Long Story Short: A Collection of Stories by Hal Gunardson

So, what do your friends call you?

My nickname from the time I started kindergarten until I graduated from college was Skip. The best joke I ever heard about the nick name Skippy was told by a TV comedian. He said he met a girl named Jane and when she asked him his name, he said it was ‘Skippy’. She responded, “Oh really, I’ve got a dog named Skippy”. He replied “Oh yeah, I’ve got a pet too, it’s one of those bare assed monkeys……. named Jane.”

When I was very young my parents were friends with an older couple, immigrants from Germany, Karl and Edith Prekwitz. They had an adult son named Skip (aka Skippy). My Mom thought it was kind of cute and so she also gave me the nick name ‘Skippy’. Not many children of my generation were named Harold and combined with Gunardson is sort of cumbersome to pronounce and remember. So, I used the name Skippy which later in my teen years was truncated to Skip.

I kept that nickname throughout my college years until I got my first post college job as an engineer at Lummus. The first day on the job the personnel director was escorting me to my new office and he told me “You’re going to be sharing the office with a senior engineer, Hal Sherwood and by the way his name is also Harold.” He then asked me “So what do your friends call you, Hal?” My response was “Yeah, Hal”.

From that day forward Skippy was a thing of the past and it’s been Hal ever since. Hal Gunardson is a lot less cumbersome to pronounce than Harold Henry Gunardson. Ironically, the nickname Skip is derived from Skipper the term used to describe the captain of a ship.

Reading Early and Reading Often

Ages Three to Seven:

I can’t remember much from ages three to seven, except it was a very pleasant childhood. Mom, contrary to conventional wisdom, taught me to read well before I entered kindergarten and always provided me with an ample supply of books. Professional educators in those days discouraged the practice, but it was perhaps the most important lesson I learned in early childhood and has served me well for over seventy years. As a young boy, a few of my favorites I read and re-read many times over were:

Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard

Big Red a wonderful book about a young man and his dog, a champion Irish Setter. Although Danny doesn’t own him, it is his job to take care of Red. The book was written by Jim Kjelgaard in 1945, so the reader must picture a time when life was a little simpler. Ross is a trapper and they live without running water and electricity in a small shack in the woods.

Having been written in the 1940’s, this book does not look at the world that we see it today. Danny has grown up with a trapper for a father, and he is a trapper himself. Danny is often with a gun, especially when he takes Red out partridge hunting. They often find themselves in trouble either with a bear, a wolverine, or just the hardship of life living out in the wilderness.

The Cruise of the Raider Wolf by Roy Alexander

The Cruise of the Raider “Wolf” is not intended as another war book; it is the story of one of the strangest and greatest sea adventures of modern times.

The Wolf has become a legendary figure—a name connected with strange happenings at sea; but to most people it is only a name. The actual cruise was a shadowy, mysterious affair; and for many reasons the history of the cruise has remained equally vague. Briefly, this raider slipped out of Germany in 1916, and for fifteen months roamed the seas of the world depending for fuel and food on the captures she made.
Her very existence depended on these captures not becoming known. Ships encountering the Wolf therefore simply disappeared, their fate unknown. The raider roamed the Atlantic, Indian, Pacific oceans, even touched the Arctic and Antarctic seas. And she capped this unparalleled cruise by running the blockade back to Kiel.

Incidentally, the Wolf was the only enemy warship to enter Australian or New Zealand waters. She mined the coasts of both these countries.

After the raider’s return to Germany there was a world-wide blaze of publicity. The reception of the Wolf’s men in Berlin was one of the outstanding war events in the German capital. Then the Wolf disappeared from public notice as quickly as she became famous. One reason for this was that Captain Nerger, the raider’s commander, was not a publicity seeker and was not in particularly high favor in Germany. It was necessary to receive him with honor after he brought his ship back from such a cruise, but after that he was quietly moved to an obscure post and was heard of no more.

The author was a prisoner aboard the raider for the last nine months of the cruise.

Sea Wolf Jack London

The novel begins when Van Weyden is swept overboard into San Francisco Bay, and plucked from the sea by Larsen’s seal-hunting vessel, the Ghost. This ship’s evil captain, Wolf Larsen – The Sea-Wolf – is a murderous tyrant who uses his superhuman strength to torture and destroy, his brilliant mind to invent sick games, and his relentless will to control his mutinous crew. Pressed into service as a cabin boy by the ruthless captain, Van Weyden becomes an unwilling participant in a brutal shipboard drama. Larsen’s increasingly violent abuse of the crew fuels a mounting tension that ultimately boils into mutiny, shipwreck, and a desperate confrontation.

White Fang Jack London

In the desolate, frozen wilds of northwest Canada, White Fang, a part-dog, part-wolf cub soon finds himself the sole survivor of a litter of five. In his lonely world, he soon learned to follow the harsh law of the North—kill or be killed.

But nothing in his young life prepared him for the cruelty of the bully Beauty Smith, who buys White Fang from his Indian master and turns him into a vicious killer—a pit dog forced to fight for money.

Will White Fang ever know the kindness of a gentle master or will he die a fierce deadly killer?

A classic adventure novel detailing the savagery of life in the northern wilds. Its central character is a ferocious and magnificent creature, through whose experiences we feel the harsh rhythms and patterns of wilderness life among animals and men.

The Tattooed Man by Howard Pease

A tale of strange adventures, befalling Tod Moran, mess boy of the tramp steamer “Araby,” upon his first voyage from San Francisco to Genoa, via the Panama Canal.

This book is the first in a series about the same characters. It has mystery, not over-hyped, and authenticity. I like fantasy fiction all right, but there must still be a place for realistic non-urban, pre-computer reading material about adventure as well. Pease can be a bridge for tweens to Stevenson and Conrad.

I found it interesting the review pointed out the bridge to Stevenson and Conrad because that’s exactly what happened. I progressed from The Tattooed Man by Howard Pease to Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

One of the most memorable gifts I received when I was about six or seven years old was contained in a large heavy box (very large and heavy to me at the time) which sat under the Christmas tree for about a week before Christmas. On Christmas morning, I opened the box and it was full of books on a wide variety of subjects. I was enthralled. It kept me busy for many months and believe it or not I’ve referred to those books well into adulthood and many I still have.

