Folke Ferdinand Gummesson

I've been to New York City before, you know. I was there with my husband about a year-and-a-half ago, partially at the invitation of friends and parish members. I went once when I worked for the infamous AIG, and I went to New York in 1981 when I interviewed to become a missionary and teacher in Japan for three years.

But last week, we were in New York again. For me, it means getting used to the trains and the faster-paced lifestyle, at least for a few days. It means long days of trying to fit everything in, and not succeeding. It means sensory overload: music, history, language, theatre, creativity.

This time, there was really only one place I wanted to go, had to go: Ellis Island.

Both of my dad's parents emigrated from Sweden in the early twentieth century. They certainly came through Ellis Island on the way to the new world and their new life. So this place has held a certain fascination for me for a long time. I wondered what it was like for them coming over both as single people . What were they looking for? Did they find it? We never asked them. All we can do now is imagine.

We wandered through the hallways and exhibits in the great hall on Wednesday, and then I had to spend some time at a computer, trying to find my grandparents' records amid the 25 million that are stored in the Ellis Island database. Had I been better prepared, I could have brought more information from home, but I was armed only with names: Judith Andersdotter (I thought), and Folke Gummesson. It was my grandmother I was most interested in, but finding her proved elusive. I could not find any matches in the computer anywhere near her name.

Finally, I gave up and type in my grandfather's name: F. Gummesson.

And there it was: Folke F. Gummesson, from Karlskrona, Sweden, sailed from Copenhagen to New York and arrived in November of 1913. He arrived on the ship Hellig Olav, together with his younger brother Allan. They each had 25 dollars in their pockets. The manifest indicated that they hoped to go to Iowa, although that is not where they ended up.

Folke Ferdinand Gummeson. He was the 4th of ten children from a sea-faring family in Blekinge, Sweden. He was only 5 feet, 5 inches tall. He came to the United States in 1913, but he didn't meet my grandmother until 1920 (or so it is told). They got married in 1921, and had four children. My father is the youngest.

My grandfather died when I was in the 5th grade. He smoked pipes, and sang Swedish songs that I didn't really understand, even though I remember some of the words. (Du och jag och Anna gick segla i en kanna.... nar vi kom til Kopenhagen de hela kan var full of van....) (or something like that.)

Standing at Ellis Island, I think about all the things I never knew about my grandfather. Who was he? What were his dreams? What did he do between 1913 and 1920? Did he wander around the U.S.A., working and having adventures? Or did he come to Minneapolis and settle down right away? Why did we never ask him?

In my mind I am still standing at the ferry at Ellis Island, or I am standing in line in the great hall, or I am carrying a heavy trunk, or I am on a boat, and I am wondering what my life will be. Are there still great oceans to be crossed, and what lies on the other side? What hope and what courage (sometimes born of desperation) those immigrants held. I realize how little I know them, and I pray to be just a little like them.

They were not rich, or educated, or well-born, my ancestors. They didn't have prestigious names to pass down to their children or their grandchildren. But they reached for something, they reached for something, and I hope they passed just a little of their reaching down to me.

We're In New York....

Well, actually, we're staying with friends in a charming town not far away, in New Jersey. It is really a lovely place, and these friends are about the most gracious people in the whole world. This town is home to a prestigious college and seminary; they live about two blocks away from the train station, which takes us into Penn.

Yesterday we went to Ellis Island. More about that later. We were to meet friends later in the evening in Greenwich Village. He was playing in a band. We were so tired after Ellis Island that we went home and I fell asleep. I could not get myself back in gear to go back into the City. I feel very badly about that. I called our friends and told them we wouldn't be able to meet them. I feel old just now. It takes a few days to get used to living by train schedules, and we never have more than a few days.

Our digital camera is broken. I feel badly about that too. Does anyone know if they can be fixed, or if the camera stores tell you just to "buy another one"? (we did get pictures of Ellis Island.)

