14 years old - Father died.

I was fourteen.

My father had passed away and my life changed forever early that summer.

The Blekinge Fair, Blekingeutställningen, was to open a few days after my fathers funeral. It was to be a grand industrial and cultural fair with tens of thousands of visitors expected. The preparations had gone on for years.

Blekingeuställningen 1954

It seemed as if every kid in town were engaged, somehow. My first job was to sell chocolate from a basket strung around my neck.

The summer days were hot, my chocolate got soft and some even melted. I traded the chocolate for Ice cream. The box was heavy but I sold a lot. The weather changed and that summer went down in the annals as one of the rainiest in memory. The attendance at the fair dwindled under the cold, gray and wet skies.

................

At the appointed day, I returned to the same gymnastics camp as last summer. I had some fabulous three weeks. Sure, it rained a lot and I don't think I was ever warm. There were no means of heating in the dorms. You often performed gymnasts dressed in woolen sweaters. The vagaries of Swedish summer weather at play.

Part of the performance field near the dormitories. (My photograph)

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What about the fishing harbour? That seems like an interesting place. I often talked to the fishermen.

Fishing trawlers in Karlshamn

One trawler was owned by the father of a classmate of mine, the girl that I had been, occasionally, skating with that winter.

“Would you like to go fishing with us, Bengt?”

“Yes.”

“OK, be here at 04:00 with warm clothes and rubber boots.”

Wow, I am going out on the sea in a real ship, a 15 metre trawler. It had a crew of four, I was number five.

Me with herring in abundance. (Photograph from my camera)

We were out for two days, trawling for herring. The silvery “gold” was loaded on ice, below deck.

The rolling of the boat soon made its effects known. With a round bottom, it would move from dipping one railing in the water to the other in seconds. That is just the way trawlers are built to maximize the in-hold cargo space.

The food was prepared on a single burner in the front cabin. It smelled great, except I was in no condition to enjoy it. I was seasick, an affliction that has stayed with me for life even as I traveled around the world in a much larger ship, later.

Seasickness creates no after-effect, so you feel great again within minutes once the movement abates a little.

Back in port I was rewarded for my efforts, not with money, but with “off-fish”. That is any fish other than the intended herring. Unfortunately, at least then, it was illegal to sell any other fish that you were licensed to catch. That was seen as unfair competition to the fish dealers.

I came home to my mother, loaded down with many delicacies of the sea. Eel, cod, plaice, one lobster and many other strange-looking seafood but no herring, that was all sold at the wharf. My mother went across the street and convinced the butcher shop to let her put some in their freezer.

After that, I was paid in money too, in addition to lots of free fish for my mother.

................

By the end of the summer, I had moved to the home of my mother and sister They lived in a one-bedroom apartment, nice and sunny but too small for the three of us.

Gone were the days when I'd had my own bedroom, a large room for my model railroad and free access to a few other rooms. All of my toys, tools and other paraphernalia were put in an unheated attic where they disappeared, little by little, or deteriorated from the humidity in the winter.

I resided in the kitchen. I had a box with my belongings under the bed and a few books in the living room, where my mother slept.

My mother had a lot of free time and we enjoyed every warm day to the fullest

Summer, ready to go to the beach.

The freedom of the town was absolute. My bicycle was a treasured friend, taking me anywhere.

The Mieån river powered a flower mill. It was pure magic to observe the drive shaft power divided to many lesser shaft by means of gears made from wood.

I spent many hours there but was eventually thrown out, never allowed to return. I had moved too close and almost fallen into the drive mechanism. The miller grabbed me and threw me out, hard. He probably wasn't prepared to answer for a 14 year old boy that was chewed to mincemeat by his mill.

...........

Another favorite place, even more exciting, was the railroad station. Steam trains and so much more.

Steam powered shunt engine.

I talked myself on to the little steam driven shunt engine. With time I learned to operate the controls, running back and forth on the yard

It was cold in the winter and cargo cars would freeze into the snow and ice and needed extra efforts to release.One day nothing could be moved, the train of couldn't be moved at all because the car brakes were set. I walked the train and opened the air tanks the little engine could get them moving again.

I took a liking railroading.

Locomotive stalls

It got better. The large line engines were parked in a locomotive stall. It takes a lot more than just putting fire in the fire box to make a steam engine go. They require many hours of service and upkeep.

I met one of the engineers and said; “I would really like to drive on of these on the track.”

“I'll take you on my morning run to Karlskrona, it's a three hour ride. Be here at 04:00 tomorrow morning.”

I was there, unbeknownst to my mother or high school administration, of course.

It became a trip to remember for life.

Light freight train in 1954

I learned to verify the brakes, start the train, blow the horn when the signals said so and – how to set the cylinder fill adjustments for maximum efficiency. A steam engine needs far more than a throttle to work.

This was local freight train. It stopped at several stations for local goods to be exchanged. I was only allowed to jump off when nobody was looking, and had to go round the train and get on from the side facing away from the station.We arrived in Karlskrona around sunrise. The engineer and the fireman brought me to the railroad cafeteria where I, full of pride, had a full breakfast, complements of SJ (Swedish State Railroads).

How to get back to Karlshamn? Not a problem, it was all pre-arranged. A conductor walked me to the morning train, going west. No ticket needed. This was a passenger train running in daylight, I was not allowed to be seen in the driver's cab and relegated to the third class wagon.

I bragged of my newly learned skills to a bus driver, on his way to pick up a bus in Karlshamn. He sounded almost envious, he never knew it would be so much fun to drive a train, he had always thought that it was “hot, cold and windy”.

To drive a train was certainly all of hot, cold and windy at one time.

I even worked at the maintenance shop at that station one full summer, many years later. The steam engines were gone. All power was by Diesel engines then, far less exciting.

