The Icelandic connection - 01.06.2010, Blaðsíða 46

44
ICELANDIC CONNECTION
Vol. 63 #1
Afi
Have you of my afi heard,
Thoughtful man, superb with word?
“Little man has gone away!”
Kvaedabok, page two-eight-seven;
He wrote those words,
Then went to Heaven.
Now my afi’s voice is still,
No more walks to Selkirk mill,
No more talks with him until
I’m on the Other Side.
He was a true Icelandic poet,
And people of the town did know it.
Kvaedabok does truly show it,
In verse did he abide.
I miss him still, I must confess,
Of rhyme and thought and depth 1 guess
The world has just a little less
From the day my afi died.
You’ve never of my afi heard,
That thoughtful man, superb with word?
My Afi was Kristjan Skarphedinsson Palsson.
I knew him although I was only three years and four months when he passed away. I have
fond memories of him to this day.
He was a self-made man, working his way up to, I think, second class engineering papers,
with only a formal grade two education. This while supporting a wife and five children.
He was a steam engineer at the Selkirk Rolling Mill until his death.Those were the days of
twelve hour shifts. Mom told me there were three engineers at "the mill," if one was sick the
other two worked twenty-fours hours. If two were sick, Afi would be there thirty-six hours
straight. He also had been in charge of a fish station up on Lake Winnipeg, before working at the
mill.