Progress is risky. You can't steal second, and keep your foot on first.
It's leap day. The day to jump it, run it, do it, say it, try it, ask it, otherwise, it's another four years for the chance.
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February 2008
February 29, 2008
February 25, 2008
February 23, 2008
The Memory of Freedom's Views
About seven years ago, it was rainy, cold, windy and the North Atlantic sea, above the arctic circle, was stretching out ahead of me. On that trip, sea kayaking in Norway, I was a weak link, not a strong paddler, the other kayaks were ahead of me and my arms were giving out. Off to my right, up high on the barren yet defiant coast was an empty, abandoned old German bunker embedded into granite. Many years before a heavily armed German would have aimed and shot at me if he knew I was an Ally.
Northern Norway is unforgiving with its violent weather, its rocky coast, its tormentous storms. Back in World War II it was an extremely difficult place to live, in fact in many ways it still is. The area I was paddling in didn't have roads until the 1950's.
It's not likely many know today why the Germans needed to defend that sparsely populated rugged coast, why Hitler said about Norway in 1942, "Unqualified security in the Northern area is more important than a new spring offensive against the Soviet Union."
Before the U.S. was in the war, Hitler needed Norway's extremely far north warm water port to get access to Swedish iron ore. He went and got it. Chamberlain didn't have the guts to respond. He lost the port to Hitler, who spattered his crew of violent men down the coast. Killed Norwegians. Tortured them. Starved them. Forced them into labor.
Last summer I was with one of those Norwegians. This older man was part of the resistance movement in Norway, smuggled radios, information, but was caught and spent horrible months in Grini prison camp, tortured brutally, bled from his ears. Part of his story is here. Later in life, he worked with the underground resistance movement in the former Soviet Union. A dear Russian friend of his, another freedom fighter, was murdered brutally, stabbed, killed in a Soviet forest.
Last summer, I was visiting this Norwegian. While out driving, he stopped his car on a long and winding road, at a beautiful overlook in the Norwegian fiords where the magnitude of the scenery feels as though prayers and strength cascade off the steep mountains, like waterfalls. The Norwegian scenery along the many miles of coast is unbelievably breathtaking - the photo does not capture the breadth nor depth of the coast's magnificence.
After looking out over the view, when I got back in the car, I felt inspired, relaxed. The man was quiet, as he drove further down the winding, very narrow road, with cliffs falling deep below just outside my car window. Then he told me a story. "Back in the war, a bus driver was forced at gun point to transport German troops along this road to another village up ahead. He'd have been killed if he refused. When he got to that turn we were just at, he accelerated and drove full speed off the cliff, killing every single one of those Germans."
My pictures taken from that beautiful spot don't tell that story. But I hope those of us who enjoy the beautiful views of freedom, never forget the sacrifice of those who gave it to us.