.....

With my new found interest in moving equipment I spied an interesting contraption, the train transporting clay at the local brick factory.

This engine was of a most unique design. I have only seen something like it at a technical museum in Germany since.

Again, I befriended the workers and – of course – got to ride the engine.

It was a single cylinder, slow speed, kerosene fueled engine with a huge flywheel, running at constant speed from morning to evening. It was built in in 1938 and two years older than I. The power takeoff was by means of a small wheel moved in our out on the flywheel from the centre, an early version of our modern constantly variable transmissions, a.k.a. CVT.

The brick production was in full swing.

The bricks were formed by hand in little boxes. The top was cut off straight with a wire. The soft bricks were put into the oven.

The burning oven was round, with about 12 – 15 sectors. They were fired in sequential order with peat moss and wood. After the heating cycle was finished, the oven was bricked in and left to cool down for a few days. Then the cycle started again.

The next time I passed by that brick factory, some 35 years later, it was gone and replaced by a hotel.

............

I may not have been the most diligent student but anything mechanical or chemical was interesting.

Sure, we learned how to make gun powder, didn't all high school students?

It burns in the open, as demonstrated in our chemical lab, but explodes if you enclose it. That was not demonstrated, only taught in theory. We decided to make our own.

Said and done. There was no problem with the ingredients, between matchboxes (!), the drugstore and the hardware store. The latter supplied many, many metres of black, slow burning, fuse.

For a container, we chose 6.5 mm gun cartridges. They were available in infinite numbers at the shooting range.

Our home made explosive mini-bombs went off with a resounding bang. But, why only one and one? Can we make a fusillade? We made about 20 bombs. Then we walked the main street and placed 10 of each on both sides of the street. 

Once the little bombs were set, we walked down the street lightening them one by one, starting with the longest fuse.

They went off at a rate to make a machine gunner proud. Someone called the police. We waited to see them arrive and look up and down the street in consternation. Nothing to see there.

This was on Saturday night, next Monday morning there was an article in the local paper. “A strange projectile had shot through a large picture window, an empty cartridge, probably shot up by a passing car.”

My mother, who had a fairly good understanding of mine and Christer's destructive talents instantly demanded, and confiscated, our remaining gunpowder supply.

I told her how dangerous it could be if she threw it out, she could blow up our entire building if it went into the garbage. She filled our gunpowder bottle with water. It stood on the kitchen counter all winter. I secretly suspect that she brought it on our first swimming excursion the next summer and disposed of it in the sea.

This was the end of our chemically destructive era.

...................

I joined the shooting club at a young age, starting with the shorter carbines of navy class. The youngest boys shot only pellets, you moved up to real bullets at age 14. By that time I became a really good shot, I even got a medal for those skills in the army, years later.

But the excitement, only shooting at a paper target at up to 300 metres, had its limitations.

I owned a Daisy air gun, far more accessible and easily transported than the army issue weapon which was always so carefully kept under lock and key.

One fall evening we brought it out and set out to shoot at street lights. We only choose those that were in a remote locations, not watched by any pedestrians. It was a very satisfying experience; Every hit was acknowledge by a “pop” and darkness.

We may only have been out that one night. The local paper, again, reported of the huge expense the city had absorb to replace shot out lights – and that the police now had their eyes out for any suspicious persons.

My Daisy gun never left home again.

But, in practice at home at least one of my father's valuable paintings took an injury, two shots went through. It was behind the target.

After that the gun disappeared, never to be seen again.

......

My life had changed drastically after my father passed away, I had to repeat one class and I lost contact with my girlfriend. We didn't meet again until 62 years later, thanks to Facebook.

On the good side, I made a lot of friends in my new class too.

A life lesson, good friends are important even when bad things happen in your life.

Most of the photographs here are taken by me, but there are some stock images from the Internet.

The next year when I was fifteen was quite exciting too. Click here:

http://ayoungboysjourney.blogspot.ca/2017/04/growing-up-15-years-old.html

16 years old - My first seafaring days.

It was summer again and school was over for a few months.

I registered at the seamen's exchange and then I tried my hand as a delivery boy. I liked the shop girls but not the shop managers. I soon got a call from the seaman's exchange. I became hired as a Jungman-Cook on a 114 tonne coastal freighter.

My quarters smelled a bit musty as I entered. No problem, just open the window – porthole – for ventilation. I did and it soon felt a bit fresher in the cabin. We left harbour destined for Gotland island in the Baltic Sea. There was little wind but the bow took the odd dip into the waves. 

“I saw you opened the porthole, did you seal it well when you closed it?”

I had not sealed the porthole. The water was squirting in over my bed, over and over. I tried using a pipe wrench on the screws but couldn't close the porthole while at sea. Later... 

I slept on the floor that first night. Or, more accurately, I passed out on the floor. I was exhausted. This was not a pleasure ride for me among friends on a trawler, this was the real thing, a working ship.

My photo from 1956

The work routine at sea was four hours on, four hours off, twelve hours of work each 24 hours. It was taxing on my body and soul, to say the least. Our capacity was about the same as five highway trailers. These coastal vessels were gone a few years later, replaced by, you guessed it, highway trucks.

Not yet, though. We loaded lime stone, destined for a glass factory on the west coast of Sweden, about a five day trip away. First we laid high in the water. Then, he loader started rumbling – and stopped a few minutes later. We were loaded almost to the deck-line. The cargo room cover was sealed to be absolutely water tight. 

My cabin porthole had been disassembled and properly closed by now, with strong instructions to never open it again, ever.

We were a crew of four. I, at age 16, was the jungman – cook with double duties. Had I cooked anything before? Noooo, I don't recall. I managed to prepare pork chops and boiled potatoes the first day. Then I found printed instructions on the wall so I was on my way. In truth, I never did as much cooking as I was supposed to. I was often too seasick. - My curse?

