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After-inaction report

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[Imagine a picture of Saturday’s events here. I neglected to take one. My brain was overheated, I think.]

It is one of the anomalies (I think that’s the word for it) of historical reenactment, that many of us impersonate people from the history of northern Europe, where it’s cool most of the year and most people historically wore wool. But we do it at events in America in the summer, where big wool costumes with cloaks are borderline dangerous if you don’t keep carefully hydrated. (And those who don’t reenact European stuff generally do the Revolutionary or Civil Wars, where wool is also de rigeur.)

Minnesota Military History Days, an annual event held in Dundas Minnesota (where my grandfather was once town constable for a year, as I kept telling people), was originally scheduled for May. But the weather was cold and wet in May, so they rescheduled for the first weekend in June. June is usually real nice in Minnesota.

This year the temperature hovered up just below 100˚. If I can trust my car’s thermometer, it actually hit 100 in the Cities. (Another thing I often tell people, whether they like it or not, is that I spent 11 years on the east coast of Florida, and never saw 100˚, but I’ve been through many such days in the North Star State.) I figured that after the long lockdown, people would want to come out to a public event in spite of the heat – but that was not the case. Attendance was sparse, much below normal levels, according to the old hands.

This was the first year anybody from The Viking Age Club & Society of the Sons of Norway had been to the event. (It was a three-day event, but we only did Saturday.) It’s what’s called a timeline event, where reenactors from various periods all come together to provide a walking (and camping) history lesson. There was a big World War II battle in the afternoon (America won again, I’m proud to report), but our Vikings did a couple combat shows too (I left that to others). And we had a good turnout of members, all of them young people – except, of course, for me.

I brought my tent and awning shade (we did need the shade), and it was good to have a lot of youthful free labor to do the bulk of the putting up and tearing down. Even so, I had occasion to ponder the fact that it had been more than a year since I’d done this stuff, and in the interim I’ve arguably become too old for it. Especially on really hot days.

I comfort myself with the thought that it will be better if I lose some weight. (Though that’s less comfortable when I remember that losing weight requires effort and self-control.) I got a fair amount of exercise in, though, walking back and forth to the water tap.

It was a fun event in spite of the sparse crowds. We (by which I mean mainly the other Vikings) made a lot of contacts. Invitations to other events and possible new group members came up. It was a good time.

In which I didn’t sell a single book, because we weren’t allowed to display any modern stuff.

However, another event was coming Sunday. Danish Day at the Danish-American Center in Minneapolis. Granted, I almost never sell any books at that event, but at least I’d be able to display them, and who knows?

As an added attraction, the temperature would be about the same as Saturday.

However, I was denied the joys of another tropical set-up and tear-down, when I went into my garage to start my car on Sunday morning, and the transmission wouldn’t function. Bummer. I unloaded my car and spent the day rehydrating and recovering from Saturday.

This morning I got AAA to tow my car to my regular transmission place (I have a regular transmission place because – as I have learned to my chagrin – PT Cruisers are prone to those kinds of problems.) If it’s the same thing it was the last time, it’ll be easily fixed. But they haven’t gotten back to me yet. Which leads me to worry.

On the high spiritual plane which I inhabit, we call this “opportunities to increase our faith.”

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Breakout week

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A past Viking event. My tent is in the background. This madness is about to resume.

Mystery solved. Dentally speaking.

As I told you yesterday, I went to the dentist, pleading emergency, because I was having intermittent tooth pains. The dentist, finding nothing amiss, asked if I was experiencing stress. Might be grinding my teeth at night, for instance.

Last night, after midnight, I was on the couch finishing up the translation of a script, due today (Oslo time). And I noticed that my teeth were clenched like an alligator’s. (Did you ever read the tip I saw somewhere when I was a kid? About how if you find yourself wrestling an alligator – which would generally be an involuntary arrangement, I’d imagine – you should grab his jaws while his mouth is closed, and just hold them closed. Because an alligator has tremendous power to bite down, but his mouth-opening muscles are relatively weak. This, of course, still leaves you with the problem of the alligator’s tail, which is also very powerful (according to what I’ve read. I have no personal experience in the area). And I don’t think there are any tricks to restrain an alligator’s tail. (Personally, I wouldn’t chance it. One of the reasons I moved out of Florida.)