We are getting a late start today. Will go in to the City soon, hope to see a show tonight. I'm trying to remain flexible, although we are currently hoping (as many know) to see The 39 Steps. We'll see.

Don't know about tomorrow or Saturday yet.

I miss My Girl Already

Last week Scout got to travel with us and go hiking up along the North Shore of Lake Superior. Tomorrow we are leaving for Phase two of our summer vacation, a short trip to New York City. Unfortunately for me, Scout does not get to go along on this leg of the journey.

It's all right with her, though. She loves going to Ruth's house. I dropped her off this evening, and watched her run to Ruth's background, excited to play with the other dogs. Before I left, I sneaked a peak through the fence to watch the dogs running and chasing and sniffing each other. She was already having a great time.

This week I am looking forward to seeing Ellis Island, and learning about the immigrants who entered the United States here, full of hope and fear. We hope to take a stroll through Central Park, and to visit with old friends. As for me, I know I'll be noticing all the dogs, and wishing she could be with me all the time.

I know that the trip to the North Shore is more for my sake than for hers. I work a lot of hours sometimes, and it's great for me to have quality time with Scout, to get to know again her unique personality, how playful and fun she can be, her imperfections and her talents.

As for her, she finds a way to fit in and have fun whereever she is, with dogs and people, with children and adults. God's gift to me, she inspires me, too.

....And I Have Good Insurance

The last few weeks, I have been engaged (off and on) in an unpleasant activity. Perhaps it could even be considered hair-raising. At the very least, it has been enlightening.

I have been paying medical bills.

Admittedly, it's been an interesting spring. At the end of March, I had a bout of severe flu that sent me to the emergency room in an ambulance to get intravenous fluids. Then, later in spring, I fell down in a parking lot (not unlike our esteemed Secretary of State, I'm sure) and broke my arm. I managed to get by with a visit to Urgent Care and four X-rays this time.

And I finally got a couple of new pairs of glasses (two, because I'm always misplacing one of them.) They are progressive lenses, which of course, makes them more expensive.

It hasn't been fun paying the bills for all these things. I'll tell you one thing: I'm going to think long and hard before I go anywhere in an ambulance again. And while I haven't been happy about the amounts that I pay out, when I look at the original bills -- well, that's the enlightening part.

Now I have good insurance. It covers (except deductible) almost everything, including certain mental health coverages I might need. And it's not cheap. I know what our church pays for us to be able to have this coverage.

I also might note: these have been minor illnesses. My arm needed no cast, and I spent no overnight time in the hospital when I had the flu. These aren't the catastrophic diseases and accidents some people have.

So while I am paying and looking at bills and cringing a little, I'm also thinking: what would it be like if I didn't have insurance? How would I feel if I was getting these bills and I didn't have insurance or didn't have work, or had uncertain work? Wouldn't it affect so many aspects of my life?

I realize that the issues surrounding health care are complicated ones; when we had a health care forum at my congregation a couple of weeks ago, a couple of nurses brought up the great point that besides money and insurance and good doctors, one thing that people need (and many don't get) is education: education about their bodies, about nutrition, about health.

Still, if I was getting bills and I had to write out these checks, and I didn't know how to pay them, I think I'd feel a lot less healthy.

A Quiet Day

Today was the 4th of July, Independence Day, a national holiday.

Today we did not:

• Go to a parade
• Have a picnic
• Go to a fireworks display (hard on the dog)
• Spend time with husband's kids, or my brother (who had to work)

We did:

• Have bueberry pancakes for breakfast
• Visit with my mother-in-law in her new apartment
• Have cupcakes and help put together a Minnesota State puzzle with my parents
• Eat hot dogs and potato salad in the living room while watching Animal Planet
• Watch the movie "1776"

It seems a little lonely, and odd, today. We had a brief, but intense rainstorm, about mid-afternoon, which sent Scout into a corner shivering. After the storm, I called my parents, and we invited ourselves over to their house for a little while. Doing the "Minnesota" puzzle seemed a modestly patriotic activity.

