Acknowledgements

I want to thank my wife Kay for her love, encouragement, help, and support for this writing project, and most importantly being part of my journey.

Preface

I was born in northern Minnesota as part of the baby boom generation. My ancestors were Finnish and Norwegian, and there was a large Finnish community in my hometown. Having been raised on a dairy farm, I was told that many Finnish children were actually born in the sauna because it was the cleanest room on the farm. I wasn’t. I was born in a hospital. It was June 1950, and it was snowing.

The original homestead sauna where my aunt was born

My dad was raised on the same farmstead and lived there until he was sixty-five years old, but I never knew him when he was young. That is because he never told me much about his younger years, barring a few select stories that I wasn’t all that interested in listening to at the time. It often seems that when we do want to listen to those stories when we are older, it’s too late. I didn’t want that to happen to my own children and grandchildren. So before my arteries harden and plaques and tangles begin to accumulate in my brain, here is what I remember. Most, if not all, is 100 percent true with maybe a little embellishment, and some of the names have been changed to protect my accomplices in some of the stupid acts of my youth.

This book chronicles my experiences during my early years on the farm through high school, college, and my subsequent military service during the Vietnam War. I have broken up the chronology into a series of sometimes-humorous short stories with themes that illuminate my first quarter century. These themes cover the spectrum from shoveling cow manure to delivering classified material in the Pentagon, Washington, DC.

For my children and grandchildren