Heat Waves and Cold Showers. (Timeline: 1950s & 1960s, Present)

The recent heat wave, and the need to take frequent, cool showers, made me think of the summers in Denmark. The heating system and the hot water in our apartment building depended entirely on viceværten (literal translation: "Vice Landlord"; the closest in American terms would probably be "building super".) The building, which had 12 stairwells with 10 units in each, plus several businesses in the cellars, was heated via hot water radiators. The water in the radiators, as well as the hot water we bathed in etc. all came from a HUGE boiler in the cellar. There might have been several such boilers; I only remember the one; located close to our "opgang" (literal: "up walk"; i.e. stairwell). It was the job of viceværten to keep the boiler stoked with coal around the clock. Truckloads of coal were delivered frequently, and everything was set up pretty efficiently, at least by the methods available back then. All us kids were a bit afraid of viceværten; he'd holler at us all the time when we were playing in the open space in the center of the building.

Viceværten did not have a helper; at least not that I ever knew. We had the same man all the time I grew up, and he had a son named John, about my age. Of course viceværten had to have a vacation every year, so for an entire month every summer we had no hot water. The radiator was no problem in the summer, and we could always heat water on the stove to wash dishes and faces, but those showers! Brrrrrrr......

We didn't have a bathtub. The tiny bathroom consisted of a shower; a wash bowl, a mirror and a shelf for our tooth brushes etc. It had been retro-fitted in a corner of the kitchen before I was born, and since my family took showers often, we seemed to always have problems with the floor leaking. We had the floor redone several times that I can remember. The toilet was located off a corner of the bedroom, and was only a toilet; no wash bowl.



The above picture is from Microsoft Virtual Earth and shows my apartment building as it looks now. The half building shown on the right belonged to the same landlord, and I think was also serviced by our vicevært. The arrow shows the window to our living room. The windows in the kitchen and bedroom and the tiny one in the toilet all opened out to "gården"; the open space in the middle of the building. When I grew up, there was a huge "guldregn" (literal: Gold Rain") tree in the middle of gården; it was taller than the building! I am not sure what the American name for guldregn is, but here is a picture of a guldregn tree:

Circus Schumann. (Timeline: 1950 to 1964)

One more early horse memory was our annual visit to Cirkus Schumann, a family run circus which was headquartered in the middle of København, only a block or two from Tivoli Gardens. They would have daily shows all through the summer. They always had several numbers with horses, and their horses, other than an occassional pony, were all ARABIANS! Beautiful and smart ARABIANS! They did all sorts of neat stuff, like liberty drills where they would walk on their hind legs, walk sideways, walk with the front feet on the edge of the ring, dance, stand on a platform with the front and walk around the platform with the hind legs, etc. They would do "dressage", i.e. dancing while being ridden. They would do vaulting. The perforing horses were always stallions, and they would work alone or in teams. They had a white (grey) team and a black team, and a few bays. I particular remember one, named "Sabu". When I first noticed him he worked with the black team, but then he started turning grey, so for a few years he worked solo, before he turned light enough to work with the white team. So I was brought up believing that Arabians were intelligent and very trainable animals, rather than the flaky, nutso creatures they have a reputation for being here in the US. At the time I think the Cirkus Schumann Arabians were pretty much the only Arabians in Denmark. Never thought about it as a child, but I assume they came mostly from the studs in Poland and England.

There were of course all sorts of other acts; clowns, high wire walkers, trapeze acts, and all the other typical circus acts. One year they even had a couple of GIRAFFES, but the acts with the horses were always my favorites.



I found this pic on Google Earth. The Cirkus building still looks pretty much as I remember it, except for that awful purple "WALLMANS" placard.

An Audie Murphy Memory. (Timeline: 1965)

One of my earliest visits to Audie's house (I think my second time, but I am not sure), he told me he had a horse racing the next day. He also told me that his racing colors (the colorful shirts the jockeys wear) were gold and black. Being still new in this country, I didn't realize that there were races for horses other than Thoroughbreds, so I arranged to swap my next day off so I could go to the races the following day, for the first time in this country. So I headed to Hollywood Park.

Surprisingly enough, Hollywood Park is nowhere near Hollywood, which I didn't know at the time. I finally found it after having to change buses several times. Bought a program, which lists all the horses entered in each race, including jockeys, owners, racing colors, etc. No horses owned by Audie and no colors like what Audie had described. There was one with black and tangerine racing colors. No reference to Audie Murphy as the owner, but I assumed that the ownership was a pseudonym, for obvious reasons. No such luck!

A bit of a disappointment that I never got to see Audie's horse running, but I still managed to enjoy myself. I only found out later that Audie Murphy's race horses were all Quarter Horses, and they race at a different track than the Thoroughbreds.

What Audie Murphy meant to me. (Timeline: My Life)

In a way one might say that Audie Murphy's influence in my life started before I was born, though of course I didn't realize it at the time. My country, Denmark, was occupied by Hitler's troops during WWII. My father was a policeman and was therefore sent to a German concentration camp. If it hadn't been for Audie and all his brave fellow soldiers of the Allied Forces, who knows when, or even if, my father would have been released. One thing I have in common with the sons and daughters of a lot of policemen is that I was born just about 9 months after their release from the concentration camps. One of my friends as a teenager was a girl also named Eva, also a policeman's daughter, and born one day after me.

