Friday, January 6, 2012

Family time, Vikings and a gnome named Norbert


Due to some unexpected but hardly surprising drama in the world of sports today, I'm running out of time to post an entry.1 But the family has inspired me to post something short and keep alive my streak of having blogged every single day in 2012 thus far.

At the top of the entry is a crayon drawing of a Viking ship that represents the combined artistic efforts of my mother-in-law, wife and daughter.

Why a Viking ship? Well, Sarah said she wanted to draw it so that two of her favorite figurines felt "at home."

The figurines, which she got from her grandmother, are Olaf the Viking and Norbert the Gnome.2 Sarah said he would like to collect more cool figurines like these, which led to the following exchange:
Sarah: I found more of them on the Internet.
Me: How did you know what to look for? Did you type "gnome figurine"?
Sarah: No, I typed "figurine gnome."
Me: Ahh. Pretty cool.
Sarah: Yeah, Google has everything. Google's been around for like 100 years.
And what did I contribute to all of this? Ephemera, of course. I just happened to come across this postcard of a Viking ship, which dovetails nicely with the rest of the evening's artwork...


The text on the postcard states:

Gogstadskipet på Bygdøy.
Fra 800 årene
6
Enerett Universitetets Oldsaksamling


which translates from the Norwegian to:

Gogstad Ship at Bygdøy
From 800 years
6
Exclusive collection of the University


Footnotes
1. Cough, cough, Penn State football, cough.
2. Two things: (a) Norbert's nickname is "Nor," Sarah says; (2) All this gnome talk reminds me of the 1977 Wil Huygen/Rien Poortvliet book "Gnomes," which I browsed through often at the W. B. Konkle Memorial Library in Montoursville in the early 1980s.

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