Oh, Beautiful for Spacious Skies

We like to think the people we love are made of steel. That they are stronger than anything that can take them from us. Strong like the tool used to carve letters into granite, “In Loving Memory.” Strong like the brass trumpet that plays slowly the twenty-four notes in Taps when a soldier is laid to rest. Strong like the heartbeat in our chest we cover with our hand during the twenty-one gun salute.

He was equal parts steel and grace. Steel like the Brooklyn Bridge in the city he grew up in, which is why when I visit part of me feels like I’m going home. Steel like a naval ship or the strings on his guitar. Graceful like the swan dives he used to do at the public pool. Graceful like his rower’s stroke down the Hudson. Or the way he used to read poetry during morning devotional at family reunions.

I feel him in the majesty of purple mountains and when we sing, “Oh beautiful for spacious skies.” When I sit across the table from my uncle who visits from Boston. Time has etched the lines on his face to look just like Grandpa’s. Or in moments like last Tuesday when I put my card in the machine to vote.

Maybe I’ve been waiting for strength. Or for the mound of dirt to go down. For grass to grow over the spot like a scar where they opened up the earth and put him in. With little daylight left, I drove up the hill. It took me a few minutes to find the marker. Brushing away a few dead leaves, I felt the letters with my hand. I bent down and stuck a small American flag in the soggy autumn ground.

You're the Top!

Happy birthday to these two.

Grandma is 91 today*. A few weeks ago I watched her do sit-ups at the gym. Shouldn't surprise me. This is the woman who had 11 children, flew planes, was licensed to drive semis and served two missions. Oh, and has a posterity that now reaches well into the triple digits. That's quite the family tree. I'm lucky to be a small part of it.

Thank you for reading "Winken, Blinken and Nod" in the upstairs bedroom before bed. Thank you for making hootenany pancakes and washing my face in the morning when I slept at your house. Thank you for making bridesmaid dresses and bags to carry my violin music in. For letting us ride backwards in the mint green Ford and for a freezer-full of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Thank you for lovely dinners on your ivy plates at the dining room table. For mashed potatoes, dup, and limpa bread and poems before dessert. For letting me watch Jeopardy with you and Grandpa in the family room. For introducing me to Doris Day and James Garner. Thank you for not getting angry when I broke your ostrich egg from South Africa. Thank you for teaching me where I came from. For Brigham City peaches. For bean bags and dress ups. For being a faithful blog follower. Thank you for teaching me to love art, summer days in Iowa, and pearl rings. Thank you for letting me sit on your lap in church and for teaching me that a measuring tape can entertain fussy children during sacrament meeting. Thank you for keeping the secret of a lifetime on June 25, 1991. Thank you for marrying Grandpa. Thank you for taking care of him. Thank you for the cabin and family reunions. Thank you for teaching me that family comes first and for being the reason my cousins are my best friends.

I love you, Grandma. You're the Top.

*Grandpa would have been 95 last week.

on the radio

While we remodeled our house we lived with my Grandma and Grandpa, across the street from our friend Emily. Emily was in junior high. She had a brother Jon, who was in high school. He wore khaki shorts and rugby shirts and watched MacGyver. His room was a never ending expanse of The Unknown: trophies and yearbooks high atop a shelf, a stereo with speakers bigger than our heads and, a water bed. Jon was the epitome of high school cool, and we knew it.

Emily, being related to Jon, was pretty cool, too. She taught us about the local radio station Q99 and told us that when you're in junior high you don't call your friend and ask if you can "play." Instead, you say, "Can you do something." Or "Do you want to hang out." My sister and I would listen to Emily's tales of junior high, wide-eyed and innocent, in shock that there were kids who would skip class to go smoke in the gully behind the school.

