Happy Birthday, Opa

Tomorrow, December 18, is my Swedish grandfather's birthday. He died in 1980 at the ripe old age of 90. I still miss him, although he would never understand what I am doing on the farm. The farm was what he left behind to make a new life in America. He arrived in Brooklyn and stayed there the rest of his days on earth. Opa learned carpentry and became a union carpenter. He was more of a daddy to me than my father. I can still hear his Swedish accent. He loved to watch the news on TV. His favorite news reporter was Jim Jensen ("Yim Yensen.") Knut Birger (BEER-yer) Alexanderson was the tenth child in the family, born on the farm in Sweden. Babies were birthed in the sauna, the cleanest place on the farm as it was periodically steamed. He came here after a few of his brothers and sisters went over to the "other side." Before he settled in Brooklyn for good, he travelled the American west, working the harvests in Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota. He was a strapping big man, and would make money staging bare knuckle prize fights. Opa taught us just where to put your back pack while jumping on a freight train going 40 miles per hour. I wish I listened harder to his stories, or recorded them for posterity. He was a mischievous young man in his native Sweden and told us stories about the nasty neighbor farmer with no sense of humor. Opa and his friends hoisted his wagon up into a tree so the neighbor would come out in the morning and find it swinging from a limb. One cold night they peed on his windows so it would freeze in yellow streaks! Opa told me he bumped into a ghost one night - a cold blast of wind that almost knocked him over. That was the first time I heard a personal testimonial about the supernatural. When young Knut (who preferred to be called Birger) had sown his wild oats he came back to Brooklyn and fell in love with a Swedish girl, Elin Johnson. She had emigrated with her two sisters, Anna and Hannah. They were too young to get married without their parents' permission, and they were back in Sweden. My Aunt Margaret was born out of wedlock and was taken to Sweden to be raised by her grandparents. By the time my father was born Elin and Birger were married and went to Sweden to pick up Margaret. She would always say the seven years in Sweden were the happiest of her life. When my father became a New York City policeman, the family had "arrived" in America. Their son was a civil servant - they were part of the system. Opa never allowed Swedish to be spoken in the home...I just heard whispers in the kitchen. He was so proud to be an American and Swedish was part of the old country they left behind. When the Depression hit Opa refused any kind of public assistance. They tightened their belts and made do. Whenever we went to visit 749-50th Street in later years, Opa had a white shirt and tie on. Coffee was always served on a white tablecloth. I grew up thinking all coffee was made by boiling grounds in the pot and letting them settle before you pour - cowboy style. Opa died when I was pregnant with my twins. His last words to me while on his death bed were, "Babies are wonderful, but only poor people have flocks of them." I have flocks of sheep and goats instead.