With my first loading complete, we set out at night. I stood to watch. It was pitch dark There was a bow lantern on the foredeck. The compass waved a little and a thin line on the radar was spinning for me to see nearby ships.

The sea got worse. Then it got scary. We hit a wave, the bow went down, down, down. The deck got covered in water and the bow lantern dimmed. We are sailing to the bottom, we are all going to drown now. I was alone by the wheel, what to I do? Call an alarm? Abandon ship? Then, slowly, slowly we started to rise again, the deck reappeared and the bow lantern lit up.

We are saved. This repeated every few minutes - all ships do this.

That was my first introduction to sea, putting all of my trawler experiences to shame. I didn't feel well in heavy sea but still had take my turn at the helm. I learned to tie the steering wheel with a rope, quickly dive out and puke over the railing, then just as fast return and put the ship back on course. It was a bit scary, the railing was low and really low to the water if the ship rolled that way.

I stayed on for a couple of months. My seasickness came and went. But I felt I was a useful crew member. I even cooked at times. The skipper owned the boat. The other two crew members were grizzled sailors, this was their life. They usually had a young boy as a helper. I was that “young boy”.

We did a few lime stone trips, heavily laden one way, empty and bouncing as a cork on the way back, equally uncomfortable. The vessel was scheduled for service at the end of the summer. I was laid off and returned home.

M/S Oden served for a total of 100 years
until it sank in January 2016.

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The summer wasn't quite over yet. I again took to being a delivery boy. I did earn some more money and even earned tip at times.

I am 16, I want my own moped. A used one cost 214 kronor. I only had 204 kronor. I asked my mother. She was at the end of her unpaid summer leave as a teacher and had no money to spare, not even 10 kronor. I borrowed them from a friend.

Victoria 49 cc moped, model 1954

The moped was grand, or not. All mopeds shared one common feature, the top speed. It was strictly regulated, woe the moped driver that made it go faster than 30 km/h.

There would be police controls here and there. A policeman would stand a little to the side and use a watch to time our speed between two painted lines. If you were caught, you had to go back to the shop, reset whatever you had done to make it go too fast and report for a test.

I was now a full member of a not-so-exclusive group, teenagers with mopeds. We were noisy, didn't walk if we could drive, and always made sure we cold be heard. My moped soon had a few well placed holes in the muffler, maximizing the exhaust sound. 

I partook in many wild biking adventures, both during daylight and after dark. The light was weak and I had my share of running into bumps and potholes after dark, jarring me and, worse, the side mounted engine.

After my third repair of the engine mounts, I ended my night driving on unseen roads. Then, catastrophe, the drive shaft broke off. I walked home. Money for repairs? No, none. The welding shop? The master welder had a look at my sad machine – brought out a welding machine and started his repair.

"Look out for the fuel tank just above your welding torch?" 

“What fuel tank?”

Some grease caught fire and the flames were licking the bottom of the tank. I had, fortunately, positioned myself with a fire extinguisher nearby. A squirt of powder and the fire was out – but my moped was now sooty and as undriveable as ever.

I took it to the mechanical shop next door, they helped me wash off all grease and empty the fuel tank. After that my careless welder could finish the job. My moped ran again. It served me well for another couple of years. Then I sold it to a friend.

.........................

Military service is obligatory for all young Swedish men, most have to start at age 19.

You could choose where to go if you volunteered early. That fall, at 16, I volunteered for military service as a pilot-to-be. I was called in for the mandatory written test and doctor's exam. I had never seen a multiple answer questionnaire in my life and wrote in my own answers, so much clearer than the multiple check-boxes.

I failed that test.

As for the physical, I had volunteered only so that I could be a Saab Tunnan J-29 pilot, anything less was beneath me. The eye doctor held up my eyeglasses to the light and said:

“You will never fly.”

Oh no, my military career is over. Then a man in the group of inspectors looked up.

“You are Sten Rosholm's nephew, aren't you?”

“Yes.”

“You are already enrolled, you will report to the I-11 infantry regiment next April. - We have problem, though, you are under-weight, eat well this winter."

Little did I know that my uncle, still active in the army, had pulled a few strings behind my back. I was, indeed, already on the rolls but still had to pass the inspection. As for my failed written test, I learned, years later, that it had been deemed “faulty” and was not recorded.

Wow, I am going to the army, carry a uniform and be the pet of all women.

............................

April was still many months away. School became a dread and I finally dropped out in February. I started on a new career, errand boy and oil-container filler at the Reymersholm edible oil factory.

My tool of the trade was a very heavy transport bicycle.

This one strengthened my legs. As for my upper body strength, I was placed by a machine to fill 10 liter cooking oil cans. The packaging part of the factory was quite an enjoyable place for me. The majority of the staff were women, running the processing and filling machines. Some were quite crude, I learned a bit more of the inner workings of the Swedish language.

This operation was on the 5^th floor of the building 
with the flag on top.

The elevators were very temperamental and easily made to stop anywhere. The most extreme activity I came to see, from looking down the open shaft, was when a couple had intercourse on grain sacks with the elevator disabled between two floors. They were cheered on their reappearance. Perhaps they didn't realize that you could look down from the top floor or they didn't care?

Ironically, This 5th floor facility caught fire and totally burnt out just before I reported for summer work a few years later. One of my first assignments was to help dismantling the burnt and shriveled up oil filling machines.

April approached and it was time to start a new phase of my life, the military.

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My seafaring career continued after my military service. You can read about how I sailed around the world before my 20th birthday here:

https://myseafaringdays.blogspot.ca/

If you'd like to learn more about my uncle Sten, "The fighter pilot who won his first dog-fight and lost his war.", click here.

https://swedishfighterpilot.blogspot.ca/

Photo credits: Some are my own, other are stock photos from Google.

