kitchen after her morning walk from the House In The Forest I will call MO.

Julie made that walk at least 6 times, choosing a different route each time so she as botanist-ecologist got to see different parts of the forest that I myself had run in so many times after moving to Göteborg in the spring of 2019. Most important to me, home alone at 3B was that we talked about our family history and our relationship at different times during more than 60 years. From that perspective, her visit became one of the very best I have ever experienced. I really got to know her, know facets of her life and abilities that she has developed during all the decades when only met sporadically for short times.

Julie Takes On IRS form 1040 SR - Guardian Angels, non biblical ones, are great to watch in action when they like a magician reach into their bag of tricks and relieve their person in focus of some until then worrisome almost impossible task. While I reclined on my couch Julie sat at my computer and went to work on the US Internal Revenue Service tax form for Seniors (SR). She talked to herself about every one of the countless steps that the IRS burdens its taxpayerss with and carried out a virtuoso performance filling everything induring Trial I. Trial II can wait a while.

She even did Ann's 1040 SR during one of her visits, hardly knew which one.

PAUSE 09:05

One of the most important things a Guardian Angel can do for a person who no longer walk solo is to take on the role of ledsagare Swedish for one who leads another to which I add  "and does so attentively and even with loving care. The man you see above had been running in two Swedish forests almost every day for more than 20 years and the same during every visit to Vermont in the summer.

To rather abruptly find that you not only cannot run but cannot even walk along is life-changing. It takes time for the video to be ready to play, hope it gets there. You will see Julie swinging along with me up at Delsjön. I sat down while she and Annika went down to the water. I photographed the horizontal fallen beech trees.

Julie and John drive north from Julie's house in Albany to the Adirondack Mountains and even in the forest close to their glamping site the American beech trees are diseased and falling down.

And, since I love remembering and reflecting on the days when I was so mobile that I could go up trails on my two favorite Green Mountains, Camels Hump and  Mount Mansfield while camping in a shelter on Mount Philo I will thank my two daughters for giving me those mountains. Julie led me to Mount Philo and Annika to Camels Hump. There is a bench on Mount Philo with a plate on which I thank them for that gift. And oddly, I suddenly remember that the first early signs of changes in my ability to walk revealed themselves during my final visit to Mount Philo. I tried to walk over the rock outcrops to the observation point, and I simply could not do that. So in 2018 something was going on.

Here is one of the most dramatic things I learned about Julie on her very last day here. She had discovered that there was something not quite right in version I of 1040 SR so she swung into action at this computer. I had already booked the taxi that would take her to the train station and never in a million years could I have sat down here and gone through the entire form changing, saving, printing, adjusting  as she did, cool as a cucumber. I kept quiet and just watched in awe. Time was running out and  with only 10 or 15 minutes remaining she printed the form, I signed it, and she put it in an envelope to take with her to America.

That is one of the many reasons that I have written above that this one of the very best times I got to spend with JAL in my entire life. Yes, even there something good had come as a result of something not so good. You can read about such things in Marilynne Robinson's newest book, Rereading Genesis that will turn up here next week.

Julie the sun is shining down on our forest and I miss you.

 

Document 413

 

Guardian Angels

Do you know someone other than me who had been physically and mentally active every day of his or her life who has become limited in one or the other of those domains?

   I see neighbors who have arrived “there” but I do not know any of them well. The only two people who reached such a point in their life that I knew well were my father and my mother. My father reached that point a decade before his wife did, and she assumed the role of his guardian angel He was in his early 70s. He just sat at home in Seekonk in the Baker living room where her presence was enough for him.

   After he died, she lived alone and turned her attention to assembling and making available her Memoir masterpiece clipping, pasting, writing then having the time and solitude to make that possible.

   But she did have at least two guardian angels, both cousins of mine, Joyce and Donnie. Joyce was always just a telephone call away and she saw to that daily – her initiative. Donnie lived nearby so he was able to visit her and make physical changes in her living space that were always helpful.

   I write on this subject because I am feeling uplifted by a fine visit by my number one Swedish guardian angel, Ann from Styrsö She was extraordinarily helpful today in arranging for me to have a root-canal procedure at a time when she can be my ledsagare a person who accompanies another, perhaps just to be with but who can also be a person who accompanies as a helper.

