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155. My earliest years

Because I have been taken up with my childhood for some time, I thought that I may as well write a little about my first years. Then I have gone as far, as possible, in looking back in my own life. I am born in Oslo, the capital of Norway, June 8, 1955; that was a Wednesday. The first five years I lived together with my parents in a cottage in a quite large garden of a larger house. As far as I remember, the cottage had two rooms in the first floor, and a loft where we slept. There weren’t water in the cottage, so we had to go and get water from the large house; from a water tap on the outside in the summer, and from the inside of the house in the winter. The large house were a common house with two stories. The owner was woman. She was kind to my parents and me. My mother worked a little in the house, and my father worked a little in the garden, which had many fruit trees.

Satellite towns where built around Oslo city center from 1953. Individual houses were the common built‐up‐areas around Oslo city center in 1955. We lived north‐east of Oslo city center. People in my mother’s family lived in the neighborhood, and it was because of acquaintances that we got this place to live.

My mother told about that the first days, when I was at home, then they didn’t have a baby carriage; and she carried me on her arm, when she walked to the grocery store nearby to shop. So then, I got a little view of what were around me. After some days, they got a baby carriage; and then I could look up in the sky, and see the clouds, the birds, the treetops and human heads. I don’t remember anything from this very first time, but I remember that we lived at this place. I had a friend I played with, a girl at my age. I think the criminals have influenced me to change this, and to not to remember her correctly. But when I look at pictures of us two, it is as if I see something I have memory about. Outside the garden, there was a little park with a sandbox, where I also played, and I remember that there were other children there. I remember the neighbors around us, and the women who owned the house. I also remember that we had visitors; by my mother’s family in Oslo, and by our family elsewhere. In the summer, it was nice to be outdoor, outside of the cottage in the garden. We had a table and chairs outside the cottage.

Before I was born, my mother worked as a ticket collector in a bus company in Oslo. My father was working as a turner in a large shipbuilding yard in Oslo.

I remember that my parents and I now and then were asked to visit the woman, who owned the cottage. She was friendly and kind. She sent the apples to a company that made apple juice of them, because it was difficult to keep the apples without doing anything with them. When she and my parents drank coffee, she smiled and went down in the basement and found apple juice for me. She worked at the publishing firm Gyldendal Norsk Forlag (Gyldendal Norwegian Publishing Firm), and her house was full of books up along all the walls.

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Some years after we moved in 1960, one of our relatives on my mother’s side, came to us with a book for me. The book was from someone who wanted to give me that book, she said. That was what this person had said to her, that she should say. The book was “Discovery and Exploration: An atlas‐history of man’s journeys into the unknown” 1960, by Frank Debenham. (Norwegian: Jordens Erobring: En atlas‐historie om menneskets reiser inn i det ukjente, 1962, Gyldendal Norwegian Publishing Firm.) I became interested in the book, and read much in it for a long time. I also looked around in the book together with my parents, and talked about what the book was about. The book had interesting pictures and was fun to read.

Some time after this, the same person who came with the book, came and said that the person, who owned the cottage we had lived in, wanted to talk with me. And my father and I drove to her with the car. The car was bought in 1964, therefore it must has been that year or later.

She asked me if I had got the book “Discovery and Exploration: An atlas‐history of man’s journeys into the unknown.” I answered yes, and said; is it you, who gave me that book. She smiled and answered yes, and asked if I had read in the book. I answered yes. Then she asked if I could tell something from the book. And I could tell from the book, because I had read much in it. Then she became glad, and said that she had thought that I would like that book.

She asked if I remembered her. I remembered her, and said that she is kind. She asked me about how went school. She became sad when she heard that it didn’t go well at school. Then something must has ruined for you, she said to me. I didn’t understand what could have ruined for me.