Mom also was my biggest cheerleader for my early interest in art. I showed a talent for drawing at an early age and this ability was encouraged and enthusiastically promoted by my Mom. My Dad, not so much, as he basically could never draw a straight line. But Mom was my biggest fan and ardent supporter. Creative inspiration came from the old oil paintings stored in our attic that were painted by my Father’s Father, Grandpa Gunardson. His oil paints and brushes were there as well; the original tools that led to my first forays into oil painting. To my Dad’s credit, even though he didn’t directly encourage my artistic efforts very much, he built me an artist’s easel for my seventh birthday that I used all of my life and is now in the storage.

In addition to my Grandfather’s oil paints there were several other items that had a profound influence on me. They were the scale model boats he built from scratch and the model steam engines for the boats. As I recall from my Mom and Dad, before he retired and went “shore side” my Grandfather Gunardson, was a steamfitter aboard large cargo ships, freighters as they were called. He spent his spare time building the model boats and engines. And there was also a huge collection of books. Among them are the complete works of Mark Twain, Alexander Dumas and Joseph Conrad as well as Encyclopedias of Natural History and many assorted works of fiction by Jack London and other classics. I spent many, many hours poring over those old books time and again. Later in life I never hesitated to add to those early collections and never regretted the money I spent on books. I always and still do regard it as money well spent.

Now approaching seventy-two years old and living in the relatively cramped quarters of my sailboat “Free Radical” I often wonder what to do with all those books. To me they are and have always been more than just old books. To a large extent they influenced my childhood, my teenage years and are in many ways are a snapshot of who I eventually grew up to be. But In today’s electronic age they are mere artifacts. Just old books. That’s all. And they take up a lot of space, space unavailable in the confined quarters of a sailboat. There are only a very few regrets I’ve had in my decision to live aboard the boat, but one of them is I miss those books.

On a recent visit, Jill and I were having a conversation that somehow drifted to the subject of all those books in the “storage”. I lamented that I really didn’t know what to do with them. There is no room on the boat and they’re just taking up space in storage. Jill commented, “Yeah, there sure are a lot of them, and some pretty weird genre’s, like “In Patagonia”, “Climbing Ice” and “How to Survive a Grizzly Bear Attack”. She was right about that. I thought about donating them to an old age home or a hospital library but the readers in those venues probably wouldn’t have much interest in titles like “Climbing Ice” for instance or a how-to manual on avoiding grizzly bear attacks.

What else was in that treasure trove I inherited from my Grandfather? There were tools of all sorts many of which I still have (in storage and a few on board the boat) and there is the exceptionally large harmonica that I unfortunately never learned to play, although I tried and failed. There was the antique 22 rifle, that I eventually gave to my son Jim. But I’d say the items I inherited that had the most influence in no particular order of priority were the books, the oil paints, the model engines, the tools and the model boats (well on second thought probably the boats top the list).

My Father was also fond of boats, not models, but power boats which I spent most of my teenage years messing around in. Boats were always present, in the past, in the present and without doubt will continue to be in my future. I guess it was inevitable I would eventually become an old guy still just messing around with boats. When I was a small child friends and family would inevitably ask, “What do want to be when you grow up?” and I would always answer, I want to be a merchant seaman. Well I never became a merchant seaman, but I did end up living aboard a boat.

One of my favorite nautical authors, Bernard Moitessier, when asked why he left shore to go on a small sailboat to sea for months on end said, “You do not ask a tame seagull why it needs to disappear from time to time toward the open sea. It goes, that’s all”. Nuff said.

So long, good luck and have a nice day…

The Family Farm….in Clemons, New York

The Family Farm at Clemons New York

According to family lore my Grandfather Gunardson and Great Uncle Charley were very close and when both families immigrated to the United States, my Grandfather and Uncle Charley renovated an old farm in upstate NY where Charley and his wife Jenny settled and spent the remainder of their lives. The place was, and still is, “in the middle of nowhere”. It’s just outside a small hamlet called Clemons, NY located between Lake George and the Lake Champlain canal.

The farm was truly “off the grid”. Uncle Charley and my Grandfather dammed a stream on the land and fashioned their own home-made hydro generator to supply the house and farm with electrical power. They raised all sorts of livestock including cows and chickens, grew their own vegetables on the arable land and made their own maple syrup from the 160 acres of maple forest surrounding the farm. Family legend had it that Great Aunt Jenny was a terrific cook and eventually Uncle Charley, Aunt Jenny with their daughter Signe turned the farm into a tourist destination. People from NYC and other major northeastern cities would book a room for a week and spend their vacation as guests on the farm.

In their younger years, well before my time, my Mom and Dad would also spend their holidays at the farm. I can only remember visiting the farm once when I was very young, but it left a lasting impression on me. It still is a very fond memory. That memory and my Mom’s many stories about Uncle Charley and Aunt Jenny’s farm at Clemons to a large extent influenced my desire to ensure my children Jill and Jim had an opportunity to experience a rural lifestyle during their formative years.

There aren’t any photographs of the farm in the family archives but at one time I had an old postcard with a picture of the farm on it that Charley and Jenny had available for their guests. I used that postcard to do an oil painting of the farm.

Hal (Skip) and dad, Harold at Family Farm, Clemons, NY

Cars….Lots of Old Cars

Dad and His Cars

My Dad was a car enthusiast. As an auto mechanic, he not only worked on them but enjoyed everything about them and as I was growing up, I recall several great automobiles he owned. I never saw my Dad’s first car since he owned it long before my time. But family lore has it as a young man he bought it as a pile of parts and brought it home piece by piece in a basket then he and his father assembled the car together. The car was a Stutz Bearcat.

1912 Stutz Bearcat

The original Stutz Bearcat was manufactured in the first two decades of the twentieth century. It was an expensive sports car in its time and had an impressive racing history. I don’t know exactly what year my Dad’s car was, but I believe he was born in 1901 and so he was probably in his early twenties when he acquired the parts for the car. The car was second hand, so it was most likely around a 1912 vintage. Estimated value in 2016 is $800,000 to $1,200,000. Too bad he didn’t hang on to that one.