Though I'm in town, I'm officially on vacation. I'm left with the rare decision of where to go to church on Sunday. Some choices: The African-American church in town, New Life Celebration, a nearby Lutheran church where one of my seminary friends is the Senior Pastor. Or, I could worship with my husband, who is NOT taking this Sunday off. What do you think?

And I've got a short (or actually long) list of things I either have to or "should" do before we go out of town on Tuesday.

On the short list of New York experiences this go-around: The Ellis Island Immigration Center, and a Broadway play, if at all possible. (We don't know if this is possible, but I would like to see The Thirty-nine Steps.)

Thank You for Not Calling Me -- "Just To Chat"

As of this Monday, I finally and for the first time became the proud owner and user of a cell phone.

Before Monday, we have had a cell phone that we used in emergencies: it's call a "Trac" phone; you buy minutes and add them when you need them. The trouble was, sometimes the "Trac" phone would not work at the times when we most needed a phone. Like when we visit my sister in Phoenix, for example. It never works there. There must be something about the wild wild west. When we travelled to New York two years ago, the phone worked fine on Thursday evening and all day Friday until 4:30. Then it was done. "No Service."

Finally, at the end of May, I was going out of town just overnight, and I knew a parish member was very ill and in the hospital. I left our "Trac" phone number with the church. But the phone did not work in the small Minnesota town where we were spending the night. "No Service."

I realize that I have come somewhat late to this cell phone business. My husband and I are simple people; we have a pretty frugal lifestyle. But we do have basic cable television. That has been our one luxury. Until Monday.

I did not get a fancy phone with lots of accessories. Truth be told, a friend gave us a perfectly good phone which I took to the store when I had decided which plan was best for me. I'm using that one for now. Who knows, maybe in a year or so, I'll decide I can handle a Blackberry with all kinds of bells and whistles. For right now, I'm just glad that people can get in touch with me when they really need to, and that I can get in touch with others as well.

So far, I've just given my number to a few people, including, for example, my sister, my mom, my step-sons. I haven't gotten a lot of phone calls, which is just fine with me. In fact, I've missed a couple of calls so far, because I'm not used to fishing the phone out of Where-ever It Is That I've Stashed It.

I do think it's going to come in handy. But I noticed that, even though my mom now has my cell phone number, she hasn't started calling me all the time, "just to chat."

So, I want to go on record: "Thanks, Mom (and whoever else) for not calling me on my cell phone -- "just to chat."

Thanks for not calling me to find out how I felt about Al Franken being our new Senator.
(Frankly, I'm just relieved to have two senators right now.)

Thanks for not calling me to ask about Sarah Palin, either. (I have no idea.)

Thanks for not calling me to ask whether I think it will rain, what I'm doing right now, or who's preaching this Sunday, or whether I'll ever twitter again (I have no idea).

But, if you are going to be in New York City next week, and want to get together: shoot me an email! I'll send you my new cell phone number!

Or, if you have some advice for me in navigating these uncharted cell-phone waters, I'd love to hear from you!

Remembrances of Vacations Past

Until I got married, I did not take very many vacations.

In my first parish, I did take the required vacation time, and not just because it was required. I needed it. But, as a single pastor, I had a hard time figuring out where I could afford to travel, and would like to travel, by myself. So I often took vacations either to visit my sister or to my home town, where I still had friends.

As a child, I only remember taking two significant vacations with my family. My dad had his own business, a small Television Sales and Repair Shop, and he just couldn't be gone. (I also suspect that we couldn't afford to travel that much.) But when I was going into the 5th grade, we took a two week vacation out to Seattle, Washington, to visit my aunt and uncle and their two small children. My uncle had gotten a job at Boeing. It was the first time anyone from my family had moved so far away.