My first exposure to Audie was at a movie theatre. My mother and I went to a Saturday late night double feature. The second feature was 'Den Vilde Rytter' ('Cast a Long Shadow'). I was impressed with him, so when I had a chance a few weeks later to see him in another movie, I jumped at it. That movie was none other than 'Helvede Retur' ('To Hell and Back'), which was being shown as a limited re-release in one theatre in the center of Copenhagen. That did it for me! Not only was he a good actor, but he was a REAL hero, not just a pretend hero. AND he was also a horse lover like myself. I was determined to find out more about this fascinating person. I searched for information everywhere I could. I haunted libraries, newspapers, news agencies, and the film companies that released his movies in Denmark. One of the results of this search was a pretty substantial collection of pictures, both from the films and otherwise.

A couple of years later I had a chance to move to the United States. Through an agency I found a job as a mother's helper for a family in Whittier, CA. who had 3 boys aged 3, 4, & 6. Because of the waiting list it took 10 months for my visa to clear, but FINALLY, just before Christmas 1964, I was standing on American soil.

Thus it started. Now I was actually in the same city as this fascinating person. All I had to do was to find him. "Maps of Movie Stars' Homes" didn't help. SAG didn't help. Universal Studios didn't help. All I had was a picture of Audie and his two boys outside their home that happened to show the street number. Not the street name, only the number. Every week, on my day off, I would take the bus to a different area in Hollywood or Beverly Hills, walk through the streets looking for that house number and checking whether the house that bore that number looked anything like the corner of the house in the picture. At one point I wrote a letter to one of Audie's co-stars that DID have his home listed in the "Maps of Movie Stars' Homes", Dan Duryea, asking if he could help me in my quest. He sent back an autographed picture and a very nice letter, saying that he didn't have Audie's address, but believed he lived "somewhere in the Toluca Lake Area". This gave me a place to focus on. Finally, one day, I found it! The house had changed a lot, there was now a brick and wrought iron fence around it, but the corner of the neighbor's house still looked identical to the one in the picture. I went back home feeling pretty good, and determined to come back the next week when I wasn't all tired and dusty.

Finally the day came. You wouldn't believe the butterflies in my stomach. I had come 7,000 miles for this, walked I don't know how many miles for this, but the hardest of all was those last few feet up to that front door. I don't know where I got the courage, my knees were shaking. I told myself that he probably wouldn't be home. I told myself that he had probably moved since the picture had been taken. I knocked on the door, and THERE HE WAS! After stammering a bit I finally got up the courage to talk to him. This gracious person invited me into his home, introduced me to his family and the dog, showed me around the house, talked to me just as if I was his equal. I had brought a couple of small presents for him from Denmark. He seemed pleased. He asked me how I had found the house, so I showed him the picture and told him about all the walking.



We talked for a while, and then I decided I'd better head for home before I wore out my welcome. He gave me his phone number and told me I was welcome to come back any time.

I visited from time to time. Not really often, I didn't want to be too pushy. Sometimes he was out of town, so I visited with Pam. I remember one time I was there and he had left his saddle on the railing by the stairs. He was in Israel at the time, I believe working on a movie. (Hindsight tells me it must have been 'Trunk to Cairo'.) Pam had just left the saddle where he'd put it, not realizing that it was NOT an appropriate place for a saddle for any long period of time, the skirt was getting all bent up. Funny what sticks in one's mind. The saddle was tan and with a basket weave pattern.

When I had been in Whittier for close to 5 years, the family I was working for decided that their boys were old enough so they no longer needed a live-in babysitter / housekeeper / jack-of-all-trades. I don't REMEMBER mentioning it to Pam, but I must have, because Audie called and told me that some horsey friends in Ontario were looking for someone. He came up to the house to pick me up and we drove out to see the people. It was a big Thoroughbred farm. They said I could bring my 3 horses, they could use my Arab stallion as a teaser stallion. I didn't like that much, I don't think it is fair to a stallion to ask him to get all excited over a girl, only to see her walk over to fool around with another guy. Therefore, after some soul searching, I didn't take the job. That was the last time I saw Audie.

Soon after, I found a temporary job with some other horsey people, room and board only for helping with their horses. I had to take a factory job to feed my OWN horses. I struggled for a while, had no time or energy to go visiting. It was a rough period of my life.

One evening, after I had been out riding, my mare wouldn't eat her dinner. I sat in the car with the radio on, keeping an eye on her. That was when I heard that Audie's plane was missing. We all know how that came out. I clipped the notices in the papers, but I never read them, just packed them down with all the other stuff. I pushed everything away, refusing to face the fact that this man was gone forever. My pain was such that I couldn't even face his wife, so I never sent my condolences to her or the boys. How utterly, utterly selfish of me! I was thinking only of my own pain, rather than that of his family, who must have been suffering so many times worse.

I bummed around for a few years before I finally found a good profession and was able to stabilize my life again. The horses were always cared for though. I'd live off pork and beans and later rice and potatoes just so they could eat. I dragged the boxes with Audie's pictures and other stuff with me wherever I moved to, but I never opened them. For many years I couldn't even bear to watch his movies when they were shown on TV. Finally, almost 20 years after his death, I've been able to, and I now record his movies any time I get the chance.

It still hurts. When I wrote the above down for The Audie Murphy Research Foundation some years back I had a big box of kleenex right next to me; it was much needed at the time and my eyes are misting up again as I am going over what I wrote.

Note: If you click on the title of this blog entry, it will take you to the Audie Murphy Memorial Website.

High School Final Exams. (Timeline: circa 1962)

Most people cram for their exams. Me, I always went in cold; relying on memory from lectures. I particularly remember the Oral Exam in Physics. Since my last name starts with a "D" and they call us in in alpha order, I was the first one in. I drew the internal workings of the hand water pump. I was able to draw a creditable illustration while explaining how the different parts worked. It earned me an UG- (A-); the best grade in my class.