The first family car I remember was his 1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan. I was about six years old when he purchased this vehicle. He always bought second-hand cars, usually about two years old, and kept them for several years before selling them and getting something newer. This car in 1949 was $3,238 and is valued today at about $25,900.

1949 Lincoln Cosmopolitan

The Lincoln Cosmopolitan was the car he drove to Miami, Florida to visit my mom’s sisters when I was about 6 or 7 years old. He kept this one for quite a few years until 1957 when he purchased his first brand new car, a 1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.

Lincoln parked in driveway at Tyler Street

1957 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser

Cruiser skirts over the back wheels, air intake vents at the top of the windshield, reverse tilted back window and push button drive. Genuine Detroit Iron. Original price in 1957 was $4,103, today $38,800. Our second family road trip to Florida when I was twelve years old was in this Mercury Turnpike Cruiser.

1959 Cadillac Eldorado

He bought this Cadillac second hand in the early sixties. Now these are some serious tail fins! This car was a real classic Cadillac and long after my Dad sold it eventually became a highly prized collector car. It’s ironic, for all my dad knew about automobiles he had a knack for buying some incredible classics, like this one in particular, hanging on to them for a few years, and selling them at their rock bottom price just before they escalated in value. He had a great eye for classic automobiles, but his timing was a little off. Original price $7,401 now $65,700.

1964 Lincoln 4-Door

Another classic car, even in its time. This was one of the last great Lincolns. It was one of the few four door convertibles ever made and it had the unique so called “suicide doors” where the front door was hinged at the front of the car and the rear door was hinged at the rear. Originally $6,295.00. Today the value is $20,600.

1967 Oldsmobile Toronado – Front Wheel Drive

Originally created as a design painting by David North in 1962, the 1966 Oldsmobile Toronado was nicknamed the “Flame Red Car.” Although the design was never intended for production, it became the first American car in thirty years with front-wheel drive. It had a muscular styling that paired well with its 425 cubic inch V8 engine with 385 horsepower. Even though it weighed over four thousand pounds, it could reach top speeds of 120 mph.

My mom called this “the sports car” or the “little car”. This one was the end of the line. It was definitely a unique automobile. One of the first front wheel drive American cars. An article on the internet recently claimed this 67 Tornado was rated as one of America’s 50 best cars of all time. Cost in 1967 was $4,810, today $28,800.

It’s ironic, my Dad always obsessed over money and coveted the good fortune of others most often focused on expensive cars. He would see a new Cadillac Eldorado or Lincoln Continental on the road, and he would lament, “Look at that. I don’t get it! Where do these guys get the money for a car like that?” He also played the lottery religiously, every week and never won more than a few dollars. He would often complain that this week he ‘almost won’, he was only one number off from the winning ticket. He didn’t get it. One number off or nine numbers off, it didn’t matter. The irony was if he only would have kept any of those classic cars he had for a few more years he would have made a small fortune.

Mom’s Cars

This 1936 Ford coupe was the car my Mom had when I started kindergarten. It didn’t have a back seat, just an open space back there. She used to drive me to school in this car, not in the front seat but standing in the back, for safety. If she would have had an accident I wouldn’t have smashed into the windshield, just bounced around there in the back. When we moved from Walker Avenue to Tyler Street, she still had this vehicle that she nicknamed “Bessie”.

1955 Pontiac Two-Door Sedan

Her next vehicle was a second hand 1955 Pontiac two-door sedan. The paint on the car was badly deteriorated so the first thing my Dad did after buying it was take it to an outfit called “Earl Sheib” for a paint job. He had the car painted all white and this included part of the chrome trim and bumpers and even a little on the windows at the edges. What do you expect for a $19.95 paint job completed in one day? Earl Sheib was already infamous at that time and an “Earl Sheib job” became a euphemism for any half-assed piece of work. This was the car I learned to drive and used until I bought my own first car, a 1954 Lincoln convertible.

Modern Cars – The Pizzazz is gone

Something I’ve noticed in the last few years is all of the cars I see on the road are predominantly one of four colors; black, white, silver or grey. Every so often you will notice a red, green and occasionally a yellow but never a pink, turquoise or other outlandish color unless it’s an antique fifties or sixties vintage. It appears we have gone full circle since the days of Henry Ford and his model T.

“You can Have Any Color as Long as It’s Black,” Henry Ford

The post WWII economic boom spawned a fascination with the automobile and American companies arose to the challenge to produce affordable automobiles for the eager car buying public. Safety and economy weren’t priorities, but styling and affordability ruled the day.

I notice that black, white, grey and silver make up about ninety percent of the cars seen on the road today. Every once in a while, a red, dark green or blue stands out from the crowd. And very seldom do you see a bright yellow one but when you do it is usually a sports car and often a convertible sports car. But they are rare as hound’s teeth. By and large the majority are most often black, white and grey. Here’s how it looked in the fifties.

Cars of Cuba

Or this, the USA in the Fifties?

1957 Lincoln

2017 Lincoln

Shapes. The body shapes have changed drastically as well.

I think one guy somewhere in Japan designs all the new cars now. They all look almost the same, kind of frumpy. The trend today seems to be luxurious interiors and all sorts of electronic gizmos.

So long, good luck and have a nice day….

My Dad’s Vocation….and NJIT

My father, Harold, was an automobile mechanic, an expert in both gasoline and diesel engines. He worked for Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G), a utility company in New Jersey that produced and distributed electrical power throughout the state. His job involved maintenance of the fleet of company cars and trucks. He started as a diesel engine mechanic but later in his career was promoted to Transportation Supervisor responsible for procurement and maintenance of Public Service’s complete fleet of motor vehicles.

My Grandfather Gunardson also worked for the same company as a steamfitter on large steam boilers used in the generating stations to drive the electrical generators. My Dad joined PSE&G sometime before the Great Depression and was employed there throughout the depression and ultimately until his retirement.

My Uncle Carl also was employed for a time by PSE&G and in fact there was a newspaper article published upon my Dad’s retirement that stated the Gunardson family had more cumulative years of service with PSE&G than anyone else until that time.

