A correction and other responses
John E. Peterson
Originally published 01:38 p.m., January 10, 2008
Updated 01:38 p.m., January 10, 2008
Those of you who read my columns know that I like your responses very much. You know that because I regularly share responses with you. We will do that again in this column, if I have my way.
Sometimes, those responses are critiques or corrections of a mistake I have made. That is the case with the first response which I shall share with you. This correction came from my marvelous critic of 62 years, my wife, Merle. I would be happy to have her criticize and correct me for another 62 years.
Two columns back, I wrote about Christmas stories. One story had to do with our Christmas of 1965 in Sweden. I had told how our Swedish friends had arranged to have two young women come into our apartment early on Christmas morning. Well! My memory was way off. It actually went like this, I am told.
There was only one young lady and she came in on the early morning of Santa Lucia Day. That would be December 13. It is a Swedish tradition and is called the Feast Day of Lucia. It is a festival of light. Our Swedish friends, Borje and Thyra Noren, had arranged with Merle to leave our door unlocked on that morning. Their daughter came in with a crown of lights on her head. The tradition was for the oldest daughter to do that and serve breakfast to the parents. She brought us bread and coffee.
The Norens saw that we did some other Christmas things. They invited us to their house on Christmas Eve for the “dip in the pot” custom. We ate bread dipped in broth and other things. They introduced Merle to an “apple sticker,” a wooden stick on which an apple is put. And to a wooden piece with four holes in it. Candles of four different lengths were placed in the holes and one, the longest one first, was lit each week before Christmas. We did that in our place.
We also participated in a downtown lottery. The proceeds went to charity. Eels, which the Swedes love to eat, were prizes. So were other things and Merle won a pound of coffee. And we went over to Copenhagen to see the Christmas decorations there.
So! My memory of that wonderful experience has been corrected and a bit sharpened. Thank you, Merle. I hope I have written it all correctly this time. I would have, if I had my way.
Now that I have made my correction, I can go to some other responses. We are now having our evening dinner quite regularly over at the Manor. One of the four people we usually sit with is Ruth Thomsen. Just after I sat down at the table one evening, Ruth leaned toward me and told me that she must tell me something.
She had just had a phone conversation with a longtime friend in Lamont. Her friend gets The Gazette and reads it regularly. She mentioned one of my columns. Ruth told her that she knew me and that we usually sat at the same table at dinner. Her friend told her that she must tell me how much she liked my columns. Ruth told her she would. And she did. Thank you, Ruth. Great for my ego to know that I am read in Lamont.
Gaylen Neufeld, longtime friend, was a biology professor here at ESU and chair of the department for some years. On retirement, he and Loretta moved to Hesston to be back in Mennonite country and closer to their relatives.
They drove over to Emporia for a visit a couple of weeks before Christmas and Gaylen stopped in to my office for a visit. Among other things, he told me that they get The Gazette and, hence, he kept in touch with me via reading my columns regularly. He liked them, he said. Thanks, Gaylen.
Imagine that. A lady in Lamont, about 28 miles to the southeast of Emporia, reads my trivial columns. So does Gaylen Neufeld in Hesston, about 70 miles to the west. Wow!
As I said above, we generally have our evening meal over at the Manor. I have received many comments about my columns when over there. For example, on a Thursday evening when my column had appeared, four lovely ladies stopped by my table on their way out. They all said wonderful things about the column they had just read before dinner.
On another evening, Sharon Linehart stopped by to tell me how much she liked my column, particularly those about education. She is a retired teacher and the daughter of Tom and Lois Starkey, with whom we share the dinner table, and had come to visit them.
One evening, Mark Yenzer stopped by and asked if I had been on vacation. He had not seen one of my columns for a while, he said. I told him it was Wednesday and he would see one tomorrow. Good, he said.
And many other people at the Manor have said things about my columns. Some have said something and then said I would keep writing it, if they had their way.
There, then, are some of my recent responses. I like them very much. You would keep making them, if I had my way.