I will go back in time to 1956-61
During those years I went to school in Lohja. First I attended elementary school for 2 years, close to St. Lauri Church and then classes 3-5 at Harju Elementary School in Lohja. In primary school, I was taught by a wonderful woman, Mirjam Hämäläinen, who was a Christian believer. To our second year class came a black haired girl named Outi.
Her family moved to Eretz Israel during the school year. Miriam said that Outi was Jewish and that she and her parents moved to the land where Jesus Christ had lived, died, and rose from the dead. Once I saw Outi's mother come and pick Outi from school with a big black Mercedes Benz.
In the 1950s, a serious train and bus crash occurred. I remember four adults died and many were seriously injured. I heard of accident on the radio news and immediately ran with Pertti to Lohja station curiously to see what had really happened. We saw a badly wrecked bus there. Its window glasses were bloody and broken to many pieces. The police had covered the dead with blankets by the side of the road. There was blood also on the street.
Investigations of the accident revealed that as the bus approached the level crossing and the driver saw the train coming, one of the passengers shouted, "Just press the throttle! You have a good time to cross the track before the train arrives." The uncertain driver believed the passenger with very fatal consequences. Bus drivers should always rely only on their own discretion ability!
In the late 1950s, I also remember the unfortunate incident where I and my brothers were watching a men's ice hockey match in Lohja. One of the players received an elevated shot from the puck so that the puck sank into his forehead. The man immediately fell down, was unconscious and much of his blood flowed on to ice. It took a long time before the ambulance came there. That's why I started to abhor ice hockey!
Pirkko's teacher and my teacher sent letters of recommendation to our parents that we should to move to special school because we were particularly talented. But after Paula and Päivi were born and since the number of children was 6, my parents couldn't afford to send us to special school. They said it would be too expensive.
I was good at drawing
When I was in 5th grade, my teacher was Anneli Laitinen, who I fell in love with. She played beautifully organ and sang Christian hymns that touched my soul. Anneli was a very beautiful teacher and unmarried, who was able to draw skilfully. I also had exceptionally good drawing skills.
When we first time drew with water colors in the classroom in drawing hour, I managed to draw a child with a colorful beach ball. A white pigeon was sitting on the child's shoulder. Anneli was absolutely thrilled with the drawing and immediately went to show it to the teachers in the teacher room.
Rector Lehtiö didn't believe, that I had drawn it, but said Anneli herself had drawn it! Anneli was also disappointed when she was not believed. As a student of Anneli, I participated in spiritual competitions of schools in Western Uusimaa and the Salo region, which included singing and drawing competitions. I was put into a group with the students up to 2 years older than me.
I told Anneli I didn't know. I told her that as I listened to the tune, I saw in front of me an old woman in black, who was crying at her husband's grave, and saw her daughter comforting her. Anneli told me that this was exactly the case in the composition. Anneli began to treat me even more respectfully.
Also, she was deep impressioned, when I got from the religion surprise-exam full points 10. Anneli was rightly amazed! I also got a full points 10 in the native language grammar exam! I gave much earlier than other pupils the grammar exam paper her. Then she asked me to fix the exam papers of the others while she went to the teacher room for a while.
In that time it was an unprecedented level of confidence in a pupil and I fell in love with her! After moving to Siuntio, I initially missed Anneli, who had married a wealthy German businessman. It I heard from my friend in Lohja. You see, by letter, I kept in touch with schoolmates in Lohja for a while, which I also miss, both boys and girls. That is an important thing for adults to take into account, when moving from one place to another if they really love their children!
As a result the good friendships of many schoolchildren are cut off, often forever! Pirkko went to school a year before me. She and I won our own series in the Spiritual Writing Contest and Säästöpankki Oy opened a reward account for us by placing FIM 1000 in our account in Lohja. It was big money for us kids. The topic was to write the subject of why it is always worth putting your money on account in Säästöpankki Oy.
The elderly women in Lohja Ojamo laughed and giggled at me after reading my essay from a local newspaper. In it I mixed the names of the Queen of England and the Princess. I have never felt royals in Europe. But with help of fairy tale I achieved my goal: to win the promised prize!
I was cheated on my paycheck
When I was 9, my playmates asked me cycle with them from Lohja to Virkkala. There we started to work on sugar beets field and to thin the planting intervals for sugar beets' small seedlings. The owner of a big farm promised us little boys each of us for FIM 2,500 (€ 62), if each of us work ready five long rows. Each row was about 300 m long. It took about a week (6 days) to work.
Siiri made me packed lunch of a 1/3 rye bread each morning, between which she put a fried egg and I got 1/2 liter of non-alcoholic home beer to drink. We drove by our bicycles to work for about 5 km every morning and back in the afternoon. The disappointment was great when we only received FIM 1500 (€ 37) from the farm host. It was a bad pay for a week of grubbing up in the heat of summer!
With that money I bought to my mother a big pack of coffee and with the rest of my money I bought the swimming flippers for myself. I learned from the case and from my first job that wages should be agreed in writing, because the rich easily deceive the poor! Of course, by that time, I had done many kinds of work, such as collecting fir cones for fuel and berries for a fee. I had also collected a lily of the valley from the forest and sold them at the Lohja Market Square.
I also sold of birch's branch knotted brooms made by Siiri's uncle, door to door. During Christmas time I sold toys made by Tauno Kananen, the husband of Siiri's Vuokko sister, in the Lohja market square. They were really well done and colorful. I sold them all so, that I sold the last one for a little discount. I got a reasonable commission on brooms and toy cars. I also collected empty glass bottles and sold them for shop.
Summer cottage on Helperi Island
My parents bought a large summer cottage plot on Helperi Island on the eastern shore of the Isoselkä in Lohjanjärvi, which is parallel to Liessaari and south of it. From there you could see the Vivamo, about a kilometer away, where the Finnish Bible Association's summer place is located. Now there are activities all year around.
Nowadays there is the Bible Village. Our plot was on the south shore of the island and the beach water quickly lead deeper. Southwest winds sometimes raised waves up to almost 2 m high.
On summer evenings we sometimes heard a Christian song from Vivamo. I remember how my father and Siiri and my godparents said when they listened to the song that there the believers were singing in ecstasy again. The calm surface of the lake sometimes carried the song relatively far and well audible.
We built of big spruce trees growing on our plot a summer cottage for our large family. The father was assisted by a relative named Leevi, and so did all we older children too. We built a kitchen, living room and balcony at the southern end of the cottage, which continued to the other end of the long cottage.
In the center of the cottage was built a sauna and a laundry and changing room next to it. At the back part of the cottage a bedroom for all children was built. It was hard work for us young boys to dig up each day the big spruce stump and chop it into firewood because there were plenty of stumps. We also dug a well.
Fishing with Lars on a rowing boat 1960
I left with Lars one sunny Sunday at noon by row boat to pull the lure. As we rowed on the lake I saw almost black thunder storm clouds rumbling from Vivamo over the bay. I told Lars that now we must suddenly get out of the open water on the lake and we rushed to the summer cottage for safety.
It had such a thunderstorm that it lightened up to 100 times a minute throughout the evening and night. In light of lightning, I read a cartoon magazine because it was impossible to get a dream due to thunder. I read the whole Zorro cartoon through the magazine. I had never before and never since experienced so vigorous thunderstorm!
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti