Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Farvel, Høstfest

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A Hostfest breakfast crowd in the glory days. This was just one of the halls.
Me with 4 Lagerthas, the year they did TV promotion.

It’s not as if I hadn’t seen it coming, but still it’s shock: Norsk Høstfest of Minot, North Dakota, long the largest Scandinavian festival in the US, announced today that it had closed its doors for the last time.

Since 1978, except for the Covid hiatus, people streamed to Minot (one of the remotest cities in America) every fall for an astonishing combination of Scandinavian crafts, food, and culture, along with stadium shows featuring big-name entertainment (largely, but not exclusively, country and western music). The crowds were huge in its heyday, with every room in town booked. Thousands of folks rolled in to camp in RVs, and day tour buses arrived in convoys. If you had a hankering to see people in cowboy hats and Norwegian sweaters, Høstfest was the place to go.

Our Viking Age Club & Society was part of it from very early on (I myself only started attending around the turn of the millennium, but I guess I was involved in about half the festival’s history). Ron, one of our old members, attended for 25 straight years and had all kinds of stories to tell about the celebrities he’d met, back when the entertainers used to mingle more freely with the public. He taught Victor Borge to make butted mail. He slung one of the Mandrell sisters over his shoulder and carried her into his tent (for a photo op). He had beers (nothing more, he insisted) with Willie Nelson in his trailer.

My chief memories are of the years we spent in what they called “Copenhagen Hall,” where the Oak Ridge Boys did three concerts a day right around the corner. We Vikings used to do three combat shows a day (four on Saturday). Just getting in and out of my armor got to be exhausting, after a while, as I got older.

They put us up in homes with local families, and we all made long-lasting friendships. I’ll miss those people.

I’ll even kind of miss the 9-hour drive to northern North Dakota. Other group members mostly took the dogleg route through Bismarck, which added an hour, but I followed my GPS on a diagonal path that took me through towns most people have never heard of.

It was a good place sell my books. I’ve lost three festivals in the last couple years. That will hurt. Fortunately, a new one started last year, and another is coming this spring.

But there’ll never be another Høstfest. Quirky, very American, fueled by community pride and voluntarism, two commodities in increasingly short supply these days.

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Time lost on the road

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Photo credit: Claudio Schwarz. Unsplash license.

Today was one of those days where life reaches down into your calendar and reminds you that there are bigger priorities than the ones you’ve scrawled on your schedule. I went to a funeral today. It was the funeral of my uncle Ralph, not a blood uncle but the husband of one of my mother’s sisters. In terms of our family tree, this leaves but one survivor standing – also an uncle by marriage – in his generation.

Ralph was a plain, cheerful, energetic man who seemed to have discovered the fountain of youth until almost the very end. He worked as a telephone lineman, one of those guys who climb the poles at any time of the day, in any kind of weather. He owned every hand tool known to man, and his eidetic memory knew precisely where they could be located (often in the trunk of his car). If somebody needed something fixed, it was his great joy to jump in and help – and he knew how to do it right, too.

I don’t recall ever hearing a word said against Ralph. He lived into his 90s.

I must confess I was late to the funeral. My brain was absolutely convinced that to travel 2 ½ hours and arrive at 10:00 a.m., I needed to set out around 8:30. The logic of this calculation seems just as unassailable to me as it is wrong in reality.

I’ve done this sort of thing before. I don’t know what my problem is. Certainly it must be partly due to my functional innumeracy. Also I blame my difficulty in visualizing spatial relationships. I need to teach myself (even at this advanced age) to sit down and draw a clock face, and then shade in the hours, when I’m planning a trip.

On the drive I listened to the audiobook of Klavan’s When Christmas Comes. Almost wished the drive was longer.

The same goes for life.

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License to do nothing at all

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Photo credit: Toa Heftiba. Unsplash license

Progress report, January 21, 2026: Nothing. I accomplished zilch today.

This was, more or less, by choice. Last night I found myself feeling boneless and a-weary around 8:00 p.m. I said to myself, “I’m flagging earlier than usual tonight. I think I’m getting sick. I’d better go to bed.”

Which I did.