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If you'd like to read even more about a lot of adventurs, please buy my memoirs here:

https://www.amazon.ca/Seasons-Man-Lindvall-family-friends-ebook/dp/B07HHGRGPP

15 years old - I lost my virginity

I was 15

Our two-week spring break was in February, during a real, rather seldom occurring, cold spell. Even Karlshamn, on the coast, recorded – 20 C.

I visited the neighbours of my late father's cottage. This is where I had been a truly happy foster child, living on a real farm around the time of my parent's divorce. I had started grade school there and still had many friends in the area.

One evening we went to a party. A couple of the older boys had cars and we arrived in great style. The party was a great success and all felt good as we were about to leave, long after midnight.

Not so fast, it was – 25 C and no car could be started. There was no taxi to be had in the forest at that hour so we all took off walking in different directions. I warmed my hands inside Solveig's coat, followed her into her parent's kitchen to warm up and, with a little encouragement, proceeded to undress. A large brown dog was watching us. Her parents were sleeping in the room next to the kitchen.

Sparing you the details, all went well on top of the wood storage box next to the warm stove. Continuing home to my foster parents place the world looked all different. I was now a man, the stars were brighter and closer than ever. I was on top of the world. The cold? It was the coldest walk of my young life until then but why care?

Solveig and I never met again. She took ill with Leukemia a few months later and was soon gone. She forever has a place in my heart. I sometimes put a flower on her grave when passing by.

On the good side, my childhood friend and grade school classmate Sonja, also in that party but walking home with a different boy that night, is still very much alive. We talk on the phone now and then and try to meet whenever I am in Sweden.

.............

My late father's fiancee, Sandra, had a cottage in town so we met quite often. She had talked to a farmer she met on a train and promised my services, 15 year old, as farmhand for the summer.

The farm was located far north of my home. The summer nights never got dark. I worked long hours, building fences, tending to the cows and calves, feeding the chickens, collecting eggs from the hens and just being available. The farm life was invigorating for me, reliving so many experiences from when I was just a little kid at my foster home, also on a farm, many years earlier.

Peugeot standard 1955

The farmer and his wife were very cheap, the farm was not theirs but leased. He drove a special extra inexpensive farm edition French made Peugeot car. It had hammocks for seats, not a smidgen of insulation and in gray matte paint. It was also equipped to run on an extra tank with un-taxed kerosene, very illegal.

The smell of the exhaust was very telling. You just couldn't drive into a city on kerosene, you had to switch over to gasoline first. My farmer boss forgot that one day, we were stopped by the police and he had to go to the local fire station for an inspection.

The mechanic pinched the kerosene supply pipe with a set of pliers. Adjustment completed. - Back to the police station for confirmation. My farmer didn't get a ticket but was muttering all the way home. To put a new pipe to the kerosene tank was a five minute job, then the car smelled as bad as ever.

There was also an old tractor? I got a 15 second instruction session on how to shift gears.

Farmall 1946

"Here is the field, you are to turn the hay with this rake."

It was scary but I got going and didn't break the rake or tip the tractor. It was hot and I suffered from the heat. I took a break to fetch some water from the creek. 

How could I know that the parking brake didn't work? I saw, from the corner of my eye, how the tractor slowly rolled away. Quickly, stop the damned thing. I managed to jump back on in time to stomp on the brake. That ditch was awfully close.

My instructions didn't include how to stop the engine. There was no key but probably a switch somewhere, but where. At lunch time, I left it idling in the field.

Lacking a parking brake, I put logs in front of and behind the large wheels at lunch-time. The idling engine was very noisy so I walked quite far away to enjoy my sun-burned milk and sandwiches in calmer surroundings. Then I saw from a distance how the engine started smoking precipitously. I didn't think much of it. Just burning a bit of oil? Then the smoke, or more correctly, steam, started to subside and I realized what had happened, it had boiled off all the water in the radiator.

I must stop the engine now, but how?

I stepped on the brake, put it in top gear and left out the clutch. This probably broke about all the rules in the book on how to treat an old tractor.

The fan belt was broken and lying on the ground. I was stranded on a field a long way from home. The belt had been held together with a piece of wire. True, there was more wire in the tool box. I mended the fan belt, got water for the radiator from the creek and started again.

I felt rather proud of my mechanical abilities.

It took a couple of days until I added to the story of how I fixed the belt about how I had stopped the engine. The farmer almost hit me on the spot. After that I didn't drive the tractor unsupervised.

In retro-respect, any living farm boy, farm girl, farmer or farmhand can tell about how terribly dangerous a three wheel tractor can be. I was lucky I didn't tip it.

The next time I gathered hay I had a horse. The wasps were everywhere. The horse was thirsty and tired – and on the way home he got stung by several wasps simultaneously. 

The horse panicked and took off. 

He calmed down before anything really bad happened, like meeting a car. I hung on for life and didn't fall off but the rake didn't fare so well, one wheel wasn't round any more. This time the farmer didn't get angry at me. After dinner, he produced a welding torch and a sledge hammer. The wheel was soon made round again.

Sure, I worked far harder than I ever had, but so did everyone else on the farm. The bull was unpredictable but could be led if you held on to his nose ring. This ring had a short piece of wire wound around it. Once, the bull threw his head up, the wire got caught and ripped into my hand. It bled profusely and the farmer's wife put on Iodine, that hurt, and tied my hand and finger tight. I didn't sleep that night. The next day we were spreading fertilizer and I was assigned to off-load the 50 kg sacks. Needless to say, the sore in my hand opened up. The hand had swelled precociously over night and started to bleed again.

Time for another ride in his car, this time to the hospital.

By now I had an infection. The doctor at the hospital gave the farmer hell for not taking me in the day before. I stayed in the ward overnight and returned the next day with a few stitches and a huge bandage on my hand.

I didn't have to lift any heavy bags for the next few days, nor did I have to clean up around the bull. The scars are still visible.

The summer had its real bonuses too. The farmer's daughter, my age, had a multitude of friends. We went to several barn dances together. The life with the girls and their friends had been good and I had very mixed feelings about leaving as the summer drew to an end. 

The meals were carefully metered out to each of us at the table. I did ask for an egg once, but was told that each of us were only allowed one egg per person per day. I had already had mine, she had baked some sponge cake that day. I never saw an egg on the table. I had lost a bit of weight but perhaps gained some muscles too. I weighed 50 kg when I returned home, 110 lbs.

There had been a previous agreement on how much I would be paid. I had very little money when I arrived and that was soon gone. I asked for an advance but was told that they never had any cash in the house.

The day of departure arrived. I had my return ticket for the train fare. We left for the railroad station just after sunrise, before breakfast. When we stepped out of the car, I asked if he was going to pay me now.

“No, I am not going to pay you anything, you have eaten too much and not worked hard enough.”

I stepped on the train for a seven-hour trip with two changes of train without a single penny in my pocket.

I was sooo hungry.

In the middle of the afternoon I sat facing a young lady. She opened her lunch bag and put down three hard bread (Knäckebröd) sandwiches on the little table between us.

She looked at me and said: “You look hungry, would you like to have on of these?”

“Yes, thank you.”

To this day, that is the best sandwich I've had, ever.

I can still feel the movement of the train, the draft from the open window, the taste of the lukewarm water and – feel the crunch as I bit into the hard bread with a slice of cheese on top.

My mother got angry when we met, I was so skinny that my clothes were practically falling off me. Now I know. Hard work and too little food will make you lose weight. No harm had befallen me, but I did get a little suspicious of employers who don't pay.

.................

I faced one more winter of failing school, not doing any home work, and feeling generally rotten in the academic department.

My life was pretty good, otherwise. We had moved to a larger apartment and I had my own room again. I soon built a little laboratory, complete with a low voltage supply for my electronic experiments and a bunsen burner, fed from a gas bottle well hidden under the table.

The gas bottle? It had a broken valve when I “released” it from the school scrap heap. I washed off the bottle, then went to the hardware store for a propane refill. The clerk took pity on my broken valve and replaced it for free.

Crystal radio from kit

I built a radio receiver from a kit, then a tone generator. Those two, and a pair of earphones, allowed me to practice Morse code. I became quite good at transmitting code, but receiving from the radio was much harder.

................

Model airplanes? Of course, lots of them, both in balsa and in plastic. The balsa models all flew.

The largest was a soaring plane, over one metre between the wingtips. 

One day the plane got up into an updraft and continued up and up and away. I bicycled after it as a mad man, waiting for it to come down again. It flew away, nowhere to be seen. I got a call late that evening, a farmer had found it on his hay-field, safe and sound with my name and telephone number on the side.

That big plane came to an inglorious ending, It was run over by a train. Yes, one day it landed on the track in front of a train at full speed. I don't know if the engineer saw it or not. I could only pick up the pieces and call it quits. No repair was possible.

My model airplane era was over.

......................

My sister, soon to be diagnosed with mental illness, could be uncontrollably angry and throw whatever was near at me. She deeply resented me in her life, calling me “the suckling pig”, probably in reference to the fact that I spent time with mother too. I felt more and more like I was in the wrong place.

We lived in an apartment on the property of my grandfather. I helped a lot, shoveling snow in the winter, sweeping the sidewalk, mowing the grass, shoveling the coal and generally doing small chores. The garden was wonderful with berries, apple, plum and pear trees. It was enclosed on all sides and relatively wind free, greatly extending our season.

Lou-Lou, our Cocker-Spaniel, was in heaven. She took to chasing squirrels and birds, and just about everything that moved, usually in futility. She had a bad habit to snap after flies and bees.

One day she got a bee that stung her on the base of the tongue. She almost suffocated as her throat swelled closed. We carried her up to our neighbour, a family doctor.

This all played out within a few short minutes. He took one look at the dog, stuck a tongue extender in her mouth, reached for his medicine cabinet and gave her an antihistamine injection. His quick actions as an impromptu veterinarian saved the life of our dog. Lou-Lou never snapped after flies or bees after that day.

My uncle Sten, my mother's eldest brother, the ex fighter pilot, visited often.

He, by default, became my substitute father, a man to look up at and to emulate. He was a well read and well traveled man. I got many tips from him about life and the rough and tumble world out there.

He introduced me to the civil defense and later to the volunteer army (FBU). It was fun, I got to operate radio sets, telephone exchanges, play with big guns and even shoot some. Also, we regularly had military exercises with the woman's auxiliary, not bad company.

Me in charge of a communications group.

My uncle, living in Karlskrona, usually showed up in a gray painted military vehicle, a Karmann Ghia.

Karmann Ghia 1955 in military gray.

In what? A military sports car? Yes, the Swedish forces had a standing contract with Volkswagen to supply “x” number of vehicles per year. VW had decided to ship some of their sports cars too. I suppose all officers, Captain Rosholm included, quite enjoyed them.

.....................

We were to get a new railroad station in a couple of years. The grounds preparations were in full swing. I made friends with one of the Caterpillar tractor operators. I was soon driving that tractor on my own.

My photograph

That, as so many adventures of mine, ended with a bang, or at least with a squirt.

The operator, a young Finnish man, had a liking for the bottle. One day, under the influence, he took the little Caterpillar D-4 too far. It sunk in the mud and he used the blade to lift it up. It didn't work at first so he jerked the mechanism even harder.

