Short story 13 april 2022

Short story 13 april 2022

John Bjarne Grover

In 1964-65 - my first year in school - the family lived in Volda, in a small green house just visavis the main entrance to the hospital (like in Odda). We could just go across the street and down on the parking lot - where I learnt to bicycle, for example. The foot of the hospital building, where it ran into the asphalt of the parking lot, was water insulated with pitch which on hot summer days was so hot one could leave the toeprints there ('inni kanten'). Pitch = 'bek', on the other side of the house ran a creek = 'bekk'. There was the lawn around the house and across the creek lived the old man called Kavli who had a nice garden with flowers. He built bottleships.

Once grandfather Bjarne Eidsvig was there for a brief visit from Ålesund - it could have been on the national day 17 may or around those times. His wife Laura did the same some years later - in probably 1975 or 1976. Bjarne Eidsvig in Volda had a camera in a leathern futteral on which there was his name and address on red tape of the type which could be glued onto things - a smart apparatus allowed for turning of a wheel for printing one letter after another while the plastic tape progressed correspondingly and I think the letters were pressed like braille through the narrow plastic band and looked like white elevated letters on red tape (sort of opposite of the toeprints in the pitch). I think it was red, could be a little pale rusty red. An adhesive paper underneath could be removed and the tape pasted on items such as this camera futteral. I looked at it and it spelt his name and address - the name of his home town was spelt 'Aalesund', not the normal 'Ålesund', and I asked why - he said two A is the same as one Å. As far as I remember, this brief incident was just before we were going out - sort of half way between the bek and the bekk. He was quite brief and not so welcoming.

The reason why I tell this is not only that 'double A' could mean 'dobbel la' = 'double laid', as in a 'futteral' in the churchyard GAMLE GLEMMEN GRAVLUND where the official John Grøver was buried in a funeral in late 1990. I notice the possible 'Stinger-Javelin' associations to this graveyard name - it is also because this 'red tape' in theory could be the one mentioned in the british New Labour's election pledges 1997 mentioned in this file:

1. Cut class sizes to 30 or under for 5, 6 and 7 year- olds by using money from the assisted places scheme.
2. Fast-track punishment for persistent young offenders by halving the time from arrest to sentencing.
3. Cut NHS waiting lists by treating an extra 100,000 patients as a first step by releasing 100 million saved from NHS red tape.
4. Get 250,000 under-25 year-olds off benefit and into work by using money from a windfall levy on the privatised utilities.
5. No rise in income tax rates, cut VAT on heating to 5 per cent and inflation and interest rates as low as possible.

(Source The Times). One can spot the 30666 of Cole in #1 and maybe the 'revelation' of Madonna Kursk in #2 in the halving of time. The 'red tape' is in #3 - and it is not impossible that the 'young offender' in #2 could have been associated with me asking why those two A's. The 'windfall levy' - could it have been associated with the 'dok-torv-eske'? But clearly these are rather farfetched associations to an extremely small story from 1964 so it is probably not likely to be much relevant. But the concept of 'spin-doctorism' was around in London in late 1997.

'Costa Concordia' lay in the water with a list of at least 45 'dia' degrees for a long time - cp. 'o staur-on-dia'. Is there always a 'double-a' in the beginning scene of the ukrainian TV series 'Servant of the people'?

Today the area of the little green house seems to be totally rebuilt but I believe we could look down 'Sjukhusvegen' ('sjukhus' = 'hospital', not the same as 'sju-kus') when we went out the entrance door - this street would have gone nearly up to our house.