So it was the stress of the deadline and the late hours that had me wound up. I hope I didn’t convey the wrong idea yesterday. I’m happy about all the things I’ve had to do this week. It’s just their coming all at once that keyed me up. I really liked the script I was working on, and I enjoyed being interviewed on the radio. And I’m looking forward to stretching my Viking muscles again (probably pulling some while I’m at it) in the two events I’ll be doing this weekend.

Part of the pressure, I just realized, comes from the end of the lockdown. Going out in public and interacting with genuine human beings has been a challenge for me ever since I was a kid. I do the Viking events because a) it’s fun to dress up and play, and pretend to be an expert, and b) it’s a good way to sell books. But it’s also a challenge. Essentially, I see people as dangerous animals. Going to a public event is equivalent to visiting one of those wildlife safari parks. If you don’t stay in the jeep, the management cannot be responsible for your safety.

This past year has been a guilty pleasure for me. I began to suspect some time ago that I’ve got some agoraphobic tendencies, and those tendencies got coddled like an egg all through 2020. I grew a whole new shell. Now I’ve got to break out of that shell again, and it’s got me a little nervy.

But being a Viking is all about courage. Even if you’re only battling yourself.

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Taking care of business

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Weird week. Good, but weird. I am a dull man leading a dull life, but occasionally things pick up. They’re up right now.

Saturday I’ll be doing the first actual Viking event I’ve done in over a year – not strictly a Viking event, but a military history timeline thing at Dundas, Minnesota: Minnesota Military History Days. I’ll only be there Saturday. But it’s an event, and I’ll be setting up the tent, so I’m feeling the “tension.” (“Tent,” “tension,” get it? They actually do come from the same root.) Sunday is another event, but that’s not open to the public, so I won’t tease you with it.

(I probably won’t be posting anything Friday, because it takes me at least a day to do anything.)

And then translation work showed up. Fairly big project, fairly tight deadline. On top of that, it’s got a subject that really appeals to me (can’t tell you what). So I’m busy with that right now (should be working on it this minute, in fact).

And I got an invitation to be interviewed on a talk show a good friend does on a station in Des Moines (Truth 99.3). I can’t find a way to link to the recorded interview yet, except through Facebook. I’ll let you know if I find it (or, more likely, if somebody points it out to me, as one directs an elderly tourist to local points of interest).

Last night, I got a toothache. Went in to the dentist today on an emergency basis. He looked inside my maw and found nothing. He asked, “Have you been tense lately?”

I hadn’t thought I had, but maybe I have.

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A Soldier’s Only Hope

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Lars’s Memorial Day post on Friday reminded me of a book I picked up several years ago in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It’s From the Flag to the Cross: Scenes and Incidences of Christianity in the Civil War, by US Army Chaplain Amos S Billingsley. The book has many notes and expressions of faith from those who came in touch with the Union chaplaincy during the war. Billingsley includes records of his own ministry and the people he spoke to in hospitals, prisons, and camps.

He tells the story of visiting the gangrene camp next to Hampton Hospital in November 1864-65 about midnight. He entered one soldier’s tent in the dim light of the moon, noticing a small candle burning within.

On approaching him, he warmly grasped my hand, and, upon inquiring how he was, he replied, “I am very weak; I don’t think I’m going to live long; and I have sent for you hoping you could administer a word of comfort, and write a letter of sympathy and consolation to my wife and children.” “I trust you were not without hope?” “Oh no! I have a glorious hope. Christ is my only hope, and he is growing more and more precious every hour.”