   Ordinarily when she visits 3B, she takes me on promenade up to but not into my forest. We are updating on the 13th of April. Ann came with a special mission: She would reshape my hair. She had her special scissors, sat me down, and clipped away. The high standing hair is gone, I am restored. Love the sound of hair being clipped.

But that was only the beginning: She is my Trash Lady, a position that must be filled for every home-bound person like me. Hallway restored, Recycling bins filled. Then we took a walk to the mailbox where i put a letter to Santander Bank where not a one of the telephone contact people could help me restore my account. Long letter off to Santander in Pennsylvania.

Then we walked down part of allen and I moved fast two poles flying. Felt great.

Back inside she needed help editing a story about herself for her university, GU. Getting rid of words is a special skill. She got rid of many - enought? We'll see. Then we were going to attach her Word file to an email to a Lundgren at GU. Computer or software went into refusal mode but in the end using all the tricks known to me, off it went.

Sometimes just helping one another - each other - is the most satisfying thing two people can do. We did that. 

A few daus ago I wanted t take a walk. The photo shows why I could not. On April 2, we had our biggest 2024 snowstorm. Even with Ann’s help taking a walk was not on the agenda. This was also the day after another Guardian Angel, Julie, had walked from her temporary home through the forest with suitcase to 3B. Might have been difficult.

 

I  posted this at my blog as number one in a series of Guardian Angels.

I have been modifying this one and will do the same as a way of showing all the good things that happen to me here and around 3B.

•  Yesterday, April 12, quite by chance, I found this photograph showing the cover of a book that i had misplaced, a book about experiences shared by an 85 year old scholar Sven-Eric Liedman. I had bought the book and read about his experience with becoming older - Om åldrandet On Aging. I ordered a new copy. I want to take another look since I share with him some very positive views about the experience of aging while one's mind is still working quite well.
• Ann is on her way back to Styrsö, no fast bus today so she will be in the slow lane to Saltholmen and the ferry.
• 
  

 

0n Saying Goodbye to Julie

This is no ordinary April Fool's Day here in Gothenburg, Sweden where I, recently turned 92 years of age, am writing. My daughter, Julie Ann Lundgren, is about to take off at Arlanda Airport north of Stockholm, Sweden - any minute now counting from 13:26 Summer Time in Sweden.

I am alone at home in my apartment on Iskällareliden (Ice cellar alley) in the Örgryte area of Gothenburg, Sweden. I write these words at this time because I am having a unique experience that leaves me reaching for words.

A few months ago, I found and read a memoir by a Swedish essayist who was able to express thoughts that only those of us who are on our way through decade 8 or even have entered decade 9 are there somewhere in our minds surfacing as if they need to be freed for reflection or revelation as spoken or written words.

The essayist was new to me, an intellectual in his 80s who was enjoying the experience of going through these years driven to write and to find satisfaction in doing so. I share with him the joy of writing and have found that doing so gives every single day content and meaning.

Here on the edge of vast forest, Delsjö skogen, I had been given daily lifts be being able to walk or run through my trees and then to sit there looking at my trees to see what questions arose in my mind. Yes, at first I just enjoy as does poet Mary Oliver being in touch with my botanical surroundings. But then questions arise just as they used to do when I as a geologist-naturalist sat down on a bedrock outcrop to see what stories it could tell me, always leading to questions about how these viewed works of art came into being and when and how.

I can no longer walk alone into my forest but I can watch what is happening at the edge and in the brook that winds its way down from the "mountain" in which the lakes that make up are held.

There will be no images today even though they are all tucked away somewhere in my mind but maybe another day.

I write in my blog because it provides a kinder home for words and images than does Facebook. I started writing because saying Goodbye was not so easy. Julie and a few weeks ago her brother gave me so much that I wanted to write about experiences that I share with Julie, life as a naturalist-scientist, she for plants and me for the earth, all of which endlessly evolve.

I add these lines on April 2 with snow falling to whiten the rhododendron leaves I see from my window. Julie's visit was one of the very best one-on-one experiences I have had in this life. She walked here each day from her "House In The Woods" choosing a different route each day, something she can do easily with good map, compass, and her history as a naturalist.

