Got up, dim and early, to be in place to deliver my PowerPoint lectures on the 793 AD Viking raid on Lindisfarne, and on the conversion of Norway. I spoke to a small class of seminary students. They did not break into uproarious laughter at my jokes, nor did they weep at the profundity of my wisdom. But they didn’t laugh me out of the room, either. Which is something, in the greater scheme of things.
A nice thing that happened was that, as I was lecturing, I suddenly discovered connections between the two lectures I’d never noticed before. These talks were conceived separately, but I found previously unnoticed ways they fit together.
I love it when ideas fit together.
Of course, that’s also to be expected when you’re a monomaniac.
Just before I left for the seminary, I got an email telling me I’d gotten the translation job from the filmmaker to whom I’d been referred recently. The referral came from someone to whom I’d previously been referred. So now I’ve got referrals at two removes. I think that qualifies as word of mouth. Some measure of business success.
The job isn’t huge, but it has a more imminent deadline than I’d expected. I’ve still got plenty of time to finish it, but this adds an element of dramatic tension to my days. And I suppose that’s not a bad thing, for a phlegmatic guy.
There should be a picture at the top of this post, showing me lecturing in my Victorian frock coat. But I didn’t think to have one taken. You’ll have to imagine it for yourself. This old photo of Boss Tweed should help.
The drive to Madison, Wisconsin runs between four and five hours, not counting gas and food breaks. That seems like a long drive to me in my old age, but I handled it. My chief concern was on-board entertainment, since the loaner I’m driving has no working stereo. I finally settled on buying an audio book from Amazon, and listening to it through earphones, on my Fire tablet. Worked OK, once I figured out how to start the reading at the beginning of the book. The Amazon people, like any good pushers, give you the first taste free, so I got a book I’d read already, Jørn Lier Horst’s Dregs. I’m glad I got a book I was familiar with, because sometimes one gets distracted (by Google Maps directions, for instance), and there’s no easy way to repeat text with your hands on the wheel. But all in all, a successful experiment.
As I mentioned last week, I’d been operating on the assumption that I was going to be lecturing on Saturday, then discovered it was really Friday. So I had to adjust my plans and rearrange my hotel reservation. That lost me any opening in the hotel where the meeting was, but I got a room just up the road. Within walking distance…. As if I was going to walk, with five cartons of books to carry, plus PowerPoint equipment.
The meeting was the Tre Lag Stevne, held every two years by a coalition of three Norwegian-American bygdelags. Bygdelags are associations of descendants from particular regions of Norway. Genealogy is one of their big activities. I’d spoken to them about Vikings, two years back in Alexandria, Minnesota.
This year the theme was the emigration period, including the Haugean evangelical movment. One of the organizers remembered that I came from Kenyon, Minnesota. He contacted me, saying he’d always been curious about the Old Stone Church, located between Kenyon and Faribault. Did I know anything about it? Indeed I did. The Old Stone Church (built around 1877) was the original building of my home congregation, Hauge Lutheran in Kenyon. On top of that, I grew up on a farm precisely 1.5 miles south of the old building. I had much to say on the subject, some of it pertinent.
Thus my lecture was outside of my usual wheelhouse, but I believe it went well. The audience was attentive, and they laughed in the right places. There were many questions afterward, and a lot of compliments. Book sales were good, but not spectacular as they were the last time I spoke to the three Lags. No real surprise there; you almost never do as well fishing the same waters a second time. But I made enough, along with my honorarium, to make a small profit on the trip – assuming I don’t price my time very high. Which I generally don’t.
On the way home, I had one very pleasant surprise. It’s my custom to eat at established franchise restaurants when traveling, purely out of timidity. I’ve had enough bad meals in small cafes to be leery of them – which, I imagine, has lost me as many good meals as bad ones over the years. But I pulled off the highway near Menomonie, thinking I’d find gas and a Culver’s at that exit. I got the gas, but it was the wrong exit for the Culvers’. So, being tired, I decided to take a chance on the café attached to the gas station. I wanted something resembling a genuine meal, not a burger and fries, so I gambled on the daily special, the fish dinner. I fully expected a couple of those sad, flat, freezer-dried planks of breaded fish you see so often in rural cafes.
Instead, what I found before me (after a wait, but you have to wait everywhere these days) was fish entirely indistinguishable from Culvers’ North Atlantic Cod. Which is high praise indeed. And the fries and cole slaw were better than Culvers, in my epicurean opinion.
I’ll give them a plug. The Exit 45 Restaurant. Tell ‘em I sent you, just to confuse them.
Then I drove home and collapsed.
This next weekend, a shorter trip, but more complicated and packing heavier. The Crow Wing Viking Festival, near Brainerd, Minnesota.
Ah the adventurous life I live! And mostly from correcting my own mistakes.