She said that she didn’t have much time left to live, she had become ill. I said that was sad. She wanted to give me all her books. I answered that we didn’t have room for so many books, that we didn’t have enough book shelves. She said that I could get her book shelves. I answered that we didn’t have room for so many book shelves. She said that I didn’t remember what we had talked about. And I didn’t remember what we had talked about. Then she said, that I could get the whole house. I answered that we had our new house, and that I lived there together with my parents. She said that my parents also could live in the house, and that we could rent out the other house. She didn’t have heirs, and those she knew were old as herself. I said something about that we had to live in our new house.

When I think about this, it seems strange for me; because I had wanted to have all the books, and I had liked to have that house, and I can’t understand why I answered as I did. But I can’t remember anything about why I answered as I did.

I said that I could get some of the most important books. She said that we could start with two books. “The Outline of History”, by H. G. Wells, 1919 ‐ 1920, two volumes. (Norwegian: Wells’ verdenshistorie, 1927, Gyldendal Norwegian Publishing Firm.)

She said that it is important to read what people wrote, who have experienced what they write about. And from people who are near to what they write about. She also said that it is important to start to read the history from the first history books, and afterwards read the later history books. These two books “The Outline of History” isn’t the very first, she said, but these are early books. These are from shortly after the First World War, and then the Second World War hadn’t happened yet. It is important to read what were written about the First World War, before the Second World War, she said. It isn’t so much about that here, but it is a little, she said.

She also said that there are books at the library.

After some time I heard that she had died. I felt it as an emptiness inside of me.

Afterwards I started to go much to the city district library and borrowed books. I went to the library several times a week. Sometimes I read two books at one day if it was a free day. First I borrowed exciting youth books. After some time I had read all of those books, which I wanted to read. After that; I borrowed fiction, and also all kinds of other different books. I looked around and picked out books I became interested in, when I saw them. I liked to be at the library, and knew those who worked there. We also had books at home, which I read.

Just now, I start to wonder if the criminals have influenced me to get ha memory hallucination about that I borrowed books of Immanuel Kant 1724 ‐ 1804, and Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 ‐ 1860; to ruin what the library really was for me. What I borrowed; was anything I found at the library, it could be literature, about hobbies, technique, popular science, and anything else. I am not sure about how this was, I just thought about it now. It could be typical for the criminals to do that. This has got a dominating role in my mind, which is typical for such memory hallucinations. In 1973 I by chance bought a Norwegian paperback book with different texts of the German philosopher Ernst Bloch 1885 ‐ 1977, because I read on the backside that he was interested in science fiction in connection with other things, “På spor av virkeligheten” (On the track of the reality) Gyldendal Norwegian Publishing Firm 1972. I read that book in the meal breaks at my work, where I then just had started to work. It was summer and I went to a park in my meal breaks. I bought the book in a shop nearby to where I worked. I looked at science fiction as a genre, which were taken up with how our modern development could come to develop in a dangerous way; that the humaneness disappears, humans come under control, the development takes a dangerous direction, the humans try to be God and it goes wrong, etc. I thought that science fiction sometimes was about different warnings.

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I have some memories about that I was in the house of the person who owned the cottage, and that she had books on the table. We looked in the books together. I also have a memory about that there were another gentle person there one time, together with her. I have a memory about that she one time asked me to look at something in a book. She has been kind to me. I think we talked much when I lived in the cottage in her garden. I liked to be together with her, and became fond of her. She was a calm and clever person. She is one of the people who has marked me in a good way in my earliest years. I always remember her with joy. She is one of the people who has a place in my heart.

I have thought much about; that if I had read all those books, then I hadn’t found out about the criminals. The most important to do, is to find out about the criminals. The large house and the large garden hadn’t got me to find out about these things either. But this person’s impact on me in my first years, has helped me to find out about the criminals. I walked over to her when I saw her, and it was usually possible for me to see her every day. She meant a lot to me. I remember that she sometimes said that she didn’t have time just then, but that she had time later, and that I could come back later. Sometimes she also said that she should be away for some time, but that she came back again.

May 16, 2017, David H. Hegg