I woke up this morning around my usual time, but felt justified in not getting up for my usual sunrise writing session. I turned over and went back to sleep. Just be safe. Then I read quietly in bed (I’ve got Dean Koontz’s latest novel, and it’s a honey). Finally I got up for lunch, more or less okay, as far as I could tell. I felt I’d gotten permission to loaf, and loaf I proceeded to do.

Except for going out for a few minutes to bumble around on my license plate. My license plate story is as inconsequential as it is tedious, so I’ll share it with you.

When I acquired Gudrid the Far-traveled, my Toyota Rav-4, I tried to install the new Minnesota license plates the law required me to buy. I found that most of the little screw-holes meant for plate attachment were full of – something. Some hard substance. Probably the rusted remains of old screws. When I took Gudrid in to the shop for all the ruinous work that turned out to be necessary on her, I asked the mechanic if they could attach the plates. The guy said they’d be glad to do it, and they didn’t charge me for that.

Turns out that was a good thing, because they did a lousy job. Last week I discovered the front plate had disappeared entirely. (Well, they never claimed to be body guys.)

Yesterday I went in to the nearest license office (which is, fortunately, about a block from my house), and asked about it. I needed to get an entire new set of plates, and they charged me about $16.00. I paid that and took the stuff home. Then I discovered I was missing one of the year stickers that goes in the lower right-hand corner. I went back to the license people, who chided me for my carelessness and told me I had to pay for the whole thing all over again.

I then went home and tried to attach the plates, and soon realized that those little screw holes in the front license bracket are still blocked.

Today I went out with my drill, to drill my own holes. This felt radical and reckless (I imagined drilling into some obscure fuel line that had been run [for some insane reason] through the front bumper and causing an explosion, which would either end my life in agony or leave me permanently scarred, a horror to all who beheld me.

(Note: people who know as little about cars as I do probably shouldn’t apply drills to any part of them.)

But I found the screws I’d tightened yesterday very difficult to loosen today, so I figured maybe they’d be okay. I added the pressure of a great big binder clip I happened to have around. Down the line, when I have some money to spend, I aspire to taking the car to a real body shop and asking them to fix the whole monstrosity.

So let this day go down, in Abou Ben Adhem’s book, as one in which Lars Walker got nothing done.

Religion, Uncategorized

Elevating depression

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Photo credit: John Price. Unsplash license.

First of all, for the record, I’m not depressed at this moment. I intend to write about depression, but I’m being theoretical, based on a rich store of personal experience.

My visit to the dentist this morning, so far as I know, did not prompt me to thoughts of depression. This was my new dentist, by the way. My old dentist (to personalize a corporate entity) started out very good, until the original guy retired due to his health. He sold it to another dentist, who sold it on to another dentist, and each new iteration proved more incompetent than the last, until it all descended (or so it seemed to me) into pure quackery and fee-seeking. So I broke with them at last and settled on a different practice, also in my town. This practice is so solid-appearing and reassuring that it comforts me just to drive there (and it’s only 2 blocks from my house. I could walk, but it’s January. Gimme a break).

This new dental practice is located in a brick building whose solidity has always pleased me. I thought it might be a surviving building from my town’s early years, but it turns out it was built by an architectural firm that has its offices upstairs from the dentist. Their building is their showpiece. Well done.

What took me to the dentist? I popped a crown yesterday afternoon, and they got me in to get it fixed this morning. My mouth is a museum of ancient dental work – you could teach a class on the evolution of oral surgery based on my X-Rays. (I recall a Jonathan Winters comedy special from my childhood. In one sketch he portrayed a movie star being interviewed in his Hollywood home. He broke into song at one point, and I recall one line – “I have 32 pearly white teeth, And one of them is AL – MOST MINE!”)

Anyway, they checked carefully to make sure there was no underlying decay (no problem), and then they glued it back in with the latest in high tech dental adhesive. And my new insurance (had to change it; my old company fled Minnesota, as all sensible companies do) covered most of the work.

I’m tempted to quit this post right here – it seems to me plenty long already. On the other hand, I promised you my insights on depression, and writing about my dodgy teeth makes for a poor topic, in my opinion. Depression is so much more festive.