This was a Big Deal in many ways. My dad had never left his work for so long, and I'm sure it made him anxious. We drove out there, and it took us three days in the Rambler. I figured out that Montana was a Really Big State. It was the first time I ever saw a mountain, or an ocean. We stayed in motels every night, but just looked for blinking "vacancy" signs. On the way home we stopped at Yellowstone National Park and saw Old Faithful. My aunt and uncle took us to the ocean, the Space Needle, Mount Rainier, and other places that I don't remember any more.

The second major vacation was a family vacation to Disneyland, when I was 16 years old. This was about a year after my dad's business had gone bankrupt. He was working for someone else now, and had actual vacation coming. And this was the One Dream Vacation for our family. My dad got us hotel reservations all the way out to California. We stopped for an extra night in Denver, Colorado, to visit friends who had moved away. At Disneyland, we stayed at the Disneyland Hotel -- the height of luxury for us -- and had a tour guide for our first day at Disneyland. I was in total awe of her abilities, as she would speak to us, and then turn and speak to another set of tourists in french! I decided then and there that I wanted to be a tour guide at Disneyland when I grew up.

I sewed a little back then, and sewed myself three new pairs of shorts, two halter tops and one midriff blouse especially for our trip. Thus began my obsession with having "something new to wear" when I travel.

Since getting married in 1999, I've travelled more than in my previous forty years combined. I've been to San Francisco, to Pennsylvania twice, to Disney World in Orlando, to Door County, Wisconsin, and to the North Shore of Minnesota. We've headed out to the Black Hills and Chicago by car, and to Albuquerque and the Grand Canyon by plane (haven't taken the train yet, though).

And since being up there at Lake Superior for the umpteenth time (and it never gets old, by the way), I've been thinking of two of the pleasures of vacations: there is the humble pleasure of discovering something for the first time, of realizing how little you really know about the world, and expanding that world just a little bit again. And there is the other pleasure of going back again to the place you've been before, the joy of returning to a familiar place, with its familiar mysteries.

I've been to the North Shore many times, but always a little later in the summer. This week was the first time I've seen the lupines bloom here.

I wonder if heaven will be that way too: familiar, but also full of discovery, comfortable, but strange.

Having a Wonderful time; Wish You Were Here

So far, we have a great little room just north of Two Harbors, right on Lake Superior. Our room, as you can see, overlooks the outdoor pool and the woods (the rooms that overlook the Lake are significantly more expensive.)

I haven't been blogging, but I have been:

1. Eating breakfast at Betty's Pies;
2. Working on the shawl I started two winters ago;
3. Writing some unrhymed iambic pentameter (first exercise from Stephen Fry's book The Ode Less Travelled); (more on that later)
4. Hiking around Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse (we're about to embark on another hike even now as I type); (and more on that later, too!)
5. Reading Maisie Dobbs; she has become my new obsession! I am pleased to discover that ther are five more books! As my husband would say: "oh-uh".
6. Writing down snatches of dialogue, words I like, etc.

None of my couplets are "good"; I'm trying hard, via Stephen Fry's suggestion, not to try to be "good", but just to get the feel of the rhythm of the iamb:

For example:
The menu here is said to be so bland

A messy desk -- a more creative mind
four pencils, colored pens and books galore
erasers, scribbles, post-it notes and ink
A messy desk -- a coffee cup unfilled.

And this is a messy blog post! We're off

oh, and by the way, I think that Miss Rumphius has been here.

More on THAT later, too....

"I See Unmarked Trees!"

The winner gets a postcard from the North Shore.

Presbyterian Gal is the winner!

(A lot of good entries; my husband was the unbiased judge.)

Scout is coming "with"

If you are from Minnesota, you know that this is a perfectly appropriate way to end a sentence, as in: "We're going out to eat. Do you want to come with?"

In a few minutes, we will be headed up to the Great Big Lake for a few days. We take vacations without Scout all the time. But once a year, I like to take one where we can take Scout along with us.

After all, she is my baby, and I like to take at least one "family vacation" a year.

She likes to hike with us, and visit the Angry Trout Restaurant.

I have packed her food, her bowls, two toys, a jaunty scarf, and a blanket.

Are we ready yet?