“The pious, heroic John Lambert, with his legs burned to the stumps, with his body pierced with ruthless halberds, with his fingers flaming with fire, with dying breath exclaimed, ‘None but Christ! NONE BUT CHRIST!’ Think you would be afraid to die?” “No, I think not. I die for my country, and, dying for Him who died for me, I have nothing to fear; I don’t fear death, thank God! I trust he will give me the victory over it.” “You seem to have it already.” “I have got the victory!” said the dying Rutherford and he left the world shouting glory. I asked him, “What word shall I send to your wife and dear children?” “Tell them I died happy in Christ. He lingered a few hours, and God took him home. How striking the transition! How glorious the change! From a lonely, dreary gangrene camp to the throne of God in heaven! Here, he wore a soldiers garb; there, robed in white, he wears a crown of glory, and bears palms of victory. I visited two other patients at the same call; one of which was so far gone, it was then too late to get his dying message to send home to comfort his bereaved friends. He was a good man. Such were my visits to this suffering camp.

Whether we spend our days on anger, reacting to the latest news prompt, or on sentimentality, wanting to get the family together for smiles and meals, or on kindness, building or rebuilding our communities, we have only one hope. Maybe we’ve lived constructive lives, earning the praise of our peers. Maybe we’ve wasted our lives on self-indulgence, which could also earn the praise of our peers. Nothing we do opens or closes more avenues of hope. We have only one, the work of Christ Jesus on the cross.

Because this is true, we can take comfort when someone professes new faith on his death bed, despite the life he leaves behind. We cannot judge a spiritual transformation when the subject has no opportunity to bear the fruit of his faith. Even then, we cannot judge a man’s heart perfectly. What we can do is look to Christ and point others to Him as well.

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For Memorial Day

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Color Guard of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment.

Look at these guys. How old do you think they are? They enlisted them pretty young in those days, and a lot of boys lied about their ages to get in. Now they’re Civil War soldiers, an occupation Bruce Catton described as “more dangerous than anything we know about today.” No small chance of getting shot, and the risk of dying of accident or disease was twice as high.

These are the images that make us pause. Which is good. These guys paid the price so we could have the freedom to call America a racist, Nazi hell hole today.

We ought to ponder these images.

But it’s wrong, I think, to stop there. That’s what I dislike about the Vietnam War memorial in Washington. No disrespect meant – I know it’s a profoundly meaningful place for many people. But it’s the first war memorial in America that ever just said – “Men died, and these are their names.” Nothing about the aspirations they fought for. Nothing about the cause.

That’s understandable, of course. By the time the monument was built, America had decided there was no cause.

That, I think, is the greatest dishonor.

Maybe –very likely – I know nothing. I never went to war – avoided the draft for Vietnam. But I don’t believe the Narrative we’ve seen in every war movie made since Vietnam (with a couple exceptions, like We Were Soldiers), that all soldiers fight unwillingly, and take drugs and commit atrocities to dull the pain. A lot of guys reenlisted for Vietnam. I choose to believe that a lot of them did it, at least in part, because they believed in the war. Believed they were fighting to prevent the horrors that did in fact come to pass, after America abandoned its South Vietnamese allies.

One of my college textbooks stated baldly that old men start wars so that the young men will be killed, and then those old men can take the young women.

Somebody actually thought that was worth putting in a book.

Young men don’t cling to life like old men do. Young men race fast cars, and climb sheer mountain walls, and blow stuff up while drinking, because they want to face death, to show it what they’ve got. War disillusions them quickly, I have no doubt. But those young men in that picture had something more than youth. They had pride. They were warriors.

I think we should remember that when we think of them. They were not mere victims.

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Dante and the Stars

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This interview with astronomer Sperello di Serego Alighieri, a descendant of Dante Alighieri, gets into interesting territory.

Half the time it seems to me that things like string theory are attempts to get around the implications of the universe’s having a beginning, because string theorists don’t want it to.

The thing with those kinds of theories – you can call them theories, but it’s more speculative philosophy than science.

Because it is in principle untestable.

Yeah, it is not testable. It’s the same thing as multiverse theory, maybe there are many universes, OK, we can talk about it, but so what? It’s not testable. But even then, in a multiverse scenario, it is entirely possible to ask whether someone can have created all these universes. I don’t think that it is possible for science to say that God does not exist. But also the other way: religion should not close down inquiry into how the universe developed; this is up to scientists.