Before retiring from PSE&G, Dad became a member of the United States Power Squadron. The United States Power Squadron (USPS) offers educational courses in the basic knowledge required to operate boats safely and legally. Courses are offered in celestial navigation, advanced weather, marine engine maintenance, marine electronics and electrical systems, as well as sail, and cruise planning.

My Dad taught the USPS courses in celestial navigation and diesel engine maintenance well into his retirement years.

Today, there are several private companies involved in both inshore and offshore towing for private boats in distress such as Tow Boat US and Sea Tow, however, back in those days these functions were carried out by the Coast Guard and Coast Guard Auxiliary in conjunction with the USPS. The US Coast Guard is still responsible for at sea rescue missions but no longer towing operations. I remember many times, often in the middle of the night, when Dad would take a phone call, grab his foul weather gear and his tool bag and head out to a rescue mission sometimes not returning home until the early morning hours.

When Dad passed away at ninety-one years old, a Coast Guard Auxiliary Chaplin approached me at his funeral and asked if he could offer a eulogy and bring a few of his guys in with their instruments to play a couple of funeral marches. Naturally I agreed and they proceeded to carry out their ceremonial. When they finished, they expressed their condolences and left. I don’t know if these guys actually knew my father or not, but it didn’t matter. They saw his obituary and called the group together. And since one of their guys, my Dad, had passed away they showed up and carried out their duty. Mom and I were honored and impressed.

Dad never boasted about his service with the USPS, but it was his way of volunteering for a worthwhile cause. His way of providing anonymous service. (**Note from Jill: This was one of my dad’s “rules” for life: provide anonymous service. This will show up a few more times as we work our way through the stories.)

Dad didn’t have a college degree but after graduating from high school he attended technical school at what was then called Newark Technical School. I don’t know if he graduated with a diploma or just took courses. However, it is purely coincidental that I eventually graduated from Newark College of Engineering (NCE) which evolved from the original Newark Technical School. The college further evolved since I graduated in 1970 to now become New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).

A friend recently saw my profile on LinkedIn and asked me, “Is there really such a college called NJIT?” Well there is, and it has a long and illustrious history but until recently it was only engineering and engineers generally being an introverted bunch tend to keep a low profile.

An old joke about engineers is, “How can you recognize an extroverted engineer? He is someone that looks at YOUR shoes when he talks to you!” So, although NJIT doesn’t enjoy the acclaim of the larger better-known engineering schools such as MIT and Cal Tech, it’s academically rated just as high as those more famous and prestigious universities.

The most famous graduate of Newark College of Engineering was Wally Schirra, the astronaut that flew in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions in the 1960’s. He earned his BS in Engineering from NCE in 1945.

So long, good luck and have a nice day….

Wally Shirrer – NASA Astronaut and Alumi of NJIT

The Family Story….or so it goes…

Family tree – Link to the Gunardson Family Tree in Ancestry.com

The Gunardson branch of the family has been and continues to be a relatively small and ever dwindling group. For several reasons, a lot of the family history is shrouded in mystery. My Grandfather, Charles Johan Gunardson (1879-1940), passed away before I was born and my Dad’s older brother, Uncle Carl (Carl W. Gunardson, 1903-1961), passed away when I was about sixteen years old.

On my Mom’s side, (Ella Garrabrandt 1910-2007), some her sisters lived nearby when I was very young but moved from New Jersey to Florida and to a large extent lost touch. She also had two brothers, George in Chicago, IL and Henry, who lived in Los Angeles, CA. She had a few cousins nearby in Metuchen, NJ, but we only visited them on rare occasions.

My grandmother’s maiden name was Krebs (Ella Krebs 1888-1941). I recall my mom often talking about Grandma Krebs when I was very young. In any case, most of the family on both sides were widely dispersed geographically and also not very communicative on the topic of our family history. At least they weren’t when I was within earshot. So, unfortunately, I can’t provide a lot of detail on either the Gunardson or Garrabrant side of our family and their relationships or misadventures.

The best I can offer is a description of the events and relationships I personally experienced over my seventy plus years. The format I’ve followed is essentially a collection of essays or “war stories” in roughly chronological order to the extent I remember them. This format, an autobiography as a collection of essays, was appropriated from the autobiography of Mark Twain the master of American prose. Another one of my favorite author’s, Edward Abbey once said, “if you’re going to plagiarize, always plagiarize from the great and the dead, never the living and mediocre”. So that’s what I’ve done, plagiarized from the great and the dead, Mark Twain.

I hope you find it interesting and perhaps a little entertaining. I’ll begin this “tome” with another Mark Twain quote, “Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.” So here it is; a description of my clothes and buttons for your edification and amusement.

From the Beginning…

Photographs of me as an infant are conspicuously absent from the family archives; there aren’t any cute baby pictures to fawn over. The reason is because I was adopted. The earliest photo of me is a professional portrait taken between the ages of two and three years old.

Figure 1 – Portrait of Hal Gunardson (about 1945-46)

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My parents adopted me when I was about two and a half years old on March 17, 1947 through an agency, Catholic Charities, in Newark, NJ. While I was growing up my mom never elaborated on the event except to simply say I was adopted, that’s all. However, after she passed, I discovered my adoption papers among her personal effects. They state I was born on June 19, 1944 in Newark, NJ to Helen Hendrickson (no father was listed) and my original christened name was Steven Hendrickson. Incidentally, the surname Hendrickson could be Dutch, German, English, Danish, Norwegian or Swedish; basically, anywhere a man named “Hendrik” would have a son. Could be Iceland too, maybe. Who knows? It doesn’t really matter.

According to the theory of “nurture versus nature” only the nurturing aspect is relevant in my case. The nature part is a mystery and will always remain so. It is one of the unknown unknowns. Parenthetically when I visit the doctor for periodic check-ups they always ask me “What’s your family medical history?” I tell them, “There is none, it’s zero. Just one less thing to worry about”.

So, the nurture phase began about the age of three when I was rechristened Harold Henry Gunardson; Harold after my adoptive Father, Harold Widegren Gunardson, and Henry after one of my uncle’s on my Mother’s side, Henry Garrabrant.

