By Lela Torgesen Wade
It was the early 1950s in a small North Georgia town. Howard was having a meal in the restaurant next door to the theater on Main Street. The man who shared his table was getting up to leave. But that did not set right at all with the big Norwegian. His parents had never allowed food to be wasted. They’d grown up in Norway where it was often hard to come by. And here was this man leaving food on his plate. It was not to be tolerated.
Howard slid a pistol from his jacket pocket and laid it on the table. Keeping his hand on the gun, he growled, “Sit down! You’re not leaving until you’ve cleaned your plate.”
With shaking hands the man eased back into his seat. The waitress had witnessed this scenario. She just happened to be a policeman’s wife, and her husband was a cousin to the restaurant owner’s wife. So she quickly phoned the department, and he came right over and arrested Howard.
My father was quite put out over having to go to his younger brother’s bail, even though he found the incident hilarious. He was used to these antics.
Many years later a high school boyfriend invited me to Sunday dinner at his home in another small town nearby. He picked me up in his 1957 Ford. His father was in the yard when we drove up and sauntered over as we got out of the car. The boy introduced me. His dad stared into my face a long moment, then said, “I believe I had to arrest your father one time.”
I was stunned all the way to my toes, though I knew that couldn’t possibly be true. My father had always been straight as an arrow. But then I had it.
“No,” I announced, proudly raising my chin and squaring my shoulders, “that was my Uncle Howard!”
I’ve never forgotten that fun-loving rascal, though I was very young when he moved to Washington state. I recall Daddy telling about Howard’s visit to our local dentist because of a bad molar. In those days the only cure was to pull it. The dentist was a small man. Uncle Howard had claimed, “He stood on my chest to pull that tooth.”
We received letters and photos from my uncle and his wife over the years. His last days were spent on an island off the coast, where the neighbors were scared of this huge man who always went walking with a rifle over one shoulder.
Then one day Howard sent a note asking his two brothers to come to Seattle when he died. He wanted them to scatter his cremains in the Pacific Ocean – the milieu where he’d spent the best years of his life – in the Norwegian Merchant Marine, then the American branch.
When that time came, Daddy and Uncle Harald flew out there and rented a boat. A sudden gust of wind coated their faces with some of the ashes. One last prank from their impetuous baby brother.
Then he set off to sail the seas forever.