This was the day of my annual meeting with my primary care provider, Chris Stenseth, NP, at the the VA. "No" he said "I don't know of relatives in South Dakota but I was born in Oslo, Norway." This was in response to my inquiry referencing my German teacher at Augustana College, now University, Frau Stenseth.
While I passed the required two years of German the experience was a clear indication that I did not have a future in foreign languages. Had Augustana offered Norwegian classes at the time that would have been my choice. Both my parents spoke Norwegian but their dialects were so different that they didn't easily communicate with each other. My mother said when dad spoke to his mother in Norwegian she could barely understand them. In our home they used Norwegian to keep secrets from the children. When they spoke Norwegian to each other in our presence we'd ask if we could go along, assuming a trip to town was planned.
When I visited Norway I'd try to recall what little Norwegian I knew and all that would come to mind was German. That was funny for a couple of reasons. First, I didn't think, that after 25 years, I remembered any German. Second, in German class at Augustana Frau Stenseth would say to my efforts at speaking German, "Negstad, you're not speaking Norwegian!"
Apparently I passed my physical at the VA because Stenseth said "See you next year." I replied "Tak skal du ha." and he "værsågod".
Takk for alt,
Al
Today's random; the opera house, Oslo, Norway.
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