A Town Called Isle

Jerome V. Lofgren

Description

A collection of unusual short stories of small Minnesota town life in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.
Isle was once in the center of a huge white pine forest that stretched from southeastern Wisconsin to the Canadian border and beyond. When the timber companies finished clear-cutting the land in the 1880s and 90s the railroad companies sold it to the poor immigrants of northern Europe who were told that if the land could grow trees it could grow crops. It took three generations to learn otherwise.

In these stories you will discover people who came across the ocean from Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Germans and French were there too. As well as the Poles and Finns and Russians. These were the first people to grub out the tree stumps and pick the rocks to clear the fields and plant the crops that grew so poorly in the sandy soil.

Within these grand sweeps of history people came, lived and died in Isle. These are their stories, written so the young strangers who reside in present day towns like Isle will know of the giants that had gone before them.

Sujets

• Vie de famille
• Parentalité et Éducation des Enfants
• Biography
• Grandparent
• Ice fishing
• Autobiography
• Life
• Grandson
• Death

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 22 juillet 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781469776347
• Langue: English

Extrait

Previously published works by
the author:
NARY A NOSE NOR TAIL —Novella (Capper’s—1996)
Grandfather—Grandson adventure story.
NOT ALL SPIRITS ARE OF GOD —Arctic adventure novel
Charlie Frankson, Inupiat Shaman
SUQUAMISH —A Native American mystery.
SEARCHING FOR JACK LONDON —Historical Novel.
A biography of Jack London.
KRISTINA —Historical novel (Civil War)
A female Johnny Reb
MONTSEGUR —Historical novel
The massacre at Montsegur, France in 1244 AD.
A TOWN CALLED ISLE
A collection of short stories
 
 
A Town Called Isle
 
 
A collection of short stories
 
 
JEROME V. LOFGREN
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Writers Club Press
San Jose New York Lincoln Shanghai
 
A Town Called Isle
A collection of short stories
 
All Rights Reserved © 2002 by JVL Alaska, Inc.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in
writing from the publisher.
 
Writers Club Press
an imprint of iUniverse, Inc.
 
For information address:
iUniverse, Inc.
5220 S. 16th St., Suite 200
Lincoln, NE 68512
www.iuniverse.com
 
ISBN: 0-595-23969-2
ISBN:978-1-4697-7634-7 (ebook)
 
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Introduction  
NARY A NOSE NOR TAIL  
JUST ANOTHER HOMELESS BUM  
THE SNAKE  
THE STIFF THAT SAT UP  
THE HOG  
THE FIGHT  
BIG FOOT OF THE YUKON  
MUFFY  
THE WHITEFISH ARE RUNNING!  
IT’S ONLY A DOG  
THE DOCKS WERE FLYING THAT DAY  
THE LETTERS OF MAGNUS OLSON  
SUNDAY,SEPTEMBER 16, 1951  
SUNDAY,MARCH 16, 1952  
SUNDAY,JULY 20, 1952  
SUNDAY,SEPTEMBER 21, 1952  
SUNDAY,DECEMBER 28, 1952  
SUNDAY,APRIL 19, 1953  
SUNDAY,JUNE 21, 1953  
SUNDAY,AUGUST 16, 1953  
SUNDAY,SEPTEMBER 20, 1953  
SUNDAY,NOVEMBER 29, 1953  
SUNDAY,MARCH 21, 1954  
SUNDAY,JUNE 13, 1954  
SUNDAY,JULY 25, 1954  
SUNDAY,MARCH 20, 1955  
SUNDAY,OCTOBER 16, 1956  
SUNDAY,JANUARY 1, 1957  
SUNDAY,APRIL 21, 1957  
SUNDAY,JUNE 23, 1957  
SUNDAY,JANUARY 1, 1958  
SUNDAY,JANUARY 1, 1959  
SUNDAY,JANUARY 22, 1961  
 
This book is dedicated to the memory of Hannah and Mag-nus Olson
 

 
Can you find Isle?
 