Finally a hydraulic hose split open. He wasn't quick enough in his reactions so the tank emptied and the hydraulic pump seized. The tractor was pulled back to terra firma by an even larger tractor.

He was fired the next day.

I had lost an interesting friend, or at least a friend who had an interesting machine.

................

School was terrible and I was, again, destined for remedial classes at the beginning of next semester.

Spring time ended and summer arrived. I turned 16.

For more about that year, click here:

http://ayoungboysjourney.blogspot.ca/2017/04/growing-up-16-years-old.html

--------------------
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

17 - 18 years old. In the army

I was enrolled in the army. April arrived and it was time to start my army career. I cleaned my room and prepared it to be empty for a long time. 

I took an early train and proudly showed off my military issue ticket. The conductor looked at it and said,

“You are too young for all of that – go back home to mother.”

I may have been too young, but not the youngest. The youngest recruit, Rune Johansson, had the cot above mine. He was one day younger. 

Millions of young men have joined the army over thousands of years, all have probably had about the same experiences. When taught how to say “Attention” with the right intonation, I tried it the way it had been written in comic books, in a very soft and flat voice. That was the first time – of many, many - when I, out of innocence and lack of life skills, drew laughter.

As new recruits, representing the king and the country, we weren't trusted to leave the lodgings for the first four weeks. The indoctrination was incessant. One important activity for all infantry soldiers was to take cover on the ground. I tried to argue with the officer:

“But it's wet.”

“Get down.”

“Now I am wet.”

“Yes, and so you will be for the rest of the day.” - I was wet and cold.

........................

The bathrooms had no privacy at all and the mandatory morning – and sometimes evening – showers had only a choice of one temperature, cold. The regiment, about 200 years old at this time, housed about 1,000 young men, most between 17 and 21 years old. We were divided between four 1912 vintage brick buildings. I, and all the other 23 in my dorm, had enrolled as aspirants, NCO material with a chance to continue to become an officer. (Only one did become an officer, eventually.)

........................

The shooting lessons started immediately. That was the easiest to grasp of all the activities we had to learn. My past shooting experiences made me pass every test with flying colours. 

Not so my academic record. A call on one of the first mornings:

“How many do not have a High school graduation diploma? Hands up.”

All of us who held up our hands, me included, were in the stupid group. We had to take two mandatory evenings of classes every week. If that wasn't enough we also had one weekly military evening exercise, usually after dark.

My body protested and I was totally exhausted at first. I slept all I could when not on duty. I even learned to have lunch and then sleep 15 minutes before the afternoon lineup. My slightly underweight and not very well-trained body really took a beating. I was clearly the weakest in the group. That didn't exclude me from anything, except from carrying the assembled machine gun in the field.

......................

The exercise grounds were opened as a park for the public on weekends. You'd occasionally run across civilians exercising, biking or just walking. 

I met a girl, my age, pushing a baby in a carriage. We struck up a conversation and I learned where she had just been, in a home for unmarried women in Karlshamn. That was our common point for the beginning of a short but intense relationship. We used to meet Saturdays and Sundays for a walk in the park, pushing her baby. We could hide away in the park, finding privacy in the forested area, and even share a cup of cocoa at the military canteen when it was open for civilians on weekends. 

I always used a condom. No babies for me.

That was good for my status – I had a girlfriend and a baby, at 16! 

I basked in my newfound status for as long as it lasted. She got a new boyfriend later that summer and disappeared from my life.

...............

Eventually, all of us, new recruits, were allowed to go home. We were strongly encouraged to wear our uniforms in private too. I travelled home on the train, proud, in my fresh uniform. Since every young man eventually had to serve his time, there was absolutely no stigma attached to the uniform. I often went to the public dances dressed in uniform.

...................

Even though we were infantry, foot soldiers, we were expected how to drive many military vehicles, up to a five-tonne truck. This was the summer when I got my driver's license, at age 17, far too young by Swedish law.

We started out with one instructor and four pupils in a large passenger car. I happened to be the first driver. 100 metres from the front entrance a young lady on a bicycle crossed the road right in front of us.

I immediately stomped down the clutch and the brake, something no untrained driver would do. The lady gave me a casual look and continued as if nothing had happened. Then I put the gear shifter back in first gear to continue.

“Stop. You already know how to drive, no more training for you.”

My father's driver training when I was 13 had paid off. The instructor threatened to report me to the police and I got no more driving instructions.

I was sweating bullets the day we were to pass our practical exam before a state inspector. I passed without any comments.

Ironically enough, the very official and real driver's license I received, covering both trucks, cars and motorcycles said, with very small letters on the bottom; “Only for military vehicles.” I didn't always follow that rule. I was stopped in a routine control once, It was dark and the policeman, reading my license with a flashlight, said nothing and returned it to me. 

Now I knew, my not-yet-valid license was legal in the dark.

The military training was intense and we traveled wide and far to partake in various military exercises. 

One week was for learning how to handle explosives. We blew up so many things. An old bridge, steel bars, made trenches, and used up lots of different explosives. The scariest exercise was how to enter a house, not through the doors, but by blowing new holes in the walls.

All went well to the end. Our ears were still aching from a week's full of explosions on Saturday morning. All left was to clear up and collect all the remaining explosives for disposal.

As you can well imagine, we couldn't bring any left-over explosives back to the barracks. They all had to be blown up. As it happened, a farmer living nearby had asked us if we could straighten his road. That would be great for using up our leftovers.

The main obstacle was a man-high boulder. We used all our newly learned skills and placed many charges in well-chosen places. With an hour to go until the weekend started, we set it off.

The explosion was well muffled and we felt rather good about the whole affair until we walked back for an inspection. Deem of our surprise, the boulder was blown to smithereens and there was a metre-deep gouge in the road.