Now only did we get to talk about our past, present, and future but I also got to learn much about some fine qualities and abilities she had. Before I offer one example I note that you may think that to be an odd statement leading you to say:"You do not know your daughter after all these years" 

My reply is that each of us changes individually and many of the changes for the better are only observed over time, and each time (interval) is different. My example: Julie did my United States 1040 SR return for me once and then, on the morning of her departure from 3B realized that several things had to be changed. She sat here at this keyboard, calm as could be, doing one task after another as the time for the taxi to arrive got smaller and smaller. That did no phase her at all. She printed the final version and I signed, saved by her. Off she went leaving me feeling proud for who she is, what she can do, and her lifte time of helping others. Tack så  mycket Jules. Your loving pappa.

A Sunny Day in Sweden

 

 MY MEMOIRS

A WORK UNDER CONSTRUCTION THAT WILL NEVER BE FINISHED

Today, the 15th of December, 2023 I post this at my blog to have a place where I can report on My Memoirs by making the statement below

I dedicate My Memoirs today to my core family that I define as beginning with all those at the Great Grandparent level most of whom came from Sweden and the rest of whom came from England a very long time ago.

I thank everyone in this core family who has been of special importance to me during my first 91 years, many of whom have helped me put My Memoirs together.

I will inform key individuals that I am beginning to post here and will also inform others who have expressed interest in a post similar to this one.

I will be trying out different things here as well

First draft written in Gothenburg, Sweden

2023-12-15

 REVIVAL OF MY BLOG TO CELEBRATE BEING 90 YEARS OLD IN SWEDEN

My blog has been dormant for an entire year but I choose today to revive it for very personal reasons.

I have only been posting life stories at my Facebook, where creating a post is a very different proces than creating one here as I quickly discover.

I begin with a single photo taken on Saint Patricks Day in Hus 9 (The original name in 1925). Here you see Ann Frodi and me, two dual citizens of Sweden and the United States looking happily at  the 22 or so visitors she invited to the even she created for my 90th Birthday. She asked me to allow her to follow Swedish tradition with  the modification that it was not to be me who  would arrange the event but she herself. I agreed since she would do this far better than I and since she has so many friends who live on one of these islands that many  would be able to come without too much  difficulty.

After posting a new entry with one photo, Ann and me, I  walked to my Arboretum - at the lower end of Storatorpvägen, a long existing road that leads the several lakes that have the Swedish name Delsjöarna. Then I walked with double poles all the way up to Lyckan a red wooden building that serves coffee, Annika's favorite Banana Bread,  and my favorite single waffle with whipped cream and rasberry jam on top. We'll get to that but first back in history. When I first came to Sweden with Ann she took me to this small house on the lower edge of our forest. There we met a truly original couple, Carl and Hedvig in this house when it was far  simpler She had known them from the time she was 13 years old and had been given responsibility for a pony that she rode on all the trails in our forest. That was at least 40 years ago and in those 40 years I have run and walked on most of those trails and know them almost as well as she does.

Adding friendships in my new home

In Linköping almost all my friends and acquaintances were younger people who had come to Sweden as Asylum seekers from a long list of countries / I name those of some of my closest friends there: Areas in Iraq that were originally a cradle of civilization where predecessors of modern Assyrians lived, and the overlapping area that is now autonomous Kurdistan, Eritrea, and Iran including the Kurdish region in Iran. My only age-mate friends were Swedish women who were volunteers at the Red Cross as was I. I may be the only one of that cluster who is still living. In Göteborg, all my first friends were in Ann's family and then gradually those who came to my 90th birthday event. But here in Örgryte I hope to find a few new friends and to do that I joined Örgryte föreningen,a group of people who want to keep the history of this area alive and to keep is best qualities alive as well. When Covid 19 partially released its grip it became possiblefor this group to have its Spring meeting - Dinner for 200 and a presentation by political figures from most parties followed by questions and discussion between audience and the political figures. This event was held at the building at the foot of the bedrock cliffs that are the black foreground of this picture taken last night at 21:00 h. I had the extreme  good fortune to be embraced by 3 men who were arriving just as I was completing my long walk up the mountain. They were  especially welcoming, and I got to tell part of my story to one who professionally overlaps in some ways with me. He took me in, helped me meet others whom he already knew and I was over the friendship threshold. A wonderful evening. I simply add that here in Göteborg there are many churches built before or in the middle of the 18th Century and then the additions like this one, Nya Örgryte kyrkan high on the top of a remarkable bedrock peak. 

