Me and the newspapers

Thinking, reading and aging.

I was 9 when I realized that I was a “me”.

I could make things better or worse around me, almost at will.

I always read the cartoons in the newspapers. We had five daily papers delivered to my father’s apartment.

At age nine, I looked at the headlines and turned the pages to follow up on particularly interesting stories.

The Swedish airforce seemed to always have three accidents in close order, then nothing for a long while.

One day I saw an accident, or at least the aftermath of one, before the story was in the newspaper. A twin-engine airplane had crashed in the water just outside the harbour. It was fished up and brought in to quay within a few of hours. 

This picture that I saw for the first time

one year AFTER I had written this story. Was my memory good?

The pilots had jumped and both stood by the quay-side, wrapped in dirty blankets over their still-wet uniforms. The blankets probably came from the fishing boat that had picked them up as they landed in the water, 

They stood there, looking at the sad, soaking wet, remains of their airplane, suspended off the rear crane of a service boat. One half wing and one of the engines were missing and almost all the windows were broken.

(This was written from my memory. I have since learned that both pilots had perished. The wet-looking persons were most likely the rescue workers that had just hauled up the airplane. - but you have to excuse me - I wrote from a 70-year old memory-recollection.)

This was the moment when I realized the clear and undisputable connection between the real world and what was written in the newspapers.

The next morning I was up early, grabbed Karlshamns Allehanda from the front door and sat down with my father at the breakfast table. I could fill in the newspaper story with details, and also explain what all the items were in the accompanying photographs.

I knew the photographer. The paper was produced, typeset and printed in the same city block as we lived. We would sometimes wake up at around 2 am when the presses started rumbling, producing that day’s batch of about 6,000 papers, almost one for every household in town.

That day, I went into the offices and sought out the photographer. Did he have any more pictures, how could he get them into the paper?

He was a kind man and showed me the magic of his Linhof press camera – the one with a moveable lens mount – and also introduced me to the photo scanning machine, the one that makes all the dots that are printed as a picture. (It took me another 20 years until I got my own Linhof camera)

Linhof press camera, ca 1947 - it looked the same forever.

As we stood there, the telephoto machine started up and a picture of our king appeared right in front of my eyes. Telephoto machines may have been around since the 1920’s but to see one in action in 1950 was still seeing a wonder.

This spurred me to explore the world of newspaper news ever more.

The year 1950 had entered with much fireworks. This was he half way mark of the centennial. All wars had ended (?) and a limitless future lied ahead.

I drew pictures of space rockets, with special sleeping arrangements for taking off and in weightlessness in space.

Cars had no fins yet, but new speed records were broken that year, prompting me to design my own cars, some missing a few elements of inherent stability, but why not?

Our library was in the same block and the librarian a good friend of my father. She would bring out today’s paper, show me an interesting article and give me an easy-to read book to read on the subject. 

I got hooked on actually reading newspapers on my own in December 1951.

Captain Carlsen stayed on his sinking ship, The Flying Enterpise, in the English Channel until it sank. He became a world hero, followed for the 17 days it took his freighter to finally go to the bottom.

Picture from Wikipedia.

Another 51 years came to pass before the mystery of “why” was solved. The freighter had a substantial amount of the nuclear isotope zirconium in the cargo. That was part of nuclear rector operations in those day. Any salvage company that had put a line to the ship, if it was unmanned, would have owned the ship and its cargo.

My teenage years were as tumultuous for me as for all other.

I focused on my life from day to day. Time flew by.

Every day started with a good perusal of the newspaper. I though Aga Khan was the greatest man, being so rich and getting a new wife, again and again.

Haile Selassie was making mayhem in Ethiopia. I wanted to go and see for myself. – Not yet, you are too young.

The dictator Peron was ousted from Argentina. I did did go there a few years later and see the city of Buenos Aires. It was scary, we were shot at by a machine gun, operated by some Peronistas.

I may not have had much money, but I sure did practice and try out many things.

Everything was a new adventure now.

Some adventures were better than other. Four of us climbed the narrow service ladder to the top of a newly built 40 metres tall radio tower. You entered the top platform via a trap-door. Going up was a child’s play but not so climbing down. One in our gang, not me, froze on the top platform. Nothing could budge him. (He is a retired dentist now. There were probably no great heights to climb in that profession.)

The fire department came and one agile fireman climbed up and got the boy down.

The next day the local newspaper looked different, we were photographed on page one. “Dramatic rescue…”

Not good.

Over the next few years, I developed a different relationship with our local paper, it was far too intrusive for my liking.

I started and failed in the publishing business. I had published a “school paper” on my own. It was too radical. The principal confiscated all my printed papers and I was severely spoken to. I had had bad advisors on what to say. Use better news sources in the future.

The next day I was on page two, in a photograph with my name. My father and a few others were furious at me for my self made "fame".

A small fire at my Highschool wasn’t all good for me either. There was a towel fire in one of the boy’s restrooms. I saw it and called the caretaker in to put it out. I was not the guilty firebug but ended up named as suspected pyromaniac on page two just the same.

I learned to drive a Caterpillar on the construction site for our new railroad station.

Me on the Caterpillar tractor.

One day the regular driver was drunk and managed to sink the tractor in the semi-frozen mud. I was just a passenger but was identified, standing on the sunken tractor as "an adventurous city boy" by name. That newspaper photo gained me some fame among my friends

Would TV dethrone the written world for me?

Not so.

The announcement came; We would, finally, get a strong TV signal in my home town. I borrowed a TV set and jury rigged a good size antenna.

The TV set from 1959

Then – the moment of truth.

My mother, sister and I sat down to watch TV at home for the first time, ever.

I lasted 15 minutes. This is too slow. Give me a newspaper so I can choose my own news and how deeply I want to learn about them.