No going home until we had brought out our military mini-shovels and filled the hole again, making it into a perfect roadbed. That little task took us several hours. I got home very late that Saturday.

I spent a total of 21 months in the military. At the end of year one, we were all promoted to corporal. Our first year had been mandatory, anything beyond that would be as an employee.

Corporal 214 Lindvall, I-11 infantry regiment, June 1958

The salary was by all measures considered to be too great, that it would give young men a disincentive to continue their education. Needless to say, considering what other options I had, I signed up.

On return after a short break, we were now assigned to be room supervisors for the newly drafted recruits. I was assigned to a room with a group of soldiers destined for the field artillery.

These young men were all selected for their great physical strength, cannon are heavy beasts to move around. Here I was, little scrawny me among some of the strongest young men in the country. 

I almost trembled with fear as I approached my new duty as a room supervisor. Much to my pleasure, I found out that almost all of these guys, all burly farm boys, were warm and kind.

At least one had brought a present, or two, for us all to share. Bedbugs and lice. We were all scratching during the day and as the nights went by more and more of us woke up with bloody bites in the morning.

This called for disinfection, military-style. Everything was emptied out, all our bedding was turned into the laundry and we had to sit down and pick louse out of our loose gear.

All of us had to go the sauna together and put on newly washed clothes as we came out.

The mattresses were a different issue. We all had straw mattresses. They were all emptied in a big pile in the yard and set afire. The wind picked up and our straw-fire shot high. 

The city fire department arrived, looking for the source of all the smoke and cinders, but soon left.

............

Every man in "the service" knows about many surprises that come your way, you are drafted young while your minds are still not fully formed. Then it is easier to turn you into a trained killing machine.

The Swedish army had been in a shooting war since 1812 so you cannot exactly say that we had any deep traditions of warfare to draw from.

Our officers were, as all officers are, trained by the book, learning from all the wars of recent times. That may not have transported very well to our days. 

We were taught how to dig a trench and a deep shelter, WW1 style. That was quite an exercise. The shelter was to be built on an artillery shooting range. 

First, we got a briefing from the disposal group on how well they had searched our little piece of land to assure us that there was no unexploded munition from any earlier exercise. 

Then we proceeded to chop down some good size trees, prepared them, and erected a shelter frame from the logs some 6 metres underground. That deep hole took several days to finish.

In total, we were over a hundred young men working on this labour of love. Our shelter was backfilled and ready to show off about a week later. 

A general and some of his staff came by, they climbed down and inspected it all.

"Good work, now show how good it is."

A day later a heavy howitzer was put in place and a few shells were lobbied off on a very reduced propellant charge. They were clustered such that at least one would go off over or near our shelter.

Our whole regiment, probably a thousand men were standing on a hillside about a kilometre away. This was a frightening spectacle. To see a war movie was nothing like seeing real artillery so close up.

The artillery controller reported that all missiles had exploded, there were no duds lying about. We were free to return for inspection.

Our so neatly constructed shelter was now a shambles, it had taken an artillery hit a few metres away. The entranceway was almost filled in but the basic shelter, large enough for a dozen men, still stood.

This concluded the experiment, we learned. This was an exercise to prove that the field manual was workable. I still don't know why we did all the work, I have since seen dozens of drawing for WW 1 shelters, built by both sides.
.....................

We had one exercise when we were to shoot and dynamite our way into a house.

That is quite a story. I have written a short article for the Toronto Star about that. The link is at the end of this story.

......................................

I served only a few years after the end of the last world war. Sweden still had huge stores of war materials. Lots of it was aging out and had to be disposed of soon.

One item of which we had a practically unlimited supply of was small arms ammunition. Every time we went out for a shooting exercise, the stores-boys included an extra box.

The net result was that we were, in truth, encouraged to shoot as many bullets as we could in any given exercise. We practiced with our 6.5 mm model 1896 Mauser rifles until our shoulders ached, but many became really good at sharpshooting, me included.

The other regulation sidearm was a submachine gun, Karl Gustav model 1945. Now, you cannot really do any precision shooting over 100 metres with a nine mm bullet, but they were effective at closer range.

Remember, this was in very disciplined military training so not a shot was fired that could endanger any of us. Still, instead of shooting a short burst, nobody cared if a 36-round magazine was emptied in a few seconds, we had more boxes nearby.

Shooting with the pistol, we soon learned what a ridiculous weapon that is. You would have to be really lucky to hit anything smaller than a barn door at ten metres.

I did well in shooting and even got a prize for being really good with a pistol. Go figure.

In truth, I think that all that shooting gave all of us a very real respect for guns. In truth, I have never even put the tip of my little finger on a gun since I left the army. I fear what a gun can do.

Still, the law applied. The guy who brought one submachine gun and ammunition home to his father's farm didn't fare well. He had gone out in the forest on a quiet Sunday and done some target shooting on his own.

The local constabulary showed up. He was court marshaled and spent some time in military jail.

Ironically enough, he was in the slammer at the same time as our platoon did guard duty.

We weren't nice to him. Poor guy.

All of us had to have two weeks of some rudimentary first aid instruction, not as in-depth as the medics but still very educational. The lessons learned there have served me well in life.

This included the worst I have ever seen; The shooting of a pig.

A newly slaughtered pig, still steaming warm, was brought in from a nearby abattoir and laid on a platform for us all to see. We were about 100 in the room.

We got some education on the anatomy of a pig and then we were to see this demonstration.

An officer produced a 9 mm submachine gun and shot the pig in three places.

We reacted differently. One fainted. several threw up right then and there. I remember standing frozen in my place.

The whole scene imprinted in my memory so well that I sometimes relive it in my nightmares, over 60 years later. 