Later this summer I will introduce first two former students to my forest and the islands and then, if all goes well, my two children in America just reaching the age of retirement.

 Facebook has given up on me and I am giving up on Facebook. I am posting pictures from my power walk in my forest today October 23, 2021. 

My forest, Delsjöskogen has thousands of trees, some of them at least 500 years old. The sun was shining through the leaves today, leaves that soon will be on the ground.

This is an historic road, very, very old, name Storatorpsvägen after the area where I live. Just run down this road until you come to the castle and you are just a short walk to my home Iskällareliden 3B. I used to run like the man in green, now I walk here with my walking poles and I did today so that I could visit Lyckan Cafe at the top.

When you enter Lyckan (Happiness Cafe. you see these wise words: We Do Not Have WiFi, Talk To Each Other

Pretend It's 1995 

There on the left is Banana Bread to take home from Annika, she had requested on WhatsApp but I was one step ahead. On the right a waffle with fluffy cream and hallonsylt (raspberry jam)

Everybody was out today, Saturday in Sweden

This is my first blog post in a long time, I know it does not provide the access Facebook gives but my Facebook no longer works and it is serving all the wrong people so good reason to give it u´p

2021-10-23

HOW MANY LIVES?

This is an invitation to thinking philosophically about how many different lives one can life in a So-Called Lifetime. Sometime after I was a bit along in my 7th decade it struck me that life in that decade was much better than I had ever had been led to believe might be possible. I bought a very fine notebook from Germany, the first of many like the one you see here. I gave it the Title My So-Called 10th Life. The name came from the television series My So Called Life, make of that name what you will.

We are going to work backwards from today Saturday, 2020-05-30 in The Year of Corona in Sweden. I was up with the sun - remember we are at 58 N Latitude and I drove out to Ullstämma Naturreservat and started running, destination, THE TREE IN THE POND.

The Tree in The Pond, a Salix, died not long after the pond was created in 2011. Still standing after all these years, trees can do that. The text on the hat says Keep Vermont Weird, in the picture because that is where I was supposed to be today 5/30 but am not for well known reasons. The T shirt was chosen because it names the first 10 km race I had ever run in in my life, 10 km along Stångån a river and canal that runs through Linköping. After running I wrote in my 15th Life Book as always.

I find my 15th Life easy to set off from those that preceded it, 14th and back through time. A new disease helped in setting it off against all others, the disease now referred to as COVID 19, the disease that led to cancellation of my Icelandair flight to Boston.

Now I want to take a GIANT LEAP, back to 1967 followed by 1971, with two pictures showing superficially what became the greatest single transformation in my life up to that time and perhaps ever.

1967 from a picture of the Faculty of the Department of Geology, University of Rochester. I had at that time applied for a sabbatical that would take me either to Finland or Sweden. It became Finland where I became Fulbright Lecturer in Geology at Oulun Yliopisto (University of Oulu) then the northernmost university in the world. I was to give lectures on the subject of Mountain (Orogenic) belts since I had been working in one of those for many years starting when I was a doctoral student at Yale.

We four, Marjorie Hay Lundgren, Gary Lundgren, Julie Lundgren, and I were off to Finland on the Oslofjord a couple of months later. We had all learned quite a bit of Finnish and I had also taken an evening course in Swedish, taught by Kjell Westin, who left Sweden when he was 18. The story of how Finland changed my life forever is long and will not be told here but the outcome was that as a result of reading Swedish language newspapers I learned for the first time about chemical contamination of fresh water from fossil-fuel emissions and about the chemical contamination of fish with mercury, processes I had never heard about in the US. We came back to a USA shaken by events of 1968 as a result of the Vietnam War, but also a USA where adverse environmental changes were taking place, completely lost in the background with Vietnam in the foreground. I created a new course, Geology and Public Policy, to introduce that field of research in my department, and strangely I also became head of the River Campus Faculty Senate. Here I am on the steps of some River Campus Building with three students, 1971, but not sure if that was in connection with Dandelion Day or Alternative Graduation. Not sure who the students were, have to ask Scott Brande who gave me the picture quite recently. 