I have never learned to watch TV and especially not TV news. They are too slow and superficial.

All thoughts in those growing up years were very "now"-oriented.

A few years later, as a married man, I became a father of a bouncing baby girl.

Then life really changed. There was this tremendous responsibility for my family on my shoulders.

No more “now” but rather, “what now?”

I worked hard and diligently for years and years to support my family.

The newspapers were always with me. The world events sometimes scared, entertained or moved me.

But – what can a lowly individual do? I may have wanted to become a special assistant to President Kennedy during the Cuban crisis in 1951, but he never called me for advice.

Keep working, stay away from people with too outrageous ideas and try to stay sane.

With time, world or local events came to touch me in a far too personal way.

Every downturn in the economy of USA led to one in Canada, six months later, and people would get laid off. All too often I was one of them, too.

The separatist issue in Quebec was a huge negative factor in the lives of many. I had no particular ties either way, had a job and couldn’t be anything more than an observer. Taking any political stance would, surely, have rendered me jobless soon.

Réne Levesque - leader of Parti Quebecois in 1978

The 1980 referendum, staged By Réne Levesque, had a terrible effect on the economy of Quebec. Hundreds and hundreds of companies moved out, leaving far too many unemployed behind. At one time the official unemployment rate was over 13 %, a hitherto totally unheard number for anywhere in Canada, not seen since the 1930’s.

In my opinion, to read the newspapers became an agony. There were these never-ending news stories about how we had a large provincial party, Party Quebecois, and their federal ilks, Bloc Quebecois, that only had one goal in mind, to destroy Canada as we knew it.

Finally, many years later I broke. I couldn’t take the incessant talk about separation in Quebec or the forecasted and the real economic decline any more.

I took a job in Ontario and sold my house in Montreal.

It was eerie to open the newspaper the first few mornings we were in Ontario. Nothing on the first page about separation, perhaps a small article on page 6 only.

What a relief.

Now I was getting a little more mature and my outlook on life took a different turn. The children were long gone and quite on their way building their own lives.

We talked about where to, perhaps, retire in the next few years.

A condo downtown Montreal had always been a dream of ours. But, that was hardly a realistic thought, now that we had sold our Quebec home at a huge loss and moved to Ontario. (Thank you, Premier Jaques Pariseau, for destroying the Quebec housing market in preparation for yet another referendum in 1994.)

Monica had always had a soft spot for her home town, Karlskrona, in Sweden. We checked out the housing situation during one of our Swedish vacation trips and found it quite good. We could get a nice apartment, overlooking the Baltic sea, for a reasonable cost.

Then – we ran into the Swedish bureaucracy. It didn’t take many days to confirm that we were ill prepared for what would be coming at us from there. To get an unlimited driver’s licence again would take three years. Since we hadn’t paid taxes in many years and had no credits to apply, the first year’s taxation would be double of the next. We put our Sweden retirement thoughts back on the shelf.

I went through a number of job changes in the 90’s and found life as an employee ever more insecure.

Now I was no longer learning about the future, reading any science fiction stories or taking much interest in politics.

A state of survival had arrived. Every day had to be focused on “what next”?

Eventually after some four years of worsening illness, Monica’s cancer killed her.

We held a funeral with only the family present. After a few days all had returned to their own lives in different countries and there I was, all alone.

I had no ties to anything in the world. No job, it had disappeared in a bankruptcy a few weeks earlier. 

The house was large and empty and far too full of memories from earlier days.

I made a clear and concientious decision to live as a “grumpy old man” from that day on.

The newspaper took on a new meaning. I read about the world, its twists and turns with different eyes.

Where would I fit in? I was not ready to retire and took a few short time assignments that in effect gave money but led nowhere.

Me and Norwegian Princess in Ushuaia,

Argentina, the world's southernmost city.

One assignment was to be a dance partner on a cruise ship for one full month. That helped clear my head. I came back with a new goal in life. I realized that I truly like women, their company and their way of being. I should have known as I had been a happily married man for 41 years already.

My new goal: To meet someone to share my life with.

That well designed and executed project was soon accomplished. I wasted no time on random leads or meetings. A few months later I had a new girlfriend, a lady who became my wife some three years later.

We decided to “do it now”, go for what is on the bucket list.

Now, some 15 years and 22 countries-visited later we are both glad we did.

We danced as two of 20,000 dancers one night

at the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Newspapers?

Oh, they are still there and still devoured for quite a while every morning.

Being pensioners with a “limited” ~20 year life span ahead there are some subjects that I just don’t have to give much thought to. any more.

It shocks me to jump over the latest medical break-throughs or the latest wild public transit scheme, so long in coming that I may celebrate my hundredth birthday on the day of inauguration.

The financial pages are interesting, but worth about as much as the weather forecast – ever changing from day to day.

Our bodies don’t have the right proportions any more, it seems as if so many parts, bits and pieces have moved downwards over the years. Sure, it is nice to be nicely dressed, but so many of the in-fashions don’t “work” any more.

We make sure to spend as much time as is practical with “the young”, may they be 20 or 60 years young. It is dangerous to let your brain fossilize.

We count our blessings for having had (see how much I talk in past terms now) the wherewithal to take an apartment smack in the middle of Toronto.

An apartment high up with a view, has no lawn, no gutters to clean, no snow to shovel and not even a hose to wash the car with.

Instead we live quietly with all that the city has to offer within a short walk from home. It is such a joy to take the streetcar, the subway or the bus. No traffic to contend with and, best of all, no need to find a place to park the car.

Next?

---------------
If you want to read my memors, "The seasons of Man", buy the book here:


https://www.amazon.ca/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=bengt+lindvall+the+seasons+of+a+man