Uncle Henry

Uncle Henry (Henry Garrabrandt 1917-2000) was one of my mother’s favorite siblings. As adults, they lived a considerable distance apart but were always very close in spirit. My mom lived in New Jersey and my uncle Henry was initially stationed in Alaska with the military and after he retired from the Army he settled in California. I believe he attained the rank of Captain during his military career. Mom always spoke very highly of him with a kind word and a warm smile.

Figure 2 – Picture of my Uncle Henry and his wife, Evelyn

Henry

After he retired from the active duty in the service, he purchased a hardware store in Santa Monica, CA. It was one of those “old fashioned” hardware stores with the wood floors and the old-fashioned wooden bins for displaying merchandise. The store catered to both locals and celebrities alike and a photo in the family archive (**I’m trying to find it….Jill) shows my Uncle Henry in his store with one of his more famous customers, Ronald Reagan.

Henry was also a talented and accomplished singer and for many years sang with a choir at St. Paul’s in the LA area. Oh yeah, and he was also a member of mensa. Incidentally I purposely didn’t capitalize mensa. More about that later but in short, I’m not very fond of these kinds of organizations.

Dad’s Side – The Gunardson Family

My father, Harold W Gunardson (1905-1995) was a physically big guy. He stood six feet three when men of that era usually weren’t over six feet tall. He weighed in at about 240 pounds and because of his height, he actually appeared quite slim. In fact, among his peers his nickname was “Slim”. This is a picture of my mom, Ella, my dad, Harold and me as a young boy.

1945 - Harold H, Ella and Harold W. Gunardson

My Uncle Carl was bigger yet. He was about six feet five and probably close to 300 pounds. As a small boy, they both looked like giants to me. I was told my Grandfather was of even larger stature at about six feet six and over 300 pounds. He died in 1940, before I was born but photos of him confirmed his large physical size. This is a picture of my dad and Uncle Carl, when they were young. (**I am trying to find another picture of him as an adult.)

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My Grandfather’s name was Charles Johan Gunardson (1879-1940) and my Grandmother’s maiden name was Louise Widegren(1867-1954), to me always just Grandma. My father was Harold Widegren Gunardson (1905-1995) and my uncle was Carl Widegren Gunardson (1903-1961). Apparently, it was the custom in Scandinavian families to use the mother’s maiden name as the middle name for the male children.

I was told in his younger day’s Uncle Carl was a merchant seaman and he certainly looked every bit the part. He always walked with a swagger, had a crewcut all his life and sported numerous “old school” tattoos, typical sailor’s tattoos, ships, anchors, mermaids and such. Although I actually have very fond memories of him. He was regarded within the family as kind of rough character.

I remember a particular instance when he took me for a day trip to Bear Mountain in NY when I was about five years old. Every few miles he would pull off the road, get out of the car, open the trunk and fetch a warm bottle of coca cola. When he returned, he would pop open the bottle, hand it to me and tell me “take a couple of swigs”. After about two gulps he would take the coke bottle back, reach under the front seat for the bottle he stashed there and fill the coke bottle to the top with rum. This was repeated every few miles all the way to Bear Mountain and home again. I never actually got to finish a whole bottle of coke. This is a picture of Bear Mountain in the fall.

Bear-Mountain-State-Park.1-1200x850

Bear Mountain is not far from the west bank of the Hudson River and on the way home Uncle Carl made a detour to check out the river. There was a tugboat at the dock and my uncle got out of the car and struck up a conversation with the captain. The next thing you know we were invited aboard, and I got a chance to go up on the bridge, sit at the helm and peer out at the river from that lofty vantage point. That made a huge impression on me and was the high point of that road trip.

This is a picture of a Tug Boat at Bear Mountain.

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Years later in my fifties while I was sailing in the Carolinas I befriended a delivery Captain named Woody Wilkerson who had previously been a tugboat captain. One day, I asked him what qualifications you needed to be a tugboat captain. He answered, “First, you got to been in jail.” I think that summed it up pretty well.

When my Mom was in her 90’s she was talking about family history on my father’s side and she exclaimed, “You’re Uncle Carl, nobody ever tamed him.” She needn’t have said any more. That described it pretty much as I remember him.

Figure 3- Article in Paper – Carl Gunardson

Stray Shots (1)

I also recall my father and Uncle Carl didn’t seem to get along too well. They were generally amiable when they were together but that wasn’t very often. According to Mom, the reason Dad wasn’t fond of his older brother was in their younger days, when my Dad owned his gas station and they were in business together Uncle Carl would frequently fail to show up and put in his hours. When he did show up it was often with one of his current “girlfriends” (aka Honky-Tonk Specials). They would hang around for a while, then disappear. Carl wouldn’t be seen again for several days or sometimes weeks. My Dad never talked too much about it. Except indirectly, by telling me several times during my teenage years, “Don’t ever get into a business partnership, a partnership is the worst ship afloat.”

Carl was married to Bertha Nilsson (1897-1986), a Danish immigrant, who spoke with a heavy Scandinavian accent. She was a member of the local Scandinavian club and associated mostly with Swedes and Danes, who always spoke their native language at their meet ups. As a result, Aunt Bertha never really learned to speak English very well and as she got older, her English language skills diminished. Although her voice always sounded very pleasant, I had a hard time understanding her with her “sing-song” Scandinavian accent.

Uncle Carl and Aunt Bertha had one child, a daughter Norma Gunardson (1922-1992). She married a man, James Munro from Newark, NJ. There is some mystery to this story and my mother really did not want to talk too much about it.

Norma married James Munro in Santa Ana, California on October 31, 1942. Uncle Jim had just enlisted in the 1074^th Army Air Force, Base Unit in June 1942, achieving the rank of Corporal in Squadron “A”. He was eventually honorably discharged in December 1945 and subsequently passed away in October 1947. His wife, Norma was the one who applied for the military marker for his burial site in Union, NJ. She signed the application as Norma Munro and it is dated November 1947.