Introduction
The Town Called Isle no longer exists. Not long ago even the railroad came and took up it’s tracks. The people I knew as a youth in the 30s, 40s and 50s are gone by death or to nursing homes where they mumble away their days to people long gone. There was a big hill behind the Lutheran Church beside the bay. It was to that hill when in the January snows kids from all around the town came dragging their sleds with trepidation at the anticipation of the mad dash down its steep grade. They knew that their hearts would thump with each bump of the sled and breaths were held in abeyance until they skidded to a stop far below. But alas over the years that hill has shrunk to a mere knoll. Distances have also shrunk. The long walk home along the railroad tracks to our small farm south of Isle seemed like miles back then, but now it is but a few blocks.
Strangers currently populate Isle. Well, that’s not completely quite true. When I made a visit a few years ago I did encounter a High Scholl classmate at the local bakery. She was friendly of course but when I gave her a warm hug of greeting she quickly pushed away and hurried back behind the counter to tell a friend of my return. I don’t know whether I impressed her or embarrassed her. When I was growing up in Isle hugging was out of my character. Perhaps I aroused erotic feelings within her, perhaps not. You never know about the Isle people. Expressions of emotions were frown upon in Isle. Perhaps it is the Scandinavian heritage; perhaps it is the hard veneer placed upon the survivors of the barren rocky ground. Perhaps it was the influence of the Baptists who feared emotions a little less than sex, at least in public. What went on behind the green doors is grist for other stories not included in this collection. Perhaps I will gather those stories in another book.
Everyone’s hometown is a very special place, be it of revulsion or fond memories. Because of the bleak prospects in Isle most young people were forced to seek their fortunes elsewhere. High School reunions consist for the most part of men and women returning from distant places to view the relics of their past and to secretly thank God they had the sense and opportunity to leave when they did. What of those who remained in Isle, who married locals and raised their families and now have grown old before their times?
Yes, it is true that you can never go home again because home as you remember it no longer exists if ever it did.
Enjoy these stories from the past and remember if you can.
Jerome V. Lofgren August 2002.
NARY A NOSE NOR TAIL
Lake Mille Lacs had gripped him from his youth, held him tight to her festering bosom. It lay like an open sore in north central Minnesota, round and large. The lake was so large he couldn’t see the opposite shore. It was so large that during the Great War he stood patriotic watch for the periscopes of Nazi U-Boats. He imagined they had been smuggled from Hudson Bay through Canada into his small ocean and by means of miraculous periscopes intended to spy on the top secret Norden bombsight factory in Minneapolis, one hundred miles away.
She was unpredictable and moody; serene and calm on a midsummer evening allowing the setting sun to kiss her satin breast and then before morning she would be dancing white in a fit of temper. Deep in winter, locked beneath a foot of ice, she would moan and heave to break loose, pleading with Great Zeus to send the screaming banshees to tear away her white shroud.
Throughout the night ice crystals had been pecking against the cabin window as the banshees shook the house and moaned in the eves. A cold chill raced through Hannah Olson’s enormous body in spite of the long flannel nightgown and the down comforter of her feather bed. Her grandmother had first told her about them and she knew first hand that banshees did exist, those female spirits who wailed outside a house as a warning that a death would soon occur in the family. She had heard them the night she gave birth to a blue son, who never drew a breath. She had been alone in the small log cabin in the mountains outside Vagan, a small fishing village in Norway’s Lofoten Islands. Her new husband had gone into the village to fetch a midwife. In her weakened condition Hannah had staggered out into the cold, dark night to set the poor thing on a snow bank surrounded by pine trees so that the banshees could take its soul back to heaven. Oh, yes, she knew them well, as well as her husband knew his spirit companions.
The old woman had been huddling beneath her down comforter listening to the howling wind and the pecking ice crystals for more than an hour when her husband rolled over and snuggled against her. The old woman was big boned, of solid Norwegian stock, tall and stout; while her husband was a small man, a full head shorter than she. He had a wiry body, lean, sinewy, and strong, the body of a fisherman.
“You’re not going to take the boy out today, are you?” She asked softly.
“I promised the boy that today we’d go fishing.”
“Don’t you hear the wind outside? We promised his mother we’d take good care of him.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of Yerri.”
“I’m afraid…I don’t want you to go out on the ice today.”
She could feel his hand tighten on her breast as his body stiffened with determination.
“I’ve been a fisherman for over sixty years. Why are you afraid today?”
She stroked the back of his head the way she had done it a thousand times or more over the years, an intimate bonding they’d never failed to do each morning before beginning a new day. It was something they had started the morning after they were married back in Norway. His hair had grayed and thinned but for a sixty-eight year old man he was full-headed, with the mane of a lion.
“I had a terrible dream last night. I saw the boy sliding down through a long black tunnel. He cried for me to help him. I reached out but I was too slow. He disappeared into the blackness.”
“Just an anxiety dream, nothing more. I won’t let anything happen to him.”
The sound of their intimate stirring brought a towhead peeking around the open doorway. The old woman caught a glimpse of a blond head disappearing from the doorway.
She didn’t have long to ponder what the boy might have seen or how much he might have understood. How much could a boy of five understand about love between a man and a woman? Could he understand what it meant to her to be loved by the same man for thirty-six years?
The old woman was jerked back to the moment when the howling wind returned with greater fury, like an angry snow monster growling as it prowled for its prey.
She turned and put her arm around the old man and hugged him gently.
“Please don’t go out today,” she softly pleaded again. “Stay in…just this once.”
“I promised the lad that today I’d take him fishing and by God I will. A grandfather’s promise to his grandson is a sacred vow, not to be broken. If a grandson can’t count on his grandpa who can he count on?”
The old woman relaxed her grip. She knew it was pointless to argue further. Once he’d made up his mind there was no changing it; she knew that about him.