Then they get into Galileo and how Jesuits reformed the Chinese calendar.

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Strange Things Found in Books

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I have found a few casually interesting things in books over the years: old newspaper ads or a library card. Notes written in the margins have been the most engaging thing I’ve found. In fact, I have my mother’s Bible with many marginal notes. (She passed away two years ago this month.) One of these notes marks Isaiah 41:9-10 as my Dad’s verse.

Laurie Hartzel of the Star-Tribune collected reader submissions for strange things they have found in books, including a vintage postcard, a banana peel, and a diamond ring.

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Appreciation: ‘Atlantic Crossing’

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“Wistful” isn’t a word I use often (not in front of strangers, anyway), but I’m feeling a touch wistful now that “Atlantic Crossing” has finished its run on PBS Masterpiece. It’s the most famous thing I’ve ever had a hand in, so there’s a sense that my fifteen minutes are over now. Future generations of my family will say to their kids, “Yes, your great-grandfather and great-granduncle had a brother who never married. Weird guy. Religious. Grumpy all the time. Wrote some novels, and did some kind of translating of Norwegian movies and TV shows. Wrote subtitles or something.” [Voiceover: “But they were mistaken. He was a not a subtitle writer, but a screenplay translator. They are different things.”]

What follows is not a review of “Atlantic Crossing.” I cannot do a review. My legal obligations to the people I work for prevent me saying anything negative about the production in public (assuming I even have any criticisms to make). I want to talk about the things I appreciated in this remarkable and memorable production.

First of all, I think it was masterfully produced. The visuals were tremendous – taking advantage of the glorious Norwegian landscape in the segments filmed there, and beautifully recreating the US in the 1940s. There was a real epic quality to it all, especially in the first and last episodes.

I found all the actors’ performances top-notch. Sofia Helin, who played Märtha, is not actually the right physical type – she should be taller and slimmer. But she did an excellent job of portraying an essentially shy woman, trained to act as a public figure as a matter of duty, who is then forced to get her hands dirty in practical politics. The strain shows under the gracious facade.

The performance that impressed me most was Tobias Santelmann as Prince Olav. Frustrated in his military ambitions, he grows jealous of his wife’s relationship with the US president – although he virtually pushed her into the situation. At last he gains perspective when he realizes that many people have made greater sacrifices than he has, and he steps up into a wiser maturity and greater responsibility. There’s a movie called “The King’s Choice” (I reviewed it here), which is often compared with “Atlantic Crossing” in terms of historical accuracy. One thing I disliked about the movie (which is very good, overall) is that Olav doesn’t look very impressive in it. I think “Atlantic Crossing” gave him his due, though with a dark side.

The performance most Americans talk about, though, is Kyle MacLachlan’s as President Franklin Roosevelt. “Creepy” is one description I’ve seen, though I don’t think that’s quite fair. I think MacLachlan created a faceted, nuanced portrait of a pre-feminist American alpha male. He’s charming, easygoing in company, empathetic, and never in doubt that any woman he makes a pass at will take it as a compliment. It was a (publicly deniable) given, in those days, that powerful men deserved some sexual perks, and could be good guys in spite of it. Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton were in the same tradition. Kudos to the producers for not papering this over, I say.

Oh yes, the script translation, though it takes an exquisite sensitivity to perceive it, was excellent.

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Celebration in a time of Covid

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From last year, a “distanced” celebration of 17 May, Norway’s Constitution Day. No doubt today’s celebrations were similar. The tall old man on the balcony is King Harald V, the little boy on the “Atlantic Crossing” miniseries.

“Ja, Vi Elsker,” the Norwegian national anthem, says this (roughly translated by me):

Yes, we love this land, as it rises, tree-covered and weather-beaten, over the water, with its thousand homes. Love it, love it, and think of our fathers and mothers, and the saga nights that descend with dreams upon the land.

Norwegians in houses and cottages, thank your great God. He will protect the land, however dark things may appear. All our fathers have fought for, our mothers have cried over, the Lord will quietly alter, so that we will have our rights.

I don’t know the third verse.