After I got back out to the waiting room I listened to the others grilling each other; mentioning several subjects I had NO CLUE about! Pure luck I went in BEFORE I overheard this, or I would have been nervous and probably not done as well, even on the pump, which I had down pat!

I have NEVER heard of anyone that got an A in oral exams in Denmark, and A+ simply doesn't exist, so in practice, the A- is the best grade possible in orals. One can get UG (A) in WRITTEN exams, as in Algebra, if one gets ALL the answers right, but not in oral, where the presentation counts as much as the technical knowledge. We are brought, one at a time, into a room with a blackboard, and there are 3 examiners there; your teacher of that subject and two teachers (I suppose) from other schools, neither of which you have ever met. Your grade is posted later, not while you are in the exam room.

I did equally well in math that year; drew a rather convoluted algebra formula. I just kept on blabbering as my mind churned, and wrote it all down on the blackboard as I went on. Arrived at the correct solution, obviously, and I didn't freeze at all, so I landed another UG-; again the best in my class. Math and Physics were always my best subjects.

Dunno what they do in Denmark now, but back then, the grades were UG ("usædvaneligt godt" i.e. A or outstanding), UG-, MG+, MG ("meget godt" i.e. B or very good), MG-, G+, G ("godt" i.e. C or average). There were several lower grades as well, but I don't remember them. The lowest grade I ever got on a report card (quarterly, and a parent had to sign it) was a G+ in Geography, and I was SOOOO mortified when I had to show it to my mother! It never happened again!

Memorial Day. (Timeline: 1971/2010)

Thank You, American troops and troops of all nations!



Especially remembering my personal hero, AUDIE MURPHY, who came through WW II as the most decorated soldier of that war, only to die in a plane crash on Memorial Day weekend many years later. He was a great influence in my life, and I am proud that I could call him "Friend". Audie is buried at Arlington.



The statue of Audie is located in Greenville Texas, in front of the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum.

Dyrehaven & Bakken (Timeline: Late 1940s, early 1950s)

Another early horse memory was the occassional treasured trips to "Bakken", which is an amusement park located near Klampenborg, about 8 or 10 miles north of where we lived in København (Copenhagen). Bakken was located in a corner of the Royal Forest "Dyrehaven" (The Deer Park); which was a HUGE area, open to all, but which did not allow any motorized vehicles. Most of it was woods, but there were several open areas, a couple of smallish lakes, and even a golf course and a castle of sorts, called "Eremitagen". And lots of deer and smaller wildlife. You could walk or ride your bicycles around, or hire a horse and carriage. Or ride horses, if you were lucky enough to know any or knew where to rent one. At Bakken, where my parents often took my brother and myself when we were little, there was a pony ride, and I would always pick the biggest pony to ride, an Icelandic named Basse. I used to have a picture of my brother and myself riding the ponies, me, at three or four, on Basse and my 2 year older brother on Buster, another somewhat smaller Icelandic. Dunno what happened to the pic :-( I haven't seen it in YEARS!

One would get to Bakken and Dyrehaven from my home either on bicycles or on the S-Train to Klampenborg and then walk. When we were little, we would ride on child-seats either in front or in back of my parents' bicycles, but my 2 year older brother Bjørn and I both got our own full size bikes for our 6th birthday, and we soon learned to ride them! No training wheels for us! We had blocks on the pedals to begin with, so we could reach, and my dad put a broomstick behind the seat when we were learning, so he could grab the broomstick to balance us. Most folks, including my family, didn't have cars, so our transportation would be the bicycles, the trams that were plentiful all over København, or the S-train, which covered a wider area but wasn't as handy as the trams. On rare occassions we'd use a taxi, but they were expensive, so we tried to avoid them.

Note: Clicking on the title of this blog entry will take you to a site with several pics from Dyrehaven.

Horse Meat. (Timeline: Late 1950s)

This is largely my comments from a discussion on a list I belong to. We started out discussing what happened to the cavalry horses after the two world wars, and drifted into the eating of horse meat.

In Denmark, when I grew up, it was not unheard of to eat horse meat. We would mostly eat beef, pork, or fish (most often cod), but all kinds of meat was available. I have loved horses since I was a toddler, and my mother respected that I did NOT want to eat horse meat, but I know she and my brother did. Not often, but occassionally. My brother used to tease me about it, too! I have tried whale, shark (both fishy tasting; ugh!), octopus, eel, elephant, duck, goose, and I can't think of what else. My mother wanted us to have different experiences, and did her best for us within her very limited budget.

I don't think there is anything intrinsically wrong with eating horse meat. I CHOOSE to not eat my friends, or anyone related to my equine friends; however remote. I also choose to not knowingly eat meat from any other animal that I have known personally. A few of my friends have raised cows or pigs for slaughter, but I have always stayed away from eating those. Heck; I even have a hard time eating the eggs from the chickens that seem to hang around my barn from time to time. In my defense, I was city bred and raised.

Even though I, as a rule, don't think the less of people who eat horse meat, or even dog or cat meat for that matter, I remember one incident from when I was a teenager that really rubbed me the wrong way. Hanging around with the ponies at Fortunen, we also had contact with several thoroughbred trainers that had stables nearby, and of course we knew the horses too. One of Brandy's fellow racers, who was stabled a block from the pony stable, had gotten injured while racing. I can't recall his name, but I can still picture him in my mind. He was chunky as racehorses go; looked almost quarterhorsey. A dark bay with a small star and one white fetlock. Well, it was decided that he couldn't recover enough to make it back to the race track, and he hadn't done well enough on the track to be valuable at stud, so they had him slaughtered, and they ATE him! I didn't much mind the slaughter, but I didn't like the idea of them eating an animal THEY had cared for for several years, ever since he was a long yearling. To my way of thinking that was crossing the line. Especially talking and joking about it. They should at least have kept it to themselves!

