Travelin' (Back In Time)

So. I'm on vacation. Spending a few days at mum's, trying not to think too much about the businesses which I eventually have to give proper attention to. Doing very little but relax and enjoy myself; this is done by seeing my family, eating & drinking, going to the movies and some shopping. (I found some real nice shoes yesterday, and it's good to see I haven't forgotten completely how to waste money on my appearence...)

I arrived in Sweden late Wednesday night, after a long days travel. From Bergen to Oslo I had company, as my dear friend Kari was going east to see her "boyfriend" there. Never has a trainride passed quicker, and although I rather enjoy riding the train in solitude, sharing that trip with a friend was very invigorating. Then I had a few hours to kill at the station, and I allowed myself a meal at the Chinese restaurant. A very simple place, but the food is nice, and the people too.

First day in Sweden I did almost nothing, just sitting down having breakfast with someone was a treat. A lazy, wonderful day it was, just what I needed! In the afternoon I went to see my father, and spent the night there. One of my brothers came over too and I beat them in our favorite card game "Chicago", a game played in three phases, where points are given according to poker ranking and then extra 5 points at the end of the game playing tricks. We played several rounds, and the reason I won all toghether was because I got that straight flush I "ordered". I've got a powerful mind, so be aware... he, he.

Yesterday was all spent in the City of Gothenburg. Lunch with my brothers, followed by some shopping, and then we reunited for coffe, movie and a couple of beers at "Bishop's Arms".

But let's go back to the previous night at my dad's. When the clock struck midnight I thought it would be wise to hit the pillow, but my curiousity got the better of me and I started to rumble through some cases in the living room. You see, only a couple of weeks ago my father had emptied the cellar due to some long awaited renovation, and a lot of that stuff was now sitting right in front of me, tempting me with all its secret content. Obviously I couldn't go to bed, you see that, right? There was on ald box marked with my grandma's name, rather superfluously to me, since it was securely tied together with some old nylon stockings. Her trademark, so to speak.

Inside that box were letters, telegrams and postcards, and real old ones too. I had absolutely no intention of reading them all, not that night and perhaps never, but I browsed a little and picked a few that got my attention. One letter posted to "Mama Bengtsson" from 1939 looked interesting, and knowing my father was 11 at that time I figured it must have been from him and not his 15 year old sister. I was right; there was my father writing home to his parents from where he was for summer vacation at his aunt's. He had just been out fishing with his cousins, and reported sizes and weights of their catches. The letter ended with a plea (his parents were about to join their children later in the summer): "Don't forget my Indian costume!"

Just as I read that, my father, now 79, joined me in the living room. "Listen here!" I said and read it all aloud. In an instant he was back in those days, and told me about that costume which he'd made at school, and for which he'd got the highest mark. I could easily picture him running around the woods playing Indians & Cowboys with Herbert and Ingmar... My father hugged me, he was quite moved. Actually all this was news to him, he'd just got the box when they emptied my grandma's place, and the box had never been opened before. So evidently he'd never seen that telgram sent to him from his aunt, except when he first got it on his third birthday in 1931. Nor had he seen the flowers his mother had picked on Midsummer Day in 1916, 1917 and 1918 and carefully wrapped in paper and stowed away. The rhymed inscriptions on the cards she recieved on her Christmas gift's as a teenager were also total mysteries to him. (And by the way, if you think they were all prim and prudish back then, well - think again. I found some real cute ones, which I might try to translate another time.)

There was correspondence from the time my grandfather sailed with the armoured cruiser "HMS Fylgia"; he'd drawn maps of the South America's and the ports they visited. I think, if I'd have nothing else to do in my entire life, I could fill the time with reading all that stuff. Filling in the gaps with my own imagination, and my father's stories. Hmm, sounds like a project doesn't it?