I don’t remember Jim and I was told he died before I was adopted. The story was he was in the Army and killed in action in the Second World War. This really didn’t add up since World War II officially ended with the surrender of Japan in August 1945 and I was adopted in 1947. And there is also the photo in the family archives of Jim with a winter coat on holding me in his arms outside the Walker Avenue house and my Mom would frequently tell me while I was growing up how Jim loved me very much. I think the WW II story about Jim was one of my Mom’s “white lies” as she called them when for whatever reason the real truth was to too embarrassing or otherwise to be avoided.

Figure 4 – Harold W. Gunardson, Grandma Gunardson, Carl Gunardson, Baby Hal, Jim Munro

OLD Harold Bertha Carl Skip and Jim Munro

Mom’s Side – The Garrabrant Family

On my mother’s side, my mom was the oldest of seven children and she told me her father, Henry (Gary) Garrabrandt (1886-1929) died at a young age; in his late thirties as I recall (aged 43). She had two brothers, Henry (Gary) and George and four sisters (**Note from Jill: Marie, Margaret, Lyda and Mildred).

One of the oldest sisters, Marie, died in 1930, well before I was born. The youngest sister, Lyda (1913-1947), died in her thirties from Leukemia. The second oldest, Marguerite, moved to Florida when I was very young and I never really knew them or their children.

I understand that one of those sisters (Marguerite) was married to a very wealthy gentleman who was an heir to the A&P supermarket fortune and they lived on a large estate somewhere in Florida. I believe it was in Palm Beach. When I was about six years old we took a road trip to Florida and visited them for a day or two. That was the last time I ever saw or heard from them.

Her other sister was my Aunt Millie (Mildred), who I called Aunt Minnow since at the age of three. I was unable to properly pronounce Millie and when I tried it somehow emerged as Minnow. My mom and Millie were very close. Aunt Millie loved the nickname Minnow and insisted I continue to call her by that nickname which I did the rest of her life until she passed away in her 80’s in Miami, Florida, where she and her husband Bill had retired.

Her married name was Shuster and she had two children, Duke and Jane. Her husband Bill Shuster was an amateur musician and had a recording studio in his home in New Jersey. He named his son Duke, after Duke Ellington, the famous jazz musician of the era, and encouraged him to become a professional musician.

Duke played the trumpet and was quite good. Back in that era there was a popular TV show called “Ted Mack’s, Original Amateur Hour”; the equivalent of American Idol of its time. Duke won it two or three times in a row. He subsequently went on to become a professional trumpet player and although successful never achieved super star status. He was a couple of years older than I and naturally I looked up to him like a big brother. As a result, I also took up the trumpet in grammar school but really didn’t have any natural talent and eventually gave it up a few years later.

Duke started his musical career in Florida at the big resort hotels in Miami Beach. (**Note from Jill – our family took a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando in 1978. We paid a visit to one of their fancy restaurants where Duke was playing as part of the Big Band entertainment. We spent a few minutes to say hello – I remember it like it was yesterday).

Duke eventually moved to Las Vegas and played with some of the big-name bands there in the 1950’s and 1960’s. He was married, or whatever, to a Las Vegas showgirl, and they had a daughter, Audrey. At a very early age Audrey was sent back to Florida to live with my Aunt “Minnow” who raised her to adulthood. Amazing, that as an adult, Audrey turned out to be a real homebody and “solid citizen” unlike her father Duke and her mother Jane who were also raised by my aunt “Minnow”. In her later years, my Mom and Audrey always kept in touch and eventually became very close.

I think Duke passed away in his early fifties in Philadelphia, PA where he was taking music lessons from a famous music teacher there. The rumor was he died from a combination of drug addiction and AIDS.

Jane, Duke’s older sister was regarded by my Mom as a ne’er-do-well and I never got to know her very well. She was married (or whatever) at a fairly young age to a guy named Ace. I think Ace was a biker dude. Jane and Ace subsequently took off for parts unknown and was basically never heard from again.

There was an amusement park not far from our house on Walker Avenue in Irvington, New Jersey called Olympic Park. It featured a roller coaster, a Ferris wheel, other amusement park rides; as well as the usual concession stands and an Olympic size swimming pool with a separate smaller pool for younger children. Aunt Minnow would frequently take me there for day trips sometimes with my Mom and sometimes it was just Aunt Minnow and me.

They are some of my fondest childhood memories. It included my first ride on a roller coaster, my first ride on a Ferris wheel and numerous other firsts including my first opportunity to fire a rifle. Back in those days, amusement parks featured shooting range concession stands. There were various pop up targets and about five or six 22 caliber rifles chained to the counter. For five cents or so you could shoot at the pop-up targets and score points for prizes. Can you imagine such a thing today? Don’t even think about it. But back then it was regarded as harmless amusement for a six-year-old.

The archival photos of my early childhood were taken at the house on Walker Avenue in Union, New Jersey where I was raised until my pre-teens. Photos in my later teen years are at the Tyler Street house, also in the small suburban town of Union, New Jersey. Tyler Street was where I lived until I was in my early twenties and married.

Figure 5 – Walker Street House

OLD Walker Ave Union

Prologue – 2017

Although I’m not planning on checking out anytime soon, following quadruple bypass surgery I’ve begun to seriously contemplate my own mortality. And so, before the final chapter is closed I decided to write this autobiography particularly for my children, Jill and Jim. But expressly for Jill since over the past several years she’s developed a keen interest in genealogy and assembled a collection of old photographs and assorted documents that trace our Family history. I hope this modest contribution will complement her efforts and perhaps fill some voids. I also hope it will answer some questions for Jim since regrettably our father son relationship was disrupted when he was in his teens and we were unfortunately separated by time and distance.

While recovering from open heart surgery I was searching the internet for information regarding cardiovascular disease and ran across an article about post perfusion syndrome, more commonly known as the “pump head syndrome”. I never heard of it before and thought; what the hell is the Pump Head? Pump head is the loss of cognitive ability following open heart surgery caused by a reduction of oxygen to the brain while blood is circulated by a mechanical pump. I began to wonder if I actually have the pump head syndrome [JJ1] [JJ2] but don’t know it because I have the Pump Head syndrome! I have to admit, occasionally I do have a “senior moment” and experience a temporary memory lapse when struggling to remember certain names and events. Could it be the dreaded pump head? Or do I just have a lot more stuff to remember now than when I was younger?