Boarding School. (Timeline: 1952 to 1958)

OK, this story doesn't have any horses, though there are a couple of donkeys :-)

First, the back story: When I was six, my dad, who was a policeman, left us after throwing my mom down two flights of stairs. My mother got custody of us kids. My mom would go to work early, so we'd get ourselves ready and off to school, which was only a few blocks away. We usually each went our own way, though I was only six and still in first grade. After school we'd walk over to the after-school place. I don't know what the American equivalent would be, but I'd guess it would be somewhat like kindergarten, but for older kids whose parents worked. I think it was a government-run facility. It had a fenced-in playground with swings and teeter-totters etc. and several large play rooms with toys and books. And adult supervision of course. Fairly loosely run; they didn't have roll call or anything. You'd show up after school, and either walk home or get picked up by a parent.

I guess I'd better mention . . . Even though we were technically left to ourselves in the morning to get ready for school, we had "Niller", Fru (Mrs.) Nielsen, who lived in the apartment next to us. There were 2 apartments per floor in each stairwell, and Fru Nielsen, who was a widow lady living by herself, had been our babysitter, more-or-less, since we were tiny. She was only a knock on the door or on the wall away, and she had keys and would sometimes peek in to make sure all was in order.

One day my brother didn't show up at the after-school place. We didn't walk there together; we got out from school at different times, and we didn't hang around together, so I didn't even realize he was missing until my mom came to pick us up. We didn't know for DAYS what had happened to my brother; as you can imagine, my mother was FRANTIC!!! We finally found out that my dad had picked my brother up outside the school and taken him to his place. Since my mother had custody of us, it was technically a kidnapping, but my dad, who had connections, never got in trouble for it, and it took about 6 months before we got my brother back.

Anywho, a few years later my mother decided to get us out of town for a while. Partly to get us away from my dad, who she was afraid of, and partly to give us an adventure; a memory to treasure. She located a boarding school that wintered in Spain, so at the beginning of fifth grade for me and seventh grade for my brother, we went off to the country. The first couple of months we were at a 'herresæde'; I guess it would be a country estate. A large house with extensive grounds. For us city kids it was an adventure all it's own. Fields, cows, trees, lots of fresh air, and an apple orchard; all within play/exploring distance. It wasn't cheap; my mom worked 2 full time jobs to pay for it, something we kids knew, but didn't think about.

The teachers at the school were not very good; looking back I am surprised the school wasn't closed down for incompetence, but we were treated OK, though I suppose we weren't supervised adequately; we were running around pretty wildly.

A couple of months into the school year the entire school packed up; lock, stock, and kids and adults, into several buses. Beds as well as luggage tied to the top of the buses, and off we went. Through Shælland; ferry to Fyn, then driving through Jylland and down to Tyskland (Germany), Frankrig (France), and Spanien (Spain). I don't remember everything about the trip, which took three days, but a few things stuck. In France, some of the public restrooms didn't have toilets with seats etc, but only foot pads and a hole in the ground. You were expected to squat to do your business! Another memory from France; we stopped on a hill outside Paris and could see the Eiffel tower in the distance.

Once we arrived in Llinas Del Valles (not sure of the correct spelling), we were all unpacked into a large house. The girls had the 3rd floor, which had several bedrooms; the boys had the second floor, where they were in a large room. To begin with, we didn't have enough beds for everyone, so we'd share, two to a bed, head to toe. Later we had more beds shipped in, so we'd each have our own beds. I think the buses went back for the rest of the stuff. Poor planning, but an 11 year old doesn't care about that!

Llinas was a small place; only a village I suppose, and our house was the biggest in the area. We were a bit north of Barcelona. There were mountains all around; a river with bamboo growing wild at the bank, and lots of sheep everywhere. I particularly remember a lot of tile; mostly in pastel greens & blues and white. There were tiles in the rooms; floors and walls, there were tiles in the other buildings; there were tiles in the ruin of a small round tower close by; down by the river. Tiles everywhere! From what we understood, the tower had been wrecked during the Spanish civil war, and it was open, so we'd go explore it too. There was a swimming pool close by too; open to the public. No life guard though.

Like it had been back home, we weren't very well supervised. Classes were pretty much hit-and-miss and didn't keep us from exploring the neighborhood. We weren't starved, but the food supply was pretty sparse; we seemed to always be hungry. I remember a couple of instances where we would 'appropriate' some sugar and butter and a frying pan from the kitchen and take off up to the mountain where we would build a fire and make caramel from our booty.

It was COLD in Spain! Not as cold as in Denmark, but that huge house was not adequately heated, so we were cold much of the time. One time the boys actually built a FIRE on the tile floor in the boys' dorm!

Being starved for horse company I soon found a couple of donkeys. One was tethered at the roadside close by to graze. I'd go see him and pet him pretty often, and once in a while I was able to mooch a bread crust or other goody for him. The other was being driven around town by a young Spaniard. I soon made friends with him, and he'd let me ride in the cart. He took care of a flock of sheep; would herd them out to graze in the morning and back into the stable at night. Sheep STINK!!! At least those sheep did! The fun riding around in the donkey cart came to a screeching halt one day, when the guy decided to try to feel me up. He didn't insist when I didn't like him touching me, but I still decided that I'd better not hang around with him any more, so after that I only had the grazing donkey as a friend. That, too, came to an end; the donkey BIT me in the leg. HARD!!! It barely broke skin, but it must have done some damage; to this day I do not have any feeling in that area on my leg.