It occurred to me recently that I was something of a hypocrite in my musical ministry years. Not intentionally, or so I tell myself. I was just singing Christian music with my friends. I could hardly make up my own lyrics. (Except we did; we wrote most of our own stuff. And I did the lyrics. Never mind.)

But, as I recall it, a majority of those songs were about how joyful and happy we were to be Christians. (And there is nothing at all wrong with that.)

But in my own case, I wasn’t very happy and joyful. I’ve never been that kind of Christian. Everybody else’s testimony seemed to be, “Jesus saved me and filled me with joy!” (Perfectly legitimate, too.)

But my actual testimony was more like, “Jesus kept me from killing myself. Without Him, I don’t think I would have grown up.”

That’s not a contemptible testimony, I contend. It just doesn’t lift the spirit a lot. You don’t sell a lot of records with that kind of message (or you didn’t in those days).

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord,” says St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:4-5.

There’s a place for depressed Christians too. That’s my testimony, and I’m sticking to it.

Music, Uncategorized

Happy New Year

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By a bizarre coincidence, New Year’s Eve falls on exactly the same date this year as last year. I think we’re in a rut. And I’m grateful for it.

Though we don’t get the solid, long-lasting, well-built years anymore that we had when I was boy. I clearly remember talking about the new year with my grandmother, in her little house. I think it was the end of 1956. Grandma said there would never be a year 1956 again, and I couldn’t see how that could be true. Still seems wrong to me.

Above, Sissel Kyrkjebø does Auld Lang Syne, in Scottish and Swedish. Wearing a butch men’s suit, just to annoy me, but in excellent voice.

I want to thank all our faithful readers for their loyalty (and patience) through another year. We do all this for you, and I hope you feel properly guilty about it.

Special thanks to Phil Wade, who – I should remind everyone, including myself – is the host of this hall.

I’ve had better years than 2025. I take comfort in the fact, much cited in the Middle Ages, that fortune is a wheel. If I’m down at the moment, the wheel should (probably) come around again. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m reading Njal’s Saga again. It’s a long saga, so I’ll probably be posting reading impressions for a few days, as I work my way through it.

Watch for that, if you can handle the excitement.

Now to celebrate New Year’s Eve in my own way, which is not at all.

Music, Religion, Uncategorized

‘God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,’ and Gary too

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I seem to be thinking of old carols this Advent season, so today I figured I’d look at a genuinely old carol (as opposed to that counterfeit antique, Wenceslas, that I covered a few days ago). I’m thinking here of God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen. According to Wikipedia, we know of an early version of this carol from the 17th Century, though the version we sing today comes from an 1833 collection produced in England by William Sandys.

Now right off, I find myself on the wrong foot about some of the words. I’ve always sung it as “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” (more about the comma placement below). But according to the Wikipedia article, “In fact, ye would never have been correct, because ye is a subjective (nominative) pronoun only, never an objective (accusative) pronoun.” I, with my rough-and-ready workman’s grasp of English grammar, had no clue about this. (Oddly, the title on the YouTube clip above has it wrong, but the sing-along lyrics get it right.)

The most common misunderstanding about the song has to do with the meaning of the words, “God rest you merry, gentlemen.” Modern people assume the comma should go after you – “God rest you, merry gentlemen,” with “merry” describing “gentlemen.” But that’s because we’ve forgotten the idiomatic phrase, “rest you merry.” Shakespeare uses it in a couple of his plays, “As You Like It,” and “Romeo and Juliet.” It originally meant “God rest you [grant you to be] merry [peaceful and happy].”

Personally, I’ve been needing a little comfort and joy lately. One week ago tonight (Friday), my friend Gary Anderson passed away after a long illness. Gary was a founder and longtime central figure in my Viking reenactment group (that’s him on the right with me in the photo above). He was sort of a walking photo opportunity, an artist’s dream of a Viking, our most public face and voice.