I had it on my calendar that I was speaking to a meeting in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday. I made plans and booked a hotel room. Then I happened to look at the scheduling information this morning, and discovered I’m not speaking on Saturday, but on Friday. This required moving my travel plans up, and changing my hotel reservation. And everything I’d planned to do in a leisurely fashion, I must now rush so I can leave tomorrow morning.
I’m an obsessive, so I’m obsessing about all this a little.
Okay, I’m obsessing a lot.
Surprisingly (even to me), I’m not lecturing on Vikings this time. I’m lecturing on my home church. I’ll tell you about it on Monday.
Meanwhile, note to potential burglars: My house will not be empty. My renter will be here. They used to call him Psycho, in the joint.
It occurred to me more than once over the last few days (but never at a useful time) that I misled you last week. I told you I’d be gone Thursday and Friday, to do a lecture at a church school in Iowa. Then you doubtless came to this page in breathless anticipation of my absence, and there I was, reviewing as usual. Without so much as an apology.
I apologize.
What happened was the weather, something of which we have no lack in Minnesota. When I got up on Thursday morning, prepared to pack and go, I learned that several inches of icy snow were predicted that day. I didn’t like the sound of that – offhand, I can only remember one instance in my life when I actually spun out on a highway and ended up in the ditch, but I’m sure there must have been more. It’s a distressing feeling, like somebody inside one of those YouTube disaster clips, where you watch one idiot after another sliding their cars into one another on a slick, downhill street.
So I called the school and asked if we could reschedule. The pastor was amenable, and we moved it to Monday (today, in case you’re not certain after months in lockdown). Then I looked at the weather forecast, identified Saturday as a likely driving day, and moved my trip to then.
What happened subsequently in Iowa is that an almost identical storm blew up on Sunday night. So when I got up this morning, I learned that my car would have to be scraped off, and the highways were slick. Better leave early to compensate for slow travel.
I left about an hour and a half before showtime (the trip should have taken about 40 minutes), and drove like an old man (a clever ruse on my part). Road surfaces varied, but I opted for caution at all points. I still got to the school in plenty of time.
The lecture went well. The students pretended to be interested as I talked about the conversion of the Vikings in Norway, and even asked questions. Lots of questions.
My personal favorite question was, “Would you stop talking so we can look at your stuff?”
I smiled kindly and ignored the young man. The questions went on for some time, but finally they ended, and the students got a chance to examine my “stuff”: I had brought my helmet, sword and shield for them to peruse. Nobody, I am happy to report, attempted to kill anybody else with them.
Then back to where I was staying. It was past noon by now, and the sun had kissed the road surfaces, improving their general disposition. I drove home to Minnesota at normal speeds, and stopped off in Kenyon, my boyhood home, to examine the family cemetery plot for personal reasons. The grass was covered with about an inch of snow, but the stuff had melted off the granite marker stones so that they could be read. In case I’d forgotten who they were. Which I hadn’t. Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marcene whom I never knew, and Aunt Jean whom I knew very well indeed.
I stopped at the gas station where my dad used to buy most of his gas, and ran into an old high school friend. This gave me a chance to brag about “Atlantic Crossing” (I may not have mentioned it before, but I helped translate this excellent miniseries, coming to PBS Masterpiece this spring).
Now I’m home. It was nice to take a Viking trip of any kind at least once this summer. Thanks to Scarville Lutheran School for their hospitality. Also to my brother and his wife, for the bed and meals variety. Now all I need to do is unpack, which may take several days unless I work up some energy. I’ve taken road trips two weekends in a row now, and I’m not sure I can handle the wear and tear.
Artist’s conception of me addressing the Icelanders
It’s always nice to be asked back, even when you’re a semi-agoraphobic. So I was pleased to be asked to speak for the second year in a row at the annual “Icelandic Leifur Eiriksson Cod Dinner,” in Bloomington, Minnesota. This gala event (some of the best cod I’ve ever enjoyed) will be held at the Bloomington Event Center, 1114 American Blvd., Bloomington on Saturday, Oct. 13, at 5:30 p.m.
The deadline for reservations was Sept. 30, so maybe it’s too late to get in, unless you’re a popular celebrity like me. But you could contact Steingrimur Steinolfson at sicelander@aol.com and check.
It’s a cool opportunity to plug Viking Legacy, which concerns the Icelandic sagas sufficiently that it ought to interest the audience.
I’m moving a lot of copies of this book. It seems to be very well received.
“Wait!” you reply. Because you’re an intelligent and attentive reader, you seem to recall that I got back a little more than a week ago.
And you are correct, as always. But you know, there’s the physical journey and the spiritual journey. And my spiritual journey lasted through Saturday.
Which is a pretentious way of saying that I wasn’t able to get out of Viking Presenter mode, because I had two – not one, but two – last-minute lecturing gigs last week.
Which, incidentally, explains my blogging silence Thursday and Friday.
Thursday I lectured to a Sons of Norway lodge which happens to meet quite near my house. When I was setting up, I had a (biblical) Job Experience: “The thing which I have greatly feared has come upon me.” Continue reading PowerPoint chronicles→
