Seattle, WA; Summer heat is gone, clouds and rain arrive, 70 degrees, overcast.
Spent most of the last two days in consultations. Retell my medical history to where I can tell it by heart. First cancer diagnosis, 1998. Tumor on the side of my tongue; surgery at Oregon Health Science University Friday the 13th of November, 1998. Removed more than 1/4 of my tongue and sewed it back together; removed 17 lymph nodes from the right side of my neck. Fortunately, no sign of cancer outside the tongue. Start to learn how to speak all over again, could preach within 6 weeks, no chemo or radiation. April 2006 diagnosed with non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Began a four year process of chemo, radiation, radioactive isotope therapy, and then more chemo,radiation and now, I'm here for a stem cell transplant. It seems like I just keep going in a medical circle that never stops. Coming to Seattle is taking a significant risk in stopping the merry-go-round, you just can't guarantee where it will let you off. It most likely will leave us in remission with a successfull long term cure, but it can also lead to serious complications and even death 3-5% of the time. By the grace of God and the power of so many prayers, we will leave here whole and on the road to long term health.
Late Fall, Little Knife River Country School, Mercer County, North Dakota 1957
Having worn out my welcome at the Lapla Country School near Beach, North Dakota, my parents decided it would be best for me and my mother, Ruth, if I would go live with her in a trailer house next to the Little Knife River School where she was the solo teacher. Mom was a complex person. She had grown up in Albia, Iowa most of her life. Her father Archie, died in the flu epidemic of 1918 when whe was only 6 years old and they were living on the South Dakota prairie to alleviate her asthma symptoms. She had a certificate authenticating her claim to have lived in a sod house, which I can't imagine was the best for a child with asthma, but she was awfully proud of that heritage. She always told the story about an Indian Medicine Man who saved her life with a special tea-like drink while she was having an asthma attack. Truth or fable, it made for a good story, unfortunately, her father died when she was still a child and it had a significant impact on her emotional and relational well being.
Returning to Iowa, my Grandmother, "Ma'am", as we always called her, enrolled in Drake University and left Mom and her younger brother Bob, with her parents in Albia and she went off to College to become a teacher. She received a Lifetime Teaching Certificate from Drake and was hired by the Albia School District where she taught in the same building for 42 years until her retirement. She was also a great student of the Bible and was often asked to teach adult christian education classes in the local Disciples of Christ Church. Her stature in Albia was profound, having taught 3 generations of students, and she set an example for all of our family to see higher education as the only escape from poverty and tragedy. Sadly, she didn't do such a great job preparing our mother for life outside of Albia, Iowa.
Mom graduated as Valedictorian of her High School class before she was 17 years old and somehow went to visit a friend or relative in Wibaux, Montana that very summer. Somehow she ran across my Father's sister Beatrice, who introduced J.O. and Ruth and it went downhill from there. She had never been away from home much and probably hadn't had any dating experience, being the daughter of such a prominent educator. She loved to dance, however, and fell madly in love with a wickedly charming and bored norwegian farmer's eldest son. Grandma Peterson could smell trouble a long way off and tried to keep them apart by locking my father in his upstairs bedroom, but love or something like it could not be restrained and they ended up getting married in Wibaux, MT by mistating both of their ages, with, of course Aunt Bea's unfortunate complicity and signature as witness. In addition to the unapproved wedding, there was also the little problem of an unexpected pregnancy. They moved into the Peterson Farm home about as welcome as a cockroach in a kitchen. My Grandmother Peterson had the rather cruel habit of speaking Norwegian to everyone in the house, just to remind Mom that she was an outsider, and totally unwelcome and unworthy. In the 1930 official government census, my mother is listed as a "domestic" in lieu of a member of the family. My parents would move to Iowa to be closer to my mother's family and escape the unbearable stygma of their nuptials. The baby, Mary Lou, died of course. But it didn't stop my parents from having 12 more children, I being officially the 13th; 11 of whom survived infancy and the chaos of our lives. Our mini-clan would wander from Iowa, back to North Dakota, out to Idaho during WWII and then back to North Dakota to once again live on the Ancestral Homestead. By this time Grandpa and Grandma Peterson had bought a house in town, so we didn't have to live together. My sister Kathy was born in Beach, North Dakota in 1948 and I was born there June 30, 1951.
When I was 4 years old my mother followed in my Grandmother's example and sought to fulfill her dream of going to College and becoming a teacher like "Ma'am". She enrolled in Dickenson State Teacher's College in Dickenson, North Dakota the Fall of 1955 and graduated the Spring of 1957 with a teaching certificate from the State of North Dakota. The only job she could obtain was the solo teacher of the Little Knife River Country School 40 miles SW of Beulah, Mercer County, North Dakota. She packed up food and clothing and set off for a new life in order to help keep the financial wolves at bay to whom we were hopelessly indebted in Beach. The Little Knife River School Board provided a two room trailer house next to the school for her to live in and she began a successful teaching career. When I had begun to wear out my welcome at the Lapla School, my parents decided that I would be better off going to live alone with my mother and so I transferred to the Little Knife School and moved into the trailer next door. It was a great help to my mother to have someone else from the family living with her, and I ended up helping with some of the chores and work around the school.
It seems like first days in any school seem to be difficult for me. By the time my mother came and transported me out to the prairie school, winter had started to rear it's ugly head and there was snow on the ground that first day. During the first recess, all the other children asked me if I would like to join them in a special game of follow the leader with hands joined together. Being the youngest in the group, I was appointed to be last in line and they began to go in an ever-tightening circle until I was catapulted by centrifugal force into a snowbank. ?Than was the original intention from the beginning. With that "special" welcome from my fellow classmates, I tried to keep from crying or trying to explain to my mother why I was covered in snow. Life with mother turned into a routine of getting up by 5 am to start the potbellied coal stove in the schoolhouse, so we wouldn't freeze to death in 40 degrees below zero weather and listening to a very small collection of archaic records on a primitive record player the school provided. My most memorable recollection of that school year was sitting in with the older classes for most of my instruction and hitting another student over the head with a baseball bat one day in May during lunch hour. I was in possession of the bat and this other person was in possession of the ball and when my request for the ball was flat denied, I did what any self respecting descendant of Vikings would have done, I hit the kid "fairly lightly" over the head, which did result in my obtaining the baseball so I could hit fly balls to the other boys. Unfortunately, it also resulted in the aforementioned student stumbling into the school house with minor head trauma, with bleeding, and my being carried by my right ear up the steps of the schoolhouse by my infuriated mother, who proceeded to give me an old fashioned spanking that I never forgot. We were only at the Little Knife Country School for one academic year and my mother obtained a better paying job teaching 5th grade in the Watford City Elementary School, Watford City, Mckenzie County, North Dakota.
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