He was a wounded and decorated Vietnam combat veteran. He was a professional Santa Claus in season, for many years. He was a dyslexic who taught himself to read. He came on strong, rather frightening me when I first met him, but he proved to be a stalwart and faithful friend. Another friend and I visited him a couple times during his last months, the final time about three weeks ago. Death is Grendel, a mighty foe, but it had to beat him to the ground before it took him. He never gave up. He went out as befits a Christian Viking.

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“The roar-a borealis”

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The clip above is from one of my favorite movies, Bill Forsyth’s Local Hero. The setup is that our hero Mack, played by Peter Rieger, is a Texas oil company representative, sent to Scotland to arrange for the purchase of a stretch of coastline where they can build an oil terminal. But he also has a special assignment from his eccentric boss, Mr. Happer (Burt Lancaster). Happer, a passionate amateur astronomer, wants Mack to watch the sky, in the hope he can find an undiscovered comet he can name after himself. However, Mack, along with his Scottish escort Jimmy (Peter Capaldi, later to be Doctor Who), is growing increasingly enchanted by the scenery and the local folk – who are, for their own part, simply delighted to sell their property off for a pile of American money.

The clip is highlighted by the appearance of the aurora borealis. I had hopes of seeing it myself last night. The previous night – Tuesday – there was (as you’re probably aware) a spate of sightings. People from all over the country were posting pictures of it on Facebook. I went out onto my back porch to look for myself, but saw nothing. My back yard isn’t a great spot for aurora hunting – it faces north, but there are tall houses and trees that way. Also quite a lot of light pollution.

It troubled me that I’d missed the lights. I know I’ve seen them once before – sometime around 1972 in northern Minnesota. I might have seen them in Alaska the summer before that, or in Norway the year I took a cruise above the Arctic Circle. But summer isn’t the best time for northern lights, so maybe my not remembering isn’t just because of aging brain cells.

Anyway, I thought about it overnight. And yesterday, the word was that the lights might be even more spectacular. Viewing after 9:00 p.m. was recommended. “I shall get in my car and drive north to see them,” I decided.

And I did that. I drove up to Brooklyn Center, and parked in the Walmart lot. It was still an urban location, granted, but people further south had posted aurora photos already that night.

But for me, nothing. Nada. Niente. (That’s a quote from Local Hero, by the way.) I sat around for about half an hour. No show.

I comfort myself with the fact that I tried. I stayed up late and delayed my bedtime. I drove in the dark (always a challenge when you’re getting on in years) and waited in patience. Just to see something beautiful.

I’m old, but I’m not quite dead. Apparently.

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Portrait of the author as a better man

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The image above is sort of an act of treachery on my part. Since I am (and must be) one who identifies as an enemy of Artificial Intelligence, I’ve made little use of it as a tool in any way. But today I saw where somebody had gotten one of the apps to turn his photo into a Renaissance portrait. I was intrigued. So I went over to Grok and got it to transmogrify my photo into the picture above – “in the style of N. C. Wyeth.”

I don’t know that it looks a lot like Wyeth, but it’s not a bad picture. Nevertheless, I find that I rather resent it. Not merely the fact that it’s a younger version of me – it’s also handsomer, and looks physically stronger. I wouldn’t want to face that guy down; I don’t think I could take him.

I well remember when the original photo was taken. It was at a Viking event in Missouri, where a fellow I knew had built himself a Viking farm, where he hosted a couple events a year. That was my last year there. I introduced a young man and woman, who later married. This pleased me greatly. Until they broke up. I’m tempted to blame the failure of their relationship on myself, because I’m like that.

I never went back to that Viking farm again. The owner said something to which I took offense – not about me, but about someone else. So I implemented my usual revenge strategy of backing away from him, for that third person’s sake.

This strategy would be more effective if anybody ever noticed my absence.

I heard the farm owner died a while back. In retrospect, I wish I’d stayed in touch. Not that we were close friends, but I ought to be more open and aboveboard in my dealings with people.

I’m pretty sure the guy in the picture would be.

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The dragon is home

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The video above is very short, but it combines two topics I’ve written about before. The replica Viking ship shown is the Dragon Harald Fairhair, whose adventures and travails I’ve discussed often. (It was, for a time, the largest Viking ship replica in the world.) It sat in drydock in Mystic, Connecticut for several years, and I wondered if it would ever return to Norway. But I’m happy to report that they got it back this past year. (I think it was this past year. Recently, anyway.)