Oh well; there were so many other adventures. Sometimes I would go swimming in the pool. Not too many others would; it was after all WINTER, but even when the puddles in the streets would be frozen over it wouldn't stop me. Heck, after all I AM from Viking stock! As long as you keep moving, the cold water would be bearable, and indeed quite enjoyable, but I was often alone. One time I found the lower jawbone of an animal in the shallows of the river, which really wasn't much of a river; more of a large stream, really. My guess is that the jawbone was from a goat or a sheep, but I never was sure.

One of the two jobs my mom had at the time was in a factory that made cookies and waffles. When they first fired up the big ovens, the first batch was often not quite up to standards, so the workers were allowed to bring them home. My mom would sometimes send big packages of these cookies and waffles to the school, but they would mostly disappear before they found their way to us kids {sigh}. She would also send 'care packages' directly to my brother and myself.

We didn't have much money available, so our shopping was pretty limited, but I remember some absolutely delicious licorice sticks. Americans have NO IDEA about REAL LICORICE!!!!! I miss it a lot; haven't had any good licorice since the last care package from my mom; a dozen or so years ago. However, the chocolate in Spain was AWFUL! Yuck! Tasted like it had soap in it.

We, of course, didn't speak Spanish, and none of the Spaniards spoke Danish, but we didn't seem to have much trouble communicating with the locals anyway. There was one young man in the village who spoke English, which helped a little. Not much to me; this was supposed to be my first year of learning English. We called him "Englænderen" (The Englishman), though of course he wasn't really. One of our 'teachers' was either Spanish or married to a Spaniard; I am not sure which, but she was the only one who spoke adequate Spanish. Her name was something Lopez something De Rey something. Mile long name! One would think that the school would set up a class in Spanish for us kids, having the teacher available and all. But NOOOO.... No such luck!

A lot of us went to Midnight Mass on Christmas. My very first experience with a Catholic church! It was very interesting; yet another adventure. Other than that, I don't remember much about that Christmas.

We were able to take day-trips to Barcelona. A bus ride of a bit over an hour would get us there; I went twice. I even got to see a real bull fight! Didn't like it much. The horses were beautiful, but I HATED it when the bulls tried to gore the horses. The horses were well padded, but still; it was awful. And I cried buckets when they killed the bull! I left after the first kill; couldn't take it! But I got to see some of the fabulous sights in Barcelona.

Some time after Christmas my mom came down and joined the staff for the rest of our stay. That was even better! She joined us on the second trip to Barcelona; the one with the bull fight. We brought home several souvenirs. One that I specifically remember was a leather wine 'bottle'. It was a typical souvenir, with a painting of a Barcelona sight on the side. We also had plenty of chance to taste the local wine. Red wine, sorta sour. Didn't like it much.

I spent my 12th birthday in Spain. Don't remember much about it. Soon after that, the latter part of March, we headed back home, again in buses. One of the kids, Caesar, had broken his leg a short while before. He had the entire back seat of 'my' bus to himself, so he could keep the leg elevated on the seat. I can't remember his real name; we called him Caesar because his haircut looked like that of Julius Caesar.

When we got home, my brother and I never went back to the country home of the school. My mom, by now QUITE aware of the sad lack of proper education, pulled us out and put us back in public school for the rest of the school year. Different school this time; dunno why, but all new kids. It was a struggle to catch up to the rest of the class! I managed to not be put back at the end of the year, but my brother, who didn't really like to dig into the books, had to repeat his grade, so after that he was only one grade ahead of me rather than the two.

Actually, I was never all that good at STUDYING, but I liked to LEARN, and I soaked up everything easily. So much so that the following year I managed to get WAAAYYY ahead of my class, especially in math; along with Physics my favorite subject. I got to be VERY good at "X plus Y divided by Z" {grin}

My memory of the time in Spain is a positive one; I thought it was a WONDERFUL experience, but my brother seems to have been in a totally different place; he remembers it as something awful, and he has never forgiven our mother for it. I totally can't get my mind around his attitude!

The Whittier Quad Pet Fair. (Timeline: 1966)

Another memory of Bahldin, my first horse. They were having a pet fair at the Whittier Quad, the smaller of the two shopping malls in Whittier, and the one closest to where we lived. We decided it would be fun to join, so Debbie, the cousin of the boys I was taking care of, entered Bahldin in the "Largest Pet" category. Sorry for the poor quality of the newspaper clipping; it IS, after all more than 40 years old. It was quite a trick getting a decent scan!

My entry at the pet fair was "Buddy O", the largest of my Sea Monkeys; named after Buck Owens' son. I was a country/western music fan back then, and Buck Owens and the Buckaroos were my favorites. I had most of their albums. Still have them!

Buddy O won first place as the "Smallest Aquatic Pet". His closest competitor was a baby guppy; at least 5 times his size. Some of you might remember Sea Monkeys; they were a form of brine shrimp. One would get them as eggs in a kit, and when they were exposed to water the eggs would hatch. They would supposedly grow to be an inch long, but mine never did, and I decided not to replace them. The aquarium that came with the kit had an enlargement glass, so one could actually SEE them. Sorry, no pics of Buddy O, who was about the size of this: I

Surprise, surprise! Sea Monkeys are still around, after all those years! I thought it was just a fad of the times, but when I googled the web, I found quite a few links to them, in case anyone is curious.