Why we had to see this goes beyond my understanding. Perhaps we had a particularly ambitious officer who arranged this. I have never met a Swede who has seen this demonstration. In any case, here was a good reason not to shoot a living being, your organs split open...(!)

''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Swedish army had some 100,000 recruits at any one time, our field exercises were grand with huge troop movements closely scheduled and organized. We, the soldiers didn't know or understand much, our job was to follow orders.

- To travel all night on the flatbed of a truck, stop and set camp in the rain.

- To bring out our fording boats and cross a minor river. It seemed that at least one of us would fall in the water and have to be hauled out, totally soaked.

- To stand guard, to stand guard a little more and then stand guard again...

- To march through the dark forest, soaking wet in the rain.

- To be on patrol at night, forbidden to be near a road or a fence, when the only sure path was to follow a creek. The best way not to lose the creek was to walk in it.

Sometimes our wonderful 20-person tents with a good size stove didn't make it. At those times we had to sleep on branches, wrapped up in our greatcoats. A soldier's best friend is not always his weapon, for us, it was the greatcoat and the green raincoat. 

Did I say that it rained and we were all wet and cold?

No, that is not true, we had some summer excursions in warm and dry weather, a true delight, and times to remember when the fog or the wet snow surrounded us.

Swedish winters have snow and cold. Swedish soldiers have to be taught how to fight in snow and cold.

The whole regiment, some 1,000 of us, were sent north, to near the arctic circle for winter training.

It was hard for us southerners, not really accustomed to skiing all day long. The comfort of having tractor-drawn trailers with our heavy gear wasn't available in deep snow. We weren't just skiing, we had to pull sleds with our gear.

All told, it was a great experience and we were less cold than one would imagine, dressed in white fur coats and fur hats. Sure, standing on guard was tough but somewhat relieved by the huge military issue straw overshoes.

The most memorable events, of many, were the 20-hour train trips coming and going. Alcohol was strictly forbidden, of course, but many had field flasks filled with vodka instead of water. Many arrived at the end station with quite a bit of hangover.

On the return to our barracks in Växjö we had to change trains. We got off around 2 am and lined up on the platform waiting for our chartered train to take us the last hour-long trip.

No train, nothing.

Finally, two bus-sized day liners chowed up. It was minus 20 C and the insides were just as cold. If there is a record for how many soldiers you could load into a day liner, we broke it, practically sitting on top of each other.

On arrival to Växjö, we still had a few kilometres to walk. Deem of our horror when we approached the barracks, the window in our dorm was wide open, and had been open for almost a month.

The heater had frozen but not burst. We had no choice but to lie down to find some sleep as best we could. I remember sleeping in the corridor, it was just a little bit warmer there.

It took a couple of days for our dorm to emerge from its deep freeze, once the plumber had been in and thawed the frozen copper supply pipe with a welding torch. Thank heaven for copper pipes, they don't always crack open when they freeze.

................

I may have had a somewhat skinny body, but there was nothing wrong with my lungs. There was really only one activity, other than target shooting, where I excelled. - Riding a bicycle. You carry yourself and the appointed amount of gear and - off you go.

We had occasional 80 km marches, they were tough but I always stayed with my troop. After all the speed was constant, three to five kilometres per hour, depending on weather and the amount of gear carried.

The bicycle races were different. You still had a lot of gear but the speed was yours to set. Of course, the winner was always a true athlete. But - eight or ten hours on a bike sorted out many. I was never fast but I just kept going. Once I was No. three of 1,000 cyclists on a day-long ride. 

That was probably the proudest moment in my short military career. I can still bicycle quite far.

But, once, the bicycle may have become the beginning to the end of my military service.

A very efficient way to move troops fast and without tiring them out is to tow them. 20 soldiers, or so, each held on to a rope, normally towed by a tractor at about 30 km/h. With a bit of practice, you learned to hang on uphill and brake downhill, never letting the tow rope go slack.

That was not always easy if you were towed by a Jeep. It had far less power and the driver needed to shift gears now and then to keep the speed up. Also, a Jeep didn't have a speed governor and could really take off downhill.

Combine all that and you can visualize the rest. We came over a hilltop and the Jeep speeded up downhill. The driver took the foot off the accelerator to shift gears and - the tow rope slacked momentarily. Once the engine was engaged again the tow rope snapped up, lifting several bikes off the ground.

The resulting pile-up included at least two totally destroyed bicycles, two men with broken arms, several others had been severely scratched and were bleeding.

I dug myself out from under the heap and - couldn't walk. My knee had been scraped naked, clear to the bone. I still carry the scar.

The two guys with broken arms were back with their comrades the next day, I had to stay in the military hospital for a few days after my skin graft. I was still not a good walker and had to participate as an observer for a couple of weeks. 

This was a terrible time. I may not have been the most enthusiastic solder of all, but I still liked to be part of the troop. 

Now I was a nobody, unable to keep up. I had to sleep with the kitchen crew. Nice as they were, I wasn't one of them. I don't think that I have ever been depressed in my entire life, neither before nor after, but walking around, just looking, mostly alone, in the cold fall rain was not a happy time.

I applied for an honorable discharge. It was granted.

.....................

Here is the story about the house attack that I mentioned earlier: 

https://ayoungboysjourney.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-lost-weapon.html

..................................


Once back in Karlshamn I was employed to pump gas from the first day home. That first day a customer came in that was, unbelievable but true, my ex-commanding officer.

"Bengt, you made a bad choice, you would have done so much better in the army."

I didn't know then, it still took a few years for that to be true but I learned a lot more, soon.

If you are interested, you can read about how I sailed around the globe before my 20th birthday here:

http://attvaxaupp.blogspot.ca/2017/05/bengt-19.html