America is a land of immigrants, and outside of our Native
American friends, we all seem to have come from someplace else; albeit for most
of us, a few generations removed. As a young man, one of the things I
remembered happening, was people saying to me, “Holst—is that Scandinavian?” At
this point, I would proudly tell them about how my grandfather came over from
Norway on a tramp steamer, when he was eleven years old, to this land of milk
and honey. Then the conversation would go on to Klub, Lefsa, Lutefisk, Krumkake
and every other Norwegian dish you could think of. By the way, I don’t do Lutefisk, and never have, but I still
go to the church suppers for the Lefsa and the Norwegian atmosphere. My father
said, “The only difference, between Lutefisk and snot, is that you can get kids
to eat snot” and by the way, he was Norwegian. But my point is, those ethnic
ties were a sense of pride to them and through interbreeding, it’s something
we’re slowly losing.
I lost my mother when I was four. Her maiden name was
Cromie, which is an old Irish name. I also know they came from the Belfast
area. My father said she was mostly Irish so that’s the other half of me. Right
near the top of my bucket list is a trip, someday, to both Norway, and Ireland.
I have to admit, a pot of corn beef and cabbage makes my mouth drool like a
sprinkler head in a burning building; and in the shower, my rendition of “Danny
Boy” is a real tearjerker—especially after a couple of Jamison’s. I remember
visiting my wife at the cemetery a while back, and those lyrics from “Danny
Boy” came filtering through my mind. “And
I shall hear, tho’ soft you tread above me. And all my dreams will warm and
sweeter be. If you’ll not fail to tell me that you love me. I’ll simply sleep
in peace until you come to me.” Yes, somewhere the simplicity of that old
Gallic life style still stirs my soul, and yes, it’s been said “If you’re lucky
enough to be Irish—you’re lucky enough.”
When I was first married I would go to family get-togethers,
on my wife’s side of the family, down in Stearns County. They, like most of
their neighbors, were of German heritage. We ate pig hocks and sauerkraut, and
drank mugs of beer from New Ulm breweries, no less; also German sausage and hot
potato salad. We danced the polka and the schottische, and old-time waltzes at
places like the New Munich Ballroom. In every town, the centerpiece of the town
seemed to be the steeple of a Catholic church—where most of them had been
baptized, confirmed, confessed their sins and were eventually laid to rest in
cemeteries behind the church where the tombstones read like a “Who’s who of the
countryside.” It was always “Guten Morgan” when you arrived and “Auf
Weidersehen when you left—her ninety-year-old grandma, with tears running down
her face when we departed, extending her arms to heaven and saying, “mag Gott
Segnen” or “may God bless.”
Yes, in everything I’ve talked about above, these were
simple people who lived simple lives, never forgetting their roots. It’s not
that way, anymore, and it’s sad. Sad because they’re gone, yes, but sad because
gone, too, is the food, drink, traditions and the language that meant so much
to them at the time—replaced by a different life, in a fast-paced American
world that has no place for these, anymore.
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