Mazatez, my first Arabian. (Timeline: 1966)

A few months after I moved my first horse up to the house above Whittier College, where I lived at the time, I saw an ad in the paper for a couple of yearling Arabian colts for sale. I have always admired Arabians and thought they were a very special breed of horse. Partly because of the gorgeous and intelligent Arabians at Circus Schumann back home, and partially because of the Black Stallion and Island Stallion books. Some of my friends at the stable where I used to board Bahldin advised me against getting an Arabian. I am tallish; 5'8, and have always been heavy. Back then, at 19, and even as active as was back then, it was a real struggle to keep my weight down to 200, and one of the arguments was that an Arabian was too small and too fine boned for someone my size. The other argument was, as always, that Arabians were too high strung and too hard to train.

I listened to all of this, but in the end I decided not to heed their advice. From what little exposure I had had to Arabians, I felt that an Arabian was just what I wanted! So, I called the people who had the two colts for sale. They were located in Malibu, in the hills just above Zuma Beach. I didn't drive back then, so off I went to the bus station, which was a couple of miles from the house. To Los Angeles, where I changed to a bus that went to Pacific Palisades, which is near Malibu. Back then I was a fast walker, and used to walk long distances, so I figured that once I was in Malibu I could just walk up Pacific Coast Highway and arrive at the Williamsons in an hour or less. Yeah SURE!!!! Two hours later I was still walking and nowhere near Zuma Beach yet! I finally gave up and got a hold of a taxi to take me the rest of the way. What I found out was that I had covered less than HALF the distance on foot! Sure glad I had enough money on me for the taxi! Otherwise I probably wouldn't have arrived until after dark!

The colt I liked was a not quite 11 month old rose grey colt named Mazatez. Here is one of the pics I took that day. He was being bit difficult; he wouldn't let anyone catch him, so I never laid a hand on him then, but that didn't deter me. We made the deal, and they would bring him to up me in Whittier that weekend. Then they were nice enough to drive me down to where I could catch the bus for home.

To this day I do not know how they got Maz into the trailer. They had him tied down with a rope around his belly and to a ring in the floor or maybe near the floor. Poor Maz, who had had very little handling and had never been in a trailer before, was so scared that he kicked Mr. Williamson in the stomach when he unloaded him.

Maz went up in the corral with the two ponies and Bahldin, and that was the last time I put a hand on him for a while. After about a week of not being able to catch Maz, I was near despair! The gardner my employers used was a Mexican, and it happened that he was pretty good with horses and lassos, so he roped Maz for me, and then he tied a long, soft rope on him. Around his neck, tight enough that Maz couldn't slip it off, and loose enough so it wouldn't interfere with his breathing or swallowing. And with a special kind of a knot that was easy to untie when you knew how but could NOT tighten up on his neck. The gardner showed me how to tie that knot.

The rope was long enough so it would trail maybe 6 feet behind Maz, so what I would do was to walk up close, very slowly and quietly, and talking gently to him all the time, until I got close enough to step on the rope. Then I'd say "Whoa Maz!", and he soon realized that once he heard THOSE words, he couldn't run away. Then I'd grab the rope and walk up to him, petting him and praising him all the while. It didn't take long before Maz got the idea that he didn't need to run away from me, and we soon became very good friends. He was, of course, much too young for me to ride, but I still had Bahldin, so I didn't mind waiting. I spent as much time with him as I could spare, and once he overcame the scaredy-cat attitude, he showed that he was a VERY intelligent fellow; extremely easy to work with. Here is a pic of the tails of Maz, Daisy May, Bahldin and Tinker Belle; busy eating, taken about 2 months after the day I bought him.


For Maz's one year birthday we had a party. Some of the neighborhood kids; friends of the three boys I took care of, came up for cake and punch. Maz and the other horses had carrots! A local newspaper reporter heard about the horse birthday party, so he wanted to put a human-interest story in the local paper. He came up to take pictures. Of course we had to get a second cake; the other one was long gone. Here is the pic he took. He wrote a nice little story with it, and I had a copy, but unfortunately I don't know what I did with it.

But soon disaster struck! It took the form of distemper, also known as strangles. Maz developed a large abscess on his throat. I called a veterinarian; someone that the people at the stable where I had previously boarded Bahldin knew of. Maz had a very high temp, near 106, so the vet prescribed an antibiotic; shots to be given twice daily until his temp had been normal for 48 hours. I was still pretty green where horses were concerned, so I put my trust in the vet, who showed me how to give him the shots. Maz got better, but soon he got sick again. I called the vet, who told me to start up with the antibiotics again, twice daily until his temp was normal for 48 hours. Once more Maz improved within a few days, but it didn't take long before he got sick yet again. By now I was convinced that something was seriously wrong, so I got a hold of a different vet. The diagnosis wasn't encouraging; this time the abscess had formed in his intestines and was as big as a football. Poor Maz was VERY sick! Many a time I would sit up in the dusty corral with him; his head in my lap. One of my friends at the stable down by the river had a horse trailer, so he came up to pick Maz up and we took him out to the nearby horse hospital; Chino Valley Equine Clinic. I was hoping that THEY could save my friend. A very thorough examination showed that the abscess was involving a lot of his intestines, and an operation would be extremely dangorous and with a VERY slim chance of success. The vet told me I could take Maz home again, but that he would almost for sure die within a week or two, and in great pain. So I did the best I could for him. I stayed for a while, while he had a last feed. Not that he would eat much! Then I held him in my arms while the vet gave him that final shot! Then I went home, ALL ALONE!