Now we take a giant leap back to 1949 when the two of us shown here graduated from East Providence High School and went on to Brown University which at that time had a separate college for women, Pembroke College where my mother also had gone. These two pictures are in part my way of thanking Joan Carmody Theve for making contact a few years ago to remind me that we had grown up in Rumford, RI, in houses 100 yards apart, going through 7 years of school there, a gap when I moved to Seekonk, and again in the same school East Providence High School and then to Brown/Pembroke.

 

The pictures came from an OnLine copy of the yearbook and my page had been colored but Joan's had not.

The Year of Corona seemed like a good time to start this project. Thanks to Joan, Marie Vacca Halka, Jeff Halka, and Scott Brande, the last 3 all students at the U of R in the 70s and friends for life with Scott the most recent addition.

BIDEN MUST CHOOSE - CAN YOU?

Joe Biden, Democratic Party choice for Presidential candidate states that he will choose a woman as his running mate - Vice President. Then, not another word from his bunker, where we see him at a desk - invisible. Little mention in the New York Times either, with the exception of a column by Michelle Goldberg supporting Warren as her choice - mine too as noted in a comment.

Only In Sweden do we see the 10 most likely candidates lined up in a single row in Dagens Nyheter, the Swedish New York Times. Beneath each picture is a text presenting reasons why Biden might choose one of the 10 and a following text presenting reasons for him to choose one of the others.

Why doesn't the New York Times do something similar? I am sure that an article based on the DN article with similar pictures would elicit 2000 or more comments.

I present them here in keeping with one of the major reasons for my creating this blog, to present a subject that not a single columnist has ever even mentioned in the Times, the archaic system used by the US Census Bureau to classify Americans, a system in which each of the 10 above would be assigned to a a fictional race or races.

In America, even in the 21st Century, some of the women shown above will be seen almost first and foremost as the person to be chosen by Biden because she is said to belong to a particular race and could therefore draw voters to whom race-based choice is important, either as a plus or a minus.

In Sweden, in the 2019 national election, we would never have seen candidates presented as belonging to a race although one party, the SD party did make clear that it would really prefer to support candidates who are so-called ethnic Swedes, people who practice customs that the SD party sees as demonstrating the candidate's "Swedishness".

I have stopped submitting comments to the New York Times as of this date; the final one was in print yesterday, 26 April. I will be following the discussion of VP choice as carefully as possible and every time a race-based argument arises, I will try to report it here, rather than submitting a comment as has been my practice ever since in 2013 I read two books that changed my life: Authors Professor Dorothy Roberts, Professor Kenneth Prewitt.

Photographs from Dagens Nyheter - 26 April 2020

JOIN ME AT THE RED CROSS IN THIS TIME OF PANDEMI

This is the first post under the English title JOIN ME AT THE RED CROSS IN THIS TIME OF PANDEMI.

It is Tuesday, March 17, here in Linköping, Sweden, my birthday. Ordinarily I would be spending 2 hours this afternoon at the Red Cross with my two Iranian-born colleagues having conversations about everything under the sun with a group of visitors that surely would include 5 or 6 young men from Eritrea, maybe 2 or 3 young women from Somalia and maybe even new arrivals from yet another country.

Men det är Pandemi i Sverige, bäst om jag stannar hemma men skriver här för att säga till alla mina vänner där, besök bloggen, skriv till mig via Gmail eller även här på bloggen.

Nu skall jag ut i skogen, tidigt på en tisdag morgon i Sverige.

Hör av dig, Idris, Abdi, Mohammed, Sara, Zari Abraham

Larry

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

Saturday, March 7, my birthday present to myself, Bus4You to Stockholm to hear Igor Stravinsky's Pulcinella in its original form with soprano, tenor, and bass soloists. Review below. I came up from the subway at Kungsträdgården planning to walk to Berwaldhallen. Went astray-construction prevented me from walking where I wanted to. Gave in, would find a taxi but none in sight. Cobblestone Street, fell "Flat on my face" - yes literally. Done it before. At first you are just in shock. One less tooth on the upper right.

Strangers gather around me to help me, pick up my scattered belongings. Ask if the should call for an ambulance. Me, no, going to a concert, can anyone help me find a taxi. A Swedish couple volunteer. Walk me slowly and carefully to a taxi station. Tack snälla. On my way to Berwaldhallen, enter in the nick of time. Ask the ticket taker if I have blood on my face. No. Enter, enter heaven.