Postperfusion Syndrome: What You Should Know If You’re Living With “Pump Head”

As a famous sage once said, there are three categories of information regarding people, places and events. First are “the known knowns”. These are things we know that we know. Then there are the “known unknowns”. That is to say, these are things that we know we don’t know. Then there are the “unknown unknowns”. These are things we don’t know we don’t know. So, a primary motive for writing this collection of essays was an attempt to highlight the “known knowns” and some or most of the “known unknowns” thus forcing myself to undergo a kind of self-test to see how much I can actually remember of the “known knowns” and “known unknowns”. The “unknown unknowns” will remain however…. Well…… unknown. And since writing is always an exercise in clear thinking it also afforded an opportunity to engage in some mental gymnastics as a precaution to stave off the dreaded pump head as long as possible. You can decide if I’ve been successful or not. Oh, and by the way, if you find some things in this collection of essays you think are really stupid or plain outright wrong just blame it on the pump head syndrome. I’m now at the age where I can safely say I’ve seen it all, I’ve heard it all and done it all. I just can’t remember it all. End of disclaimer. Now, down to business.

[JJ1]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pumphead-heart-lung-machine/

[JJ2]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/disease-may-cause-pumphead/

Hal Gunardson – In His Own Words

Who is Harold Henry Gunardson?

At the age of seventy two after more than a decade in retirement, I can look back in retrospect over the past seven decades and say it’s been a pretty good run. The poet laureate of Key West, Jimmy Buffett, summed it up pretty well; “Some of its magic and some of its tragic, but I had a good life all the way”. When I break it all down there were four distinct episodes: the first, was childhood through high school, the second, was college, marriage, children and starting a career, the third was, raising the family and building a career, and the fourth final and current chapter, semi-retirement.

NOTE: I love this profile picture of my dad. It literally made me crack up laughing out loud (LOL) when I first saw it. When he was visiting, I asked him about this picture. He told me that it was a long story, but will try to make it short. You see, he just purchased a new cell phone. One morning he was on his sailboat, s/v Free Radical, and he just came up on deck and saw a Pelican on a dock post in the next boat slip. My dad said he was just “hanging out” and he thought he’d take a picture with his new cell phone. The problem was he had no idea how to use the camera. The camera lens was flipped toward him instead of away from him towards the bird. He took the picture – which is what you see here. Hilarious… and of course, he thought it was so funny that he made it his Facebook profile picture. He said friends of his said he looked like Merle Haggard in this picture.

Seoul, Korea: May 18-19, 1991

May 19, 1991 … Tens of thousands of protesters poured into streets in cities across South Korea again today

Mr. K.S. Kim, VP KIG, sat in on part of the presentation. During the break, we were introduced and Mr. Kim invited me to go to lunch with CK Kim and himself. Lunchtime arrived and we met in K.S. Kim’s office. He asked, “What you like to eat, met, law fish, what?” “You like law fish? I take you to good law fish restaurant, okay?” So, we walked over to the “law” fish restaurant. Mr. Kim ordered. The works, every kind of raw fish known to man. Tuna, Flounder, Sea Cucumbers, Prawns, and many other varieties I couldn’t even hope to identify. Some were like pieces of vulcanized rubber, others were tender and tasty. I ate them all. In for a penny, in for a pound.

One thing I’d have to admit, in Asia no matter how weird or wonderful the food is, they take a lot of care in preparation and presentation. The food is always very attractively arranged and presented and served with meticulous attention to detail. Unlike the USA, the waitress arranges the dishes with great care and often dissects it and arranges the pieces on the customer’s plate. After the sashimi, we had boiled rice and cooked fish. The parts around the head were particularly tender and good. We had two types, the head of one I couldn’t identify and Tuna, some steamed and some cooked in a very spicy sauce. We were also served another cooked fish about 6 inches long and about ½’ at the body. The correct method of eating this was to grab it by its tail, bite about half of it off, chewing it vigorously before swallowing it. You ate the head, bones, internals, everything! Then you ate the other half, tail and all. It wasn’t bad. The bones kind of dissolved as you chewed it. I actually got quite full on this feast. I was glad to have been invited since this is not the kind of meal you would order on your own. Even if you did you wouldn’t know how to eat it. It required instruction. Mr. Kim remarked I was a good student. I think he was surprised I ate everything and appeared to enjoy it. Boy, I sure love that “law” fish.

After lunch, Y. R. Kim drove me back to my hotel. K.S. asked him to spend the afternoon entertaining me, but I declined. I know Y. K. wanted to get home to his wife and kids and I sensed he was concerned about getting caught in the impending student riots. A student had been killed in the riots a week ago, beaten by the police with iron pipes, and the students planned to carry his body to the cemetery today followed by a funeral ceremony and massive demonstration at City Hall. City Hall was about one block from my hotel. CR wasn’t anxious to get involved so I insisted I had a lot to do and encouraged him to go home before the action started. He did.

I then went up to my room. I was on the 10th floor looking toward the front of the hotel overlooking the pool. Opening the drapes revealed an unusual view. Below me, the pool was crowded with swimmers and sunbathers. Beyond the pool, the intersection in front of the hotel was filled with Korean soldiers decked out in full riot gear. The soldiers were clustered in groups of about twenty stationed at every corner. They wore dark green fatigues, navy blue helmets with flip-up wire mesh masks, and padded neck protectors that gave them a Darth Vader appearance. They carried grey body shields and Billy clubs. No rifles were visible although some carried a bazooka-like firearm that I assume was a tear gas cannon. They mustered on the corners and lined up going through some kind of maneuver that would bring them in a row across the sidewalk and out into the street. They then stood there at attention for 20 to 30 minutes then repeating the march and lining up again.