I soon bought another Arabian; also a grey, named Fershan, but that is a story for another day.

Here is the very last pic I have of my darling Maz; taken shortly before he got sick. King of the Hill!

I later learned that what that vet did was the exact WRONG thing! Maybe SOME antibiotics were indicated; his temp was pretty high, but basically, the way to treat strangles is to let the abscess come to a head and let the pus drain out. It is pretty rare for a horse to DIE from strangles, as long as it is handled right. I learned some other things about that vet too; and none were complimentary! But I had done the best I knew how, so I cannot let myself feel guilty. It was the VET that killed my Maz; HE should have known better!

For those of you who know me, you probably know that my horse operation, while never very large, has always been known as "M E Ranch Arabians". The "E" is for Eva, my first name. The "M" is for Mazatez. Maz never had a chance to leave any foals behind, but I promised him that he would never be forgotten, and naming my "ranch" after him was the best I could do. More than 40 years ago now, but the tears are streaming down my face as I write this!

My Earliest Horse Memories. (Timeline: circa 1950)

Even though my childhood home was in the middle of a big city, I was crazy for horses ever since I was a toddler. There was a depot for one of the two Danish breweries in one of the many basement commercial outlets in the huge apartment complex where I grew up. Both breweries still used a few teams of horses for deliveries, mostly for the advertising value I suppose, and some of my earliest memories are of one of those teams, which would stop in front of my apartment building every day as part of their delivery route. They were either Belgians or Jutlands; I am not sure which, but they were so big that I could easily have walked underneath their bellies without ducking my head. How I loved those giant beasts! I couldn't have been more than 3 or 4 years old. I would beg bread scraps from my mother so I could give them to the two horses, and we became fast friends. I had to make sure I'd stand out in the street in front of them. If I stayed on the sidewalk like I was supposed to, they would follow me in across the curb, and then they would get scolded by the driver when he returned from his errand in the cellar depot.


There were several such hitches in and around Copenhagen. The one in this picture, though not the actual horses I knew, will give you the idea. This was one of the teams of Belgian horses from Tuborg, one of the two main Danish breweries. Great advertising, but they weren't just for show; they actually did deliveries all around town. The straw hats were red and green, the Tuborg colors.

Here is hitch from the other Danish brewery, Carlsberg. Quite spectacular; these are Jutland horses.

My First Horse. (Timeline: 1965/1966)

When I was a kid, I always dreamed of owning my own horse, but the finances simply weren't there. My dad had split when I was small, so my mom had to work, often 2 jobs, to keep us kids fed and clothed and to pay the bills. I was never LACKING, but money was tight. When I came here to California at 18, the first few months most of my wages went to pay back the travel, but as soon as I had a free and clear paycheck, I bought my own horse. He was an old bay grade gelding named Baldy. I renamed him to "Bahldin", so he'd have a 'real' name and still be able to recognize his name. I was very proud of him; to me, he was the greatest, the fastest, and the most beautiful horse in the world.

When I bought him, I was told that Bahldin was 9 years old, but even then I knew better. When I later had a vet look him over, I was told that he was past 20! Older than I was at the time! He wasn't in a bad shape for his age, though he was pretty difficult to keep in good condition, as the pic with the ponies shows.

The first month I boarded Bahldin at the stable where I bought him, but then I moved him down the street to another stable, where he'd have his own stall rather than living in the big corral with the rent string. Having the horse got the family I was living with and working for interested in horses; especially the kids.

They had a bit of land above the house; so they bought the kids a Shetland pony named Tinker Belle. I built the fences needed to keep her in, and I was able to move Bahldin up there too. Soon after that, Tinker Belle had a foal; a pretty little palomino filly we named Daisy May.

I didn't keep Bahldin very long; his old legs couldn't quite keep up with the riding I did; up and down the hills behind the place where we lived, for hours at a time. Eventually I had to find him a new home, so he ended up at a place where handicapped kids would ride him and love him.

My Birthday 'Adventure'. (Timeline: March 2010)

My birthday was pretty nice. The weather was wonderful. Sunny but with some clouds, and warm enough that I shed my jacket pretty early (it's still out in the truck). My neighbor Julie (my 2nd best friend) and I headed out for Wal-Mart a bit after 10, after I had tucked the dog into the kennel (Samson cannot be trusted to not run out the gate into the sometimes busy street, so it is the easiest way for me to cope). We both picked up some necessities, explored the store thoroughly, but other than a new wallet, which I needed, I didn't see anything I really wanted. The in-store restaurant is a McDonalds, which didn't tempt us, so we decided to relocate to a nearby Target store.

At Target Julie immediately got lost in the ladies' apparel department. I should have expected that; it's happened before! So after a while being bored stiff, I took off exploring on my own. Hit the jackpot in the toy department; I was able to add several Schleich models to my modest collection, including a Samson look-alike. Then I found a new serving cart. My old one keeps loosing a wheel, and this last time the wheel simply won't stay on at all. Right now, until I get the new one out of the box and put together, the old one has a block under the one leg, which pretty much defeats the purpose of a wheeled cart. On the way back to look for Julie something else caught my eye. A digital picture keychain! I've been kinda wanting one for a while; all my pictures are on my 'puter, which makes it difficult to share with people who do not have e-mail. So I gave myself that for my birthday too. I found Julie exactly where I had left her <grin> The in-store restaurant was a Pizza Hut, so we each had a personal sized pepperoni pizza for lunch, after which we headed home.