Sometimes, Jon would let us listen to his stereo. For those few moments, we seemed endlessly fly. When Emily came to play at Grandma and Grandpa's, we would steal the radio from the family room and plug it into the socket behind the sofa in front of the big window in the living room. One person was in charge of calling Q99 to request a song, usually Emily, because she had experience with that sort of thing. Indian-style on the wood floor, we'd perch on our elbows on our knees and wait. We'd turn the volume down low low low and stick our ears close to the speakers. I remember worrying Grandpa would find our little secret radio refuge, but it went undiscovered. I felt grown-up, a little mischievous and totally cool.

The Lot: a History

Each Christmas I'm excited by the amount of new good literature I get to add to my bookshelves. This year mom commented we're nearly out of room in the house, book bindings on colorful display in nearly every room. Late last night I rearranged a few things to make room for the books which now belong to my personal library. A big red-spined art book took its place prominently on the shelves in my bedroom. I'm pleased with its position alongside the thick green Robert A.M. Stern book that I received in 2004.

Perhaps of greatest literary treasure of late though, is the nine page piece penned by Grandpa some 22 years ago this Christmas simply titled, "The Lot." It outlines in greater detail than any other account (written or audible of which I'm aware) the acquisition and construction of one of my favorite places on the earth, a 3/4 acre of land up Weber Canyon. I've read it three times now, going over and over certain spots where Grandpa's writing seems to sing, his lyrics matching the mood of mornings spent in those mountains. I can still hear him whistle to the grandchildren down in the meadow by the swings, ushering us back up the hill for supper around the campfire. Of this spot he wrote:

"The carved wooden sign hangs on an inside wall of our cabin, in the canyon of the Upper Weber River in Summit County, Utah. In 'Spencerian Script,' or 'cursive' as the kids say, it reads simply, The Lot. You might think that such a sign should be on a tree or a post somewhere outside the cabin. But there it is, on the wall above the old green desk, under the open stairs to the lower loft. It reminds us that once there wasn't any cabin -- only The Lot.

"The ground there lies in a gentle slope, covered with a hundred or so quaking aspen, whose green, heart-shaped leaves tremble in the spring and summer breezes, until the autumn chill turns them to shimmering gold. Under the low winter sun, the tall, slender, gray-green trunks cast silent shadows across deepening snow. A few spruce and fir trees provide contrasting greenery during the shorter daylight hours from November 'til March. The night falls early; the darkness dispersed only when the sky is clear and the moon is up, or if one gazes upward to the myriad stars. April and springtime bring back the green of the trees and meadow and the longer hours of the sunshine, and the cycle of the seasons stars all over again...

"It is The Lot that stimulates the mind and refreshes the spirit. Sitting inside, it is the view to the outside that makes the sitting pleasurable. A fire in the evening and a good bed for sleeping afford comfort through the night. But in the morning, dawn brings the beautiful, graceful deer, quietly moving through the mountains and hillsides over across the valley, then the windows and walls on the north side of the cabin and finally floods The Lot with warmth and light.

There are from time to time mornings, both in summer and in
winter, when especially the world seems to begin anew...
The world has been visibly recreated in the night. Mornings
of creation I call them. (Henry David Thoreau, January 26, 1853)

"To experience the delight and the wonder of such a morning at The Lot is to know a special kind of personal re-creation. It is justification for ownership of such a place and vindication of all the work of fifteen years past -- and others yet to come."

Richard Forsberg Haglund, December 1987
photo by RCF, November 2009

fruitful fields and healthful skies

Thanksgiving started out rather predictable, the Yale Crew gathering for flag football on the front lawn of the church. It's the site where a few years ago J.J. and dad had a meeting of the minds, if you will. Dinner started two hours late that year after both had their heads stitched up. True turkey battle wounds. Dad's scar was still visible last night from across the table. We tried our hands and feet at rugby first, scrumming, running, falling, kicking, etc. but switched to football after K's chin nearly collided with the pavement. The girls were the victors this year. (We had numbers up, and a dad who decided to play for our team, but we'll take the credit.)