All of a sudden, loud shouts and a cadence, chanted through a bullhorn, preceded about 100 troops, accompanied by a riot vehicle marching down the main street toward the city hall. They marched past the hotel and down the street out of sight. Several minutes later, I heard loud shouts, the ruble of gunfire which sounded like cannons going off followed by separate gunfire. A large cloud of grey smoke rose from between the buildings about a city block away. Things then quieted down for a bit. About 10 minutes later the ruble of cannons and shouting broke out again and the episode was repeated. All this time the sunbathers at the pool seemed more or less oblivious to what was going on beyond the canvas partition that separated them from the street. During the height of the noise, one or two would get up and peer through the partition to see what was going on then return to their lounge chair to rub more sun tan lotion on There were some civilians on the street as well walking from place to place. They also did not seem to be agitated by the events taking place out there. There was no panic or frenzy on either part of the public or the military.

After the large lunch and a couple of beers, I was feeling a bit tired and my stomach Was starting to act up again, so I decided to lay down and rest for a little while. I slept for about two hours and when I woke up at about 6:30 pm, my nose was running, and my eyes were burning. I thought I was falling sick again but as I rose and cleared my head, I smelled the unmistakable odor of tear gas. I inadvertently left my window open when I fell asleep. I didn’t think that the tear gas released at street level would reach the 10^th floor but an updraft between the buildings must have driven a cloud of it up to this level and it wafted through my window and into my room. I had to leave the room.

I went down to the lobby and decided to take a short walk out on the street, I turned right, away from the City Hall, as I left the hotel. At each corner and each intersection, groups of twenty or so soldiers mustered waiting for orders. They didn’t look very alert or enthusiastic about their present duty. Civilians walked about seemingly unfazed by the current events. However, many walked with handkerchiefs held to their nose and mouth and some even had surgical masks on. In front of the hotel, employees were washing down the driveways and sidewalks with hoses, presumably to wash away residual tear gas. The Hotel Lotte, about a block away, had a particularly high concentration in their entrance area. They had two hoses going and the employees were spraying the water up over the tops of some trees to knock down the cloud. Their system wasn’t really working too well, and a good whiff turned me around and sent me off in the opposite direction. After wandering about for 3 or 4 city blocks, I returned to my hotel room. The tear gas had dissipated, and the room was now habitable.

The soldiers stayed in the street and the demonstrations continued till way past dark. I went to bed at 11:00 pm and the noise had abated but the soldiers remained at their posts. Early Sunday morning the streets were deserted, and the soldiers were gone. You wouldn’t have thought anything unusual happened here yesterday,

I’m really not sorry to be leaving Korea. I guess 5 weeks on the road is enough for a while and even a road warrior like me gets a little homesick after this many weeks away. Of course, the Korean people don’t really go out of their way to make you feel welcome. The Kim’s, CK, and KS, notwithstanding, most of the Koreans I ran into had an attitude. Not as bad as the Japanese, but almost. It started with the jerk that picked me up at the airport when I arrived from Taipei, He grabbed my bag, virtually ran to his car, gunned the engine, slammed on the brakes, and generally acted the part of a complete asshole for the entire one hour trip from the airport to the hotel. Not a single word out of him for the entire trip, not even a grunt. Well, he showed me something. He showed me that even though he was just a driver, he didn’t have to be friendly to stinking foreigners. Actually, the only thing he did show me was that he was an ‘asshole’. But the other Koreans, less extreme than this guy, all seemed to have a chip on their shoulders or take themselves far too seriously. What a contrast between the Indonesians and the Thais. I wonder how the Koreans and the Japanese were before they got rich before their country was developed. I wonder if they were more humble. Probably not. They probably had a shit attitude then too. Even worse, maybe. No big deal, just a bunch of little subtle things add up to piss you off.

The old woman behind me in the taxi queue who kept pushing me with her bag and then cut out in front of us when we got to the front, the taxi driver who wouldn’t take us as passengers because he felt like going home instead. The couple in the hotel elevator pressed the “close door” button before I could get there so they could ride up faster or whatever.

The Indonesian people, at least the Javanese, impressed me as a very soft-spoken, gentle, polite group of people. Obviously, there are exceptions everywhere but there just seemed to be less rudeness here than in Korea or Japan or Hong Kong. The Indonesians are predominantly Muslim, so I was a bit apprehensive about visiting so soon after the Persian Gulf War. But theirs is not a fundamentalist Islamic. Their version of Islam is tempered with a healthy dose of Hinduism, Buddhism, and even a little Christianity, which is not surprising in view of their temperament. It seems they would much rather negotiate than argue. Hopefully, they won’t become a pain in the ass as their country develops.

The Hong Kong Chinese impressed me as being more just plain stupid than arrogant. They have a peculiar habit of attempting to get on a full elevator before it is vacated. Given the crowded conditions on Hong Kong Island, the elevator is always full so it’s an interesting spectacle to see twenty people trying to get off at the same time. Before the door closes.

Dave Ashworth told me he was on an elevator one day and said somebody walking towards it to get on. He held the “open door” button for the guy. The guy behind Dave got pissed off and started pushing the “close door” button and became annoyed at Dave for holding the doors open. Dave told me the protocol is you can butt, push, shove, or elbow but raising your hand is taboo.

Thailand the people make the difference. The place is dirty, crowded, polluted, and very tolerant and gracious. Even the bar girls are sweet and exhibit a childlike enthusiasm for having fun.

…goodbye, good luck, and have a nice day!

Reference:

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Who am I? And why should you care?

Jill Marie Gunardson-Johnston — Medford, NJ

Many of you might have known that my dad, Hal Gunardson, was quite a story teller. But you might not have known that prior to his passing last November, he wrote a collection of stories about his life experiences. A few years ago while he was recovering from a medical issue, I urged him to write these wild and terrific stories down. I had no idea that he did until one of his closest friend, Lonnie Smith, had told me after he died. It is collection of over 400+ pages.

It has almost been a year since he passed away and it’s about time that I start this project – it has just has been so hard. I decided to start a blog – Long Story Short – to post these stories as I read and edit them. I’ve never done anything like this before, so please bear with me.

If you are interested, please follow this page and share with others who might have known him. I will add to it whenever I can and plan to do so as we head into the last part of the year.

The first blog was actually never part of his initial story – but I found it hand written in one of the dozens of notebooks he kept. Reading his unique style of handwriting brought back lots of memories and quite a few tears. I honestly, hope you enjoy it – the stories are not always PC, but neither was he. So, there you go!

Enjoy….

…goodbye, good luck, and have a nice day!