In this clip, a crew of untrained volunteers are attempting to row her, at last summer’s Viking Festival Karmøy, which I attended, in all my splendor, back in 2022. That was the year we were celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Hafrsfjord, where King Harald Fairhair (according to legend) unified Norway as a kingdom. It was often commented at the time that the Dragon should have been there, as she had been built just across the sound in Haugesund, and was named after Harald. This video is evidence that she made it to the festival this year.

I can rest easy now.

Also because I finally got my Medicare supplement applied for. Here’s a hint from a grizzled veteran – if some organization or medical practice puts you in touch with somebody who’s supposed to “help you navigate your choices,” they’re in fact hooking you up with a salesman, who’ll try to sell you the product they represent. I tried two such services, and they both offered me the same plan – one which did not include my personal physician in its network.

Today I went straight to medicare.gov, and walked myself through their process. I ended up with a number of incomprehensible options, and finally made a decision – doubtless a bad one, but it’s done now.

Religion, Uncategorized

Routine disrupted. Will I survive?

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Photo credit: Daiga Ellaby. Unsplash+ license.

Free associating tonight. I’m reading a new Michael Koryta book, which I’m enjoying a lot, but it will take a day or two to finish it. I could look for some music to post, but perceive no cranial lightbulbs in that area.

I can’t imagine why anyone would care to know about this, but I’ve been breaking up my schedule a little lately. My custom from time immemorial has been to post at 6:00 p.m., my time, a while after I’d had supper. But tonight I have an appointment at that hour to talk on the phone, with somebody who’s supposed to be able to help me navigate the turbid waters of Medicare supplement plans. I’ve been working with the same company ever since I went onto Mandatory Old Folks’ Medical Welfare. (It does no good explaining to Leftists that the whole thing could probably be done more cheaply in a private system. Numbers are purely theoretical to the Left. They care not for mere numbers. They care about parading their compassion before men, through the vicarious machinery of government.) But that company has decided not to insure people in Minnesota anymore (one wonders why anyone at all would insure people in Minnesota under any circumstances), and I must find a new carrier.

So I’m posting early tonight.

On Mondays I’ll henceforth be posting early as a (new) rule, because I’ve gotten involved in a men’s Bible Study group at my church.

If you’re a normal, healthy person, you’ll have no idea how big a deal that is in my life.

I’ve been a shy guy ever since certain awful stuff (I’ll spare you the details) happened to me when I was about nine, transforming me from an outgoing, talkative child to a diffident, timid wallflower. I made a group of very close friends in college, and did musical ministry with them for several years. After we broke up as a group we grew apart, and I’ve been disappointed by the way almost all of them have changed their views. This has made me reluctant to make new Christian friends – I’ve conceived an irrational fear that I’m a bad influence (Despair.com used to have a poster that said, “The only consistent element in all your disappointing relationships is you”).

But I found that I fit in with this group of guys from the first evening. They’re not a solemn bunch, though solemn things get discussed. We tell, and appreciate, dumb jokes. They’ve given me space to participate in the meetings as I feel comfortable, and to hold back where I don’t.

I had not expected this. I’ve grown paranoid in my old age, and the two years of Covid quarantine helped to cement that. It’s one of my misfortunes (or sins) that I handle solitude pretty well. I feel lonely from time to time, of course, but I always reflect that I’d rather be lonely than threatened and bullied, and threatening and bullying is what I expect from my fellow man. Better to be safe than sorry. I’ve been attending this church for a good decade now, I think, but I’ve always just attended Sunday services and scooted for the door. Better to remain a stranger, I figured, than to subject my Christian brethren to my baleful acquaintance. I’d likely offend them, or look like a fool. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that they won’t like me.

The men’s Bible study has neatly punctured this defensive presumption. What the long-term consequences may be remain to be seen. I will certainly not be rushing into anything.

Still, it’s nice to have some nearby friends again.

I seem to recall something in the Bible about not neglecting gathering together.