Dinner was followed by Charades while our tummies turned turkey and mashed potatoes to make room for dessert. It's hard to give out awards for the best inaudible performances. Steve's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," was rather memorable, the pinnacle being his facial expressions opening gifts under the Christmas tree. Then there was Mom's "The-Great-Gatsby-Sounds-Like-Cats-by" which had her down on the floor in a noiseless purr. I thought my one-woman-silent-show of "Romeo and Juliet" was rather moving, especially the poisoning scene, although it didn't buy us any extra time or points.

As long as we're giving out awards, I think Susan gets one for her caramel pecan pie, a bite of which I ate for breakfast this morning, amongst intermittent visits to the counter to snack on Grandma's pumpkin pie, a chart-topper year after year.

Football, potatoes, turkey and pie; family, friends and movies in the basement with full bellies -- there's much to be grateful for, and it's not just the feasting. This time of year I miss Grandpa the most -- when our thoughts turn to fortitude, and freedom, and thankfulness. His spot is much missed at the table. We spoke of Washington's and Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamations at dinner. And Dan Man recited "In Flander's Field" from memory, standing aside his Thanksgiving plate. I've included Lincoln's Proclamation below. (It's lengthy, but beautiful):

"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union." President Abraham Lincoln 1863

A Christmas Without

The table seemed empty, yet we had to cozy up to fit around the two tables, over-flowing into the living room. We were snug, on new dining chairs amidst Swedish food galore, a tradition which, after 100 years in the Haglund family, is still going strong. The J.H. Haglund boys are still going strong, too. Steven is nearly as tall as Michael (something J.J. is a bit upset about. And, I won't even start on Phillip, who boasts that, despite his lesser stature (he's still above 6'0"), his biceps are thicker than all of his brother's necks. He's right). J.J., Phil, Rich and I rounded out the end of the dining room table, leaving the adults to themselves in the living room. We talked of frat bros, studying abroad, girls, boys, and moving out (real grown-up stuff) as we munched on dup (traditional Swedish roast with sausage and gravy - delectable, if you ask me), goat cheese, flat bread, veggies galore and mashed potatoes to die for, each grabbing second and third plates.
Grandpa's spot sat empty, his patriarchal presence was all but unnoticed, yet we continued on with the rice pudding. R. called the boys in from the football game so we could dish up the rice and dish out the free verse. He was the right man for the job - four boys magically reappeared back at the dinner tables, ready for the rice. Dad and R. stole the show, as they always do, reciting the best on-the-spot poetry. Second place most definitely going to O, K and J, who gave the most darling of performances. Mine was short and sweet. Not even worth recording, but I think RCF got it on video nonetheless.
I love knowing that all over the country - from Chicago to Tennessee, from Irvine to Texas, Boston to Virginia, we all eat the same meal and we all participate in the same traditions: dup and potatoes, and no rice before impromptu poetry. So the years continue, as we think of Grandpa with fondness - He the one who fostered it all, carrying on from previous generations, Grandma at his side, mixing and mashing, spreading the table full of delicious Swedish food and wonderful decorations. God Jul!

Markings

Yesterday was full of family and feasting; recollections, recitations, Owen and Miles' violin renditions; gaming and much laughter. I can't help but think (know) that I come from the best family around. And, I've got 100 people to back me up on that!
Between turkey and pie, Grandma slid a hand-addressed envelope across the table in each of our various directions. Inside was a copy of a journal entry of Grandpa's, dated March 24, 1989. Matt was voice as he read Grandpa's account of "What of (himself) he owe(s) to others." Thought-provoking, patriotic, and tender were his responses. Few of us were dry-eyed by the time Matt reached the bottom of the page. We, too, felt "a sense of joy in togetherness." Such joy is an emotion fostered by Grandma and Grandpa. I've gone on to make my own list of "what of myself I owe to others" - it's full of things I owe to my sweet Grandparents, two I am forever grateful for.