Here is the review: I will translate parts later in the day, still early here in Linköping.

Både fräckt och sprudlande när Barbara Hannigan står på pulten

SÖNDAG 8 MARS 2020

”Pulcinella”

Musik av Aaron Copland, Joseph Haydn, Igor Stravinsky

Solister: Marta Swiderska, James Way, Antoin Herrera-Lopez Kessel. Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester. Dirigent: Barbara Hannigan. Berwaldhallen

Betyg: 5. Numera undviker jag ordet ”spirituell”. Inte för att jag ogillar det, tvärtom! Men i dag kan det dessvärre missförstås som ”andlig”. Denna dess engelska betydelse är det sista som passar för den kvicka och fyndiga konsert som Barbara Hannigan presenterade i Berwaldhallen. 

Haydns symfoni nr 90 och Stravinskys ”Pulcinella” hör nämligen till musikhistoriens mest spirituella skapelser. I Hannigans händer och med Radiosymfonikernas alerta gestaltning blev det en av de mest sprudlande konserterna i Stockholm på länge.

Det var också en uppvisning av virtuost blås. Redan i öppningsnumret – Aaron Coplands 1920-talistiska ”Music for the Theatre” – bröt Dag Henrikssons fräcka klarinett igenom som ett eko av en välkänd blå rapsodi. Undrar vem som kom först: Copland eller Gershwin? Bägge kom att definiera en amerikanskhet i musik; Copland med mindre jazz än europeisk tradition i bagaget. Som här i ett elegiskt solo för engelskt horn med återklang ur Dvoraks ”Nya världen”.

Joseph Haydn komponerade sin nittionde symfoni år 1788 för en parisisk elitorkester som, föga förvånande, upphörde året därpå. Och franska revolutionen hade nog knappast det sinne för humor som Haydn demonstrerade i symfonins final. En blåsning som fungerade klockrent även på 2020 års publik! För det rungande C-dur som utlöste våra applåder var alls icke slutackordet – utan följdes av en fortsättning i Dess-dur. Humorteamet Haydn-Hannigan fick oss dessutom att gå på det en gång till…

Efter detta utsökta samspel fortsatte Barbara Hannigan att utmana Radiosymfonikernas solistiska bril- jans i Igor Stravinskys ljuvligt spralliga ”Pulcinella” – här i den kompletta versionen med sångsolister från 1919. Ett helt epokgörande balettverk som med Picassos dekor angav tonen för den neoklassicism som skulle prägla konstmusiken i decennier. Stravinsky hade tittat tillbaka till 1700-talet bara för att, som han sade, få se sig själv i spegeln.

Camilla Lundberg Dagens Nyheter

BLACKMAMBA SPEAKS - LISTEN TO HIM

I have today, December 19, been pointing out Blackmamba's New York Times comment to some of the twitterers whose tweets are connected to Thomas Chatterton Williams' memoir, Profile In Black and White - Unlearning Race. I had filed that comment in a longer post, still here below this one. But I want now to put it at the top. Blackmamba had unlearned race years ago, at least as many years ago since the first time I saw one of his comments. He has basically the same genome I have but but in America his kind was given a "race" name and placed long ago in a racial order the "Fatal Invention" of European and American racists. That phrase, "Fatal Invention" I borrow from Dorothy Roberts, she also in common with Blackmamba sees herself as belonging to the only "race", the human.

Blackmamba - New York Times Comment

There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300, 000 years ago. What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at different altitudes and latitudes primarily related to producing Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations in ecologically isolated human populations over time and space. 

What we call race aka color aka ethnicity aka national origin is an evil malign socioeconomic political educational demographic historical white European American Judeo-Christian supremacist prejudiced myth meant to legally and morally justify humanity denying black Africa enslavement and equality defying separate and unequal black African Jim Crow. 

My earliest known European American ancestor was born in London in 1613 married in the Virginia colony in 1640 where he died in 1670. My earliest known free- person of color ancestors were living in South Carolina and Virginia during the American Revolution and fought on the side of the rebels. My earliest known black African enslaved ancestors were living in Georgia and South Carolina from 1830/35 where they were owned by and bred with my white American ancestors. My earliest known brown First Nations ancestors were living in Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia from 1830/35 where they mated with and married by black and white ancestors. 

Why does this heritage makes me just black in America?