When we got there, Samson started crying as always as soon as he saw me; he HATES being in the kennel, but this time he had to wait until Julie got her stuff out from the back of the truck. I let him out before I unloaded the scooter from the lift, also SOP, which made his majesty very happy. I left my stuff in the truck, to be retrieved later, except the serving cart which I had left in the basket of the scooter, rushed in to use the bathroom, then went into the bedroom to shed my street clothes. Then the phone rang, and I rushed in to answer it. It was MY BROTHER!!!! He NEVER calls for my birthday (and I don't call for his either), so I was totally surprised. I had expected it was Julie, who had left her package of TP in the back of my truck. I still hadn't gotten dressed in my house clothes, so I was COLD, but since he calls only maybe once a year I didn't want to chase him off. So he talked for about half an hour. Bjørn always talks a lot, about nothing at all, so I just let him rant on, getting a word of my own in here and there. All that time, and I never heard the words "Happy Birthday", but at least he DID call.

By this time I was pretty sore, in spite of the two Aleve I had taken in the morning. After a bit I went back outside, manhandled the box with the serving cart out of the scooter and in the back door, and went out to pick up the rest of my goodies from the back of the truck. I plugged the keychain into the 'puter to charge it (it takes 6 to 8 hours to fully charge), and proceeded to pick out some pics to load into it. The picture quality is actually pretty nice, considering the small size :-)

Later, I went out to feed the dog, locked the poor pooch in the kennel again while I took Julie's TP across the street and picked up my mail. This time he was in the kennel only a few minutes, but again, as soon as he had finished his food, he started whining, because he saw me across the street. What a cry baby he is!

That was pretty much it. It was nice to get out, even if it was only to go shopping. Other than necessities, I rarely go anywhere these days. In the past, I used to treat myself to a day-trip for my birthday, driving somewhere WAAAYYYY out in the country, stopping for lunch at a coffee shop and then heading back, usually via a different route. But these days my body won't let me drive very far; after only a short time sitting in the same position the pain sets in, so my solo day-trip days are OVER! This trip, while hardly a day-trip, was a nice substitute; at least a change of pace.

I had another birthday treat still in store. On Sunday my #1 best friend Garry took me out for a nice lunch. We went to Black Angus, and I had a large prime rib! Yum! I don't eat that much meat these days, but I LOVE prime rib; especially the way they do it at Black Angus.

Everybody, thanks for your good wishes for my birthday. They worked, because it was a good one!

Here are pics of my new Schleiches. They are smallish, the roan is about 0.3 hands (3 inches, stick measure to the top of the withers) and the others are pretty much to scale.

Thunder. (Timeline: 1940s & 1950s, 1987)

In Denmark the thunder is said to be caused by Tor (Thor, one of the old Norse gods) swinging or throwing his war-hammer. The Danish word for thunder is "torden" and lightning is "lyn".

My mother used to say the thunder was a big sack of potatoes rolling down the wooden stairs. We would stay up and cuddle together whenever there was a major thunder storm; they most often hit at night. I remember many a night when we would look out the window for the lightning and then count seconds until we heard the thunder.

My scariest experience with thunder was right after I bought the house I now live in. There was an old abandoned wooden house right next to me, with quite a few big trees. The biggest was an old fir, right next to my fence and only about 10 or 12 feet from my back door. I was in the kitchen when I heard the loudest bang I have ever heard! I ran out in the pouring rain to see what happened. A lightning bolt had hit the fir tree; a HUGE branch was broken off and one could see where the lightning had traveled down the tree; removing a foot wide strip of bark and scorched the wood. Luckily the branch fell mostly on the other side of my fence, and since it had rained torrents for a while, the old tree didn't catch on fire.

My Poem. (Timeline: Spring 1955)

Med Marts kommer forår, Du dejlige tid
Med løv og blomster i enge
Når fuglene kommer til Danmark hid
Og kvidrer hver dag ved vænge


©1955 Eva Danø, age 9

My one and only attempt at poetry.

Den Lille Havfrue. (Timeline: 1950s)

Thinking about Langelinje and the statue of The Little Mermaid, I found a link with an article and several more pics. Click on the title of this post to view.


I find it a little strange that in America the author of the original tale of "Den Lille Havfrue" is referred to by his full name, Hans Christian Andersen. We Danish know him as simply "H.C. Andersen". He was one of the most beloved Danish authors ever. Other than The Little Mermaid, probably the best known of his many stories would be "Den Grimme Ælling" (The Ugly Duckling).

Starting Out. (Timeline: 1946 thru 1964)

Jeg var født og voksede op på Østerbro i København, Danmark.

Translation: I was born and grew up in Østerbro, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Through my entire childhood we lived in a one bedroom apartment on the 4th floor. Our building did not have elevators, and we only had a shower, which had been retro-fitted in a corner of the kitchen, so was separate from the toilet. We were close to the duty-free harbour and to Langelinje, where I used to go often, to look at the big ships and dream of traveling the oceans of the world. I have always loved the ocean, and one of my childhood pleasures was the occassional boat trip to Malmö, Sverige (Sweden), which is just across Øresund and which we could se in the distance on clear days. Not much of a trip as ocean travels go, but the only one that was within our reach, financially.

When I say that I was born there, I was ACTUALLY born in that apartment; not in a hospital. The story I got from my mother:

It was during a pretty bad snow storm, and in the middle of a whooping cough epidemic, so the only doctor my mother could get to attend her was a military doctor. My brother was born on 6/6 (D-Day) and I was supposed to be born on 3/3, but my mother was so worried about Bjørn, my brother, who had a bad cough, that my birth was delayed until the 4th. When I was little, the way I understood that was that I was born an entire day later, but in reality it was most likely a matter of minutes, or maybe an hour or so.