Hartland II

I mentioned the birches in the swamp north of the house. In the winter sometimes there would be an ice storm and the birches would be coated with ice. I've seen them bent over so far that they would almost touch the ground.

We lived in East Hartland from 1956 to 1970. When we first moved up there, I had a regular engineering job with Kaman Aircraft Corporation in Bloomfield, and I was occasionally working towards a Master's degree at the University of Connecticut. At the time we moved up there, we had 5 children: Gifford Jr and Patricia, born in Hartford, Yvonne born in Maryland, and Tom and Shirley born in Bristol.

Shortly after moving to East Hartland, I joined the Congregational church there. And shortly thereafter, our neighbor across the street, who was the treasurer of the East Hartland Congregational church was found to have been embezzeling funds. For some reason, some of the Norwegeans in town pitched in to help solve our problem, including running the offender out of town within 24 hours. When questioned about it, the Norski's said "Oh, we're pretty good Swedes" Apparently that is a Norwegean saying for "tough guys". Note that Norway was under Sweden for a long time. This may explain a little Norwegean ditty: "Ten thousand Swedes ran through the weeds, chased by one Norwegean".

We moved in the fall of 1956, at the time of the presidential election, and Eisenhower was running for a second term. Prior to moving, I had watched former President Hoover on TV putting in a good word for Eisenhower. I also remenber hearing an interview on the radio with Kerenski, the Russian Premier prior to the Communist revolution. They asked him, "would you consider returning to Russia?" He said "No, not as long as the Communists are runnng the governement".

Once we got to East Hartland, the election took place. On the eve of the election, England and France invaded Egypt without telling up first. I think we put pressure on them to get out of Egypt.

Not long after moving, a couple of my co-workers at Kaman Aircraft asked if they could come up and stay at our place for 24 hours, to take part in a big amateur radio contest. East Hartland being 1,192 feet altitude gave it an advantage for high frequency propagation. So we agreed, and as part of the deal, they agreed to leave their equipment behind for several weeks for my use, as I still had a Novice ticket, WN1WWO.

In preparation for the move, I had put the place at Lake Garda / Unionville up for sale, without results. So I temporarily gave up, and rented it.

That fall in Hartland, I remember for some reason there were a zillion and one crickets along the south side of our house there.

Our property line came fairly close to the house on the south side. Ted Aagre lived in the house to the south, and his original intention was to sell several building lots out of that land. He and his wife were originally from Norway, but he also was a retired boat buildier from Long Island. He had built our house and sold it to Arthur Aasland. Arthur Aasland was more recently from Norway. He didn't really have a last name, but took the name of Aasland, as that's the region he came from in Norway. I don't believe he attended the Norwegean church, nor the Congregational church either, for that matter. He's the one I got the Norwegean sayings from.

I got Ted Aagre to build for me a couple of bookshelves, which Yvonne has now. There is no back, as they lean against the wall. I was very particular as to the distance between the shelves, so that tall books could be accommodated.

Pretty much every year we had a vegetable garden, and Marjorie started to have flower gardens, especially around the west (front), and south side of the house. One of her main specialties was roses.

There were always a lot of rocks turned up once the garden was plowed. So I came up with a "limited time offer" for the kids to pick up rocks and add them to the stone wall. Let's say I offered 2 cents for a small rock and 5 cents for a large rock. This was a very limited time offer, like one hour maybe. Man, you should see those rocks move like lightening from the field to the stone wall! I belive I have a picture of all the kids sitting on the stone wall afterwards.

Thanks kids for giving me the "nudge" to continue with this history. It's better I do this than waste time watching TV.