Comment, Ove Mellingen | Uncle Reidar
Comment: We are safe in Norway. Safe and sound. You could probably say that we get to sew pillows under our arms, both young and a little older. All the more I think it is to look at the course of life, a little over a generation back, to those who really took hold. Really made demanding, bold and exciting choices.
I have an uncle named Reidar.
He lives in a beautiful place, near the spectacular mountains far west of Canada. There he gets both proper winter and warm and beautiful summer.
When he was 16, he went to sea. He went against the wishes of his father – my grandfather. But Uncle Reidar was a man who went his own way. Even as a teenager.
He was smart, hard-working and full of courage. He wanted something different out of life than the very poor life that was ready for him in the small gray village on the outskirts of Bergen, just like after the war.
At the industrial site Espeland where the Janus factory, the most likely occupation was not possible many. Most likely you ended up at the knitwear factory. It was both a likely direction and a threat.
Reidar traveled by sea and for long periods his parents, my grandmother and grandfather did not know where he was.
There was, of course, internet, or easy access by phone. He probably telegraphed home once in a while, but for quite long periods there was zero contact.
The two old men, his parents, mentioned the eldest son by name in prayer every single morning, as they did with all theirs, but they did not know where the boy was on the planet. They sat at their small kitchen table and prayed that the Lord would hold His hand over ham. They never folded their weary and prayed that God would take care of the boy.
When I was a little boy, I knew Uncle Reidar existed. Up on the fine, powerful sideboard that grandfather’s brother, Arthur, had made, there was a tiny little wedding picture of him and a beautiful lady. But he had a mysterious happening over him, an aura of excitement and adventure.
The young man who travels out, grew fast and grew up, the way one becomes at sea. He fought his own battle. He worked his way up. And eventually established himself in Australia.
There he married her who is my aunt Janet, an Australian with Scottish ancestry. They got three great chargers. From Australia, the family travels to Canada.
Uncle Reidar, who had a completely abnormal ability to work, he could work several days in a row, would seek happiness in the vast country of North America. And he worked, day and night, for family, for prosperity and prosperity. He was involved in building power plants in Canada. Huge dam facilities. Had someone come alluring with a work environment law, with working time restrictions there, they would have thought he was a comedian.
The first time Reidar came home to Norway he was 40 years old.
I remember it as it was yesterday, but it was in 1977. Then he had with him Janet and tiny little Peder (named after grandfather), as well as the nice girls Tracey and Sharon.
A generation later, by the way, Sharon chose to do the same as her father. She also travels out. From Canada to Australia, where she lives to this day, with large family. Her firstborn, of many children, is named Odin Thor.
But, well, Uncle Reidar. Think about it, he traveled out when he was a boy of 16 and did not come home properly until he was a grown man with a full family.
Grandfather met his eldest son once in Copenhagen, traveled on his first trip ever abroad, to meet the son for a few hours. It is possible that Uncle Reidar was just home in Bergen to change boats as well, but a proper visit to the childhood home did not happen until he was a well-adult man.
This, of course, was not common. To travel as a 16-year-old and come home 26 years later.
But that young boys traveled at sea for several years was quite common in the 1950s.
And there were many reasons for that. Excursion urge. Lack of opportunities at home. Desire for adventure. Maybe restlessness in the body. Lots of energy that may run out. Or simply the desire to achieve something with life beyond what the Norwegian possibilities invited.
I have visited Uncle Reidar several times. He lives in a beautiful little town, Vernon, in the stunning province of British Columbia on the west coast of Canada, not far from Vancouver. A province that is now about as big as Norway in population. Between four and five million people. Quite a few people with a Norwegian background live, not least on the Pacific coast.
It’s always interesting to talk to him. To discuss various things, including politics.
We do not agree, to put it mildly, that much. But you do not learn anything if you just talk to those you are the only one with and it is often a real pleasure to let the discussion run.
The perspectives from him as a journey from post-war poor Norway are important to take with you.
We have forgotten a lot in this country. We have forgotten a lot about where we come from. About how lucky we have been and how much they at all, those who went before us.
All over the world, there are people with roots in Norway. There are several Norwegian-born people in North America and it is found in Norway. People who for various reasons think that our country became too small, that the opportunity became too small, or that the air was a little too marked by old prejudices and frameworks about how things should be done, who should do it and what opportunities sons of poor people should have .
I have great respect for those who travel out. I have great respect for people like Uncle Reidar, who probably with a lump in his throat, with a nagging restlessness in his stomach, however, clenched his fists and chose a path that was difficult, confusing and unclear.
But who did something more than average, than most people, for they would experience more than average.
So this should be in honor of Uncle Reidar, Uncle Reidar and all the others who travel out. Those who took the chance because it was not enough for them to sit and wait for happiness